HeartlandExpat is incredibly inconsistent and keeps jumping languages :/ (Log)

[heartlandexpat]

Heya! I'm new to this forum, but not to learning languages!
-I'm native US English and study in the UK
-but I also speak pretty good French I lived in Brussels for 6 months and though my work environment was primarily english, I did have to use my French professionally including some translation work so was really good for me
-My spanish is iffy, I can understand really well (actually I just finished Mexico Deseña on netflix and had 0 problems with comprehension except maybe some specific textiles, etc), and can write okay (sometimes), but I can't speak for the life of me, or at least I feel like I can't. I've been going to Duolingo meetups on Sundays and the other learners seem pretty impressed with me, but the native speakers correct me a lot so take that as you will.
-But right now the focus is on lietuviška kalba as I'm moving to Vilnius for an internship in late June! I've been learning for a few weeks (my memrise says my streaks at 20 days so I guess probably a little more than that long?) and I've already seen a good amount of improvement! I'm obviously still a beginner, but I'm able to watch Smaulsutė Dora (Dora the Explorer where she speaks LT and teaches EN) and understand more than half of everything, so I think that's not bad for the short amount of time I've been studying! Unfortunately I ran out of good episodes (ie dubbed in a way that prevents me from hearing the original EN) which I'm actually really peeved with because it was my best resource!

Aaaaanyways... right now my focus is very much on Lithuanian and I'm working a few hours a day using a variety of resources. To keep up my others, I'm just reading in FR (a weird lesbian book from the 70s that's not at all what I expected...) and attending the ES meetups- and of course I'm watching shows in these languages and reading blogs, etc but these are things just integrated into my life more than things I'm doing actively if that makes sense.

My goal is to be able to have conversations with natives by the time I move there- even if my grammar is atrocious and the topics are shallow. I think this is pretty achievable tbh with the amount of work I'm putting in now, and I'm already trying to incorporate speaking into my studies. I know this has been long, but yeah. Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, etc as I'm happy to meet other language learners and to improve what I'm doing

Ačiū labai, ate!

PS if ya wanna hook up these are my accounts:
Lyricstraining - ershreve
Habitica - heartlandexpat
Duolingo - heydarling
Clozemaster - heartlandexpat
Memrise - heartlandexpat
Quizlet - ferntailwp
...I'm sure there's others?

EDIT WITH LATEST SITCH:
Right, so I'm (maybe?) back! Over the past year I haven't been great with my language learning, I've been back at university and I enrolled in a Business French class (which I think I got an A in, still waiting to hear back on my final scores) but outside of class didn't really do too much. I've been just casually working on French, Spanish, and a weensy bit of Dutch since I thought I might move to Belgium next. Well, now that I'm actively working on selecting grad schools I've been accepted to my top choice, which actually happens to be in Berlin. While I know you don't have to speak German in Berlin, y'all know I want to. This time it should go a lot easier than Lithuanian for a number or reasons including the fact that there's simply more resources, it's more accessible to me as an English speaker, I have German-speaking friends, I have a whole year, and I can see use for it past the time I'll be living there more than I could Lithuanian. In any case, we'll see. I'm excited to get stuck-in studying in any case!

[Lawyer&Mom]

I love Dora for languages! Kids TV is the best.

[reineke]

Pffft! Kipper is so much better!

[heartlandexpat]

Wow, I didn't expect people to actually read this- might've tried to be a bit more coherent

Yes I love children's shows! I like that you're learning the real language rather than a "learner's" version, but that it's still nice and simple. I'll probably have to try and go seek out more of the dub I was originally watching, or maybe I'll try Kipper if ya like it so much? I hadn't heard of it before!

[heartlandexpat]

After snooping around on the forums for a bit, I've decided to set myself some goals. Might more formally join some challenges in the future, but for now this is what I'm doing. Now, I'm not someone who normally works with structured learning or goals or anything like that, so we'll see how this goes.

Reading- I want to read at least a book a month (which is a lot for me since I always forget to read, even though I enjoy it!) and every other month it'll be in FR and ES (for now). I'll keep track of them here.

-For now, as I said, I'm working on the weird french book I picked up at a second-hand shop without really reading through. Whether I'll read the whole thing or not is yet to be seen as let's just say it's a bit more... graphic... than the kind of reading I really intended, but since it's from the 70s I find the language super interesting as the vocab is really different from what would be said today

Watching- I want to watch something in FR/ES once a week alternating. I have to watch something as I fall asleep anyways, and I think I've seen enough Gilmore Girls for a lifetime Unfortunately, the show doesn't even have foreign subtitles let alone dubs (at least the OG series on netflix). Strangely I find I typically do this for spanish, not sure why I don't watch as much in french. Maybe it has to do with availability? Annnyways:

-México Diseño - ES - finished series 4/5/18

*I think it's important to note that I watch something in LT quite frequently before bed as well, but I'm not gonna track that for now.

[Kraut]

Lithuanian state TV is online, the audio is excellent

https://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/tiesiogiai/lrt-televizija

"Auksinis protas" is a quiz show. You can see the questions asked in written form.

"Lietuvos tūkstantmečio vaikai" is a school-children's' quiz

Good luck on learning Lithuanian, I have given up.

[heartlandexpat]

Ooooh, thanks! I do love a quiz show I'd used LRT for the radio before, but they don't have backlogged shows, do they? I gave up since I didn't know what any of the shows were about and I could just poke around and find out- so thanks for pointing those out! Auksinis Protas is actually on now so I'm having a watch

Thanks, it's haaaaard! I don't blame you for giving up, especially since there isn't a great variety of resources tbh The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I'll be living there in a month so I have a bit of a deadline which will hopefully have a rewarding outcome! Otherwise I'd go back to the much German with its abundant resources haha

Aaanyways, I think that brings me to my resources. I wanted to share these today, idk why, but I do! I have sort of a weird system of learning which is less structured than I think is typical, but I'll go through it later for now here's what I'm using for Lithuanian. I have other resources I use for my other languages, but the lack of availability has made me be a bit more creative with LT.

Vocab Resources: Memrise, Surface Languages, Quizlet (why does everyone like Anki so much??), just added 50 languages, but haven't tried it yet - also use Linguee to check translations

Grammar: Quizlet (when I took french in school we had a teacher that made us do "Verb-a-thons" where we had to know how to conjugate verbs in every single tense for one subject, but he didn't tell us the subject until the time of the test so you had to study them all. I think it helped really internalise them, so now I use Quizlet for grammar too. I'm even working on declens-a-thons for nouns!), Debeselis.net, cooljugator, wiktionary, Youtube (see below)

The 4 Actual Language Skills: Real Lithuanian Podcast, Haris Poteris audiobook + ebook (waayyyyy over my head, I understand less than 10%, but hopefully as I keep schlepping through it'll get easier with time), Bliu Bliu, Clozemaster, random lists of speaking topics, Youtube (Talk like Antanas, Learn Lithuanian, Video Mokykla, Lithuania for You), LRT (thanks again for the tip, Kraut ) + random kids TV shows, disney films, etc I can get my hands on

"Textbook" type things (ie hits multiple topics including both vocab and grammar, some are textbooks, one's a podcast): Oneness City, Colloquial Lithuanian, Lithuanian Out Loud, Beginner's Lithuanian

If there's others out there learning LT/even other Baltic languages I'd love to get more active in the boards and get a study group together, etc, but I've explored and ran a few sources so I haven't really found anything tbh Hmu if you know of something I don't?

[heartlandexpat]

I've been trying to watch my yoga in LT since I can follow along with the video by sight and passively hear the speaking, and I've understood small things so far like "kita/šita" when switching sides "šiek tiek" ie a little and "dabar"/now, but today my memrise got to body parts so I was just able to understand the title of the video: "Norisi ranku raumenuku?" meaning "Want arm muscles?" which seems simple, but I'm super pleased!!

In addition, I've been continuing with FI3M and the 30 Day Speaking Challenge. I really struggle with the later, but I make do with what I've got. Here's my channel if you want, but no judging as remember I've only been learning for a few weeks (and also the video makes me look groadier than I do in real life I swear!) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGrsCa ... subscriber

Otherwise I've kept on doing my normal thing, which is essentially just using random.com to determine which skill to work on (between vocab/grammar/listening/reading/production- since I'm a beginner I have speaking and writing combined for now/and textbooks- as defined in my last post. Then within that I randomise which tool to use. Sometimes I'll just do what sounds good at the moment though, like I've been frustrated with my lack of grammar lately so I've been giving that a focus for the past couple of days.

[heartlandexpat]

Alright so I'm getting really antsy in my life so not much is getting done, which is rough. To be fair, I think my physical wellbeing (I have a bad spine, and on top of it had an accident a few months back that's turning up again that messed up my knee) is piling on to the mental/emotional stagnation I'm feeling so I'm not going to give myself complete blame

Aaaanyways, since I'm plateauing on Lithuanian already and getting a bit bored because of it, I'm now forcing myself to at least do a textbook chapter of Beginner's Lithuanian a day as well as maintaining my Clozemaster and Memrise streaks, plus Bliu Bliu at least once a day even though they don't actually maintain streaks. Obviously the aim is to delve into it a bit more than that, but if that's all I accomplish in a day and the rest is just me lounging about on the bed, then fine. Tomorrow's Monday, so maybe being back to work will help a bit with getting me more productive as well.

Definitely ready to be moving on though, and I'm only around halfway into this internship. Oh well, it's less than a month now left in DC before a week back at home before I leave the states, if all goes according to plan, permanently/for the foreseeable future (as in to live, obviously I'll be coming home to visit from time to time!). This internship has taught me a lot and I'm really happy for it, but I need to get outta here ASAP. This week I officially decided I'm 100% going to get my Belgian citizenship (requiring 5 consecutive years living in the country plus fluency in french, dutch, or german) after I get my bachelor's since I've been really feeling the need to finally put down roots, but now today I'm feeling antsy again so I'm not so sure anymore. At least I have a year yet to decide (I graduate June 2019), plus I'm sure what job/master's programs offers I get will effect my decision. Besides, who knows what'll happen while I'm in Lithuania- maybe I'll fall as in love with Vilnius as I did Brussels, or maybe I'll even fall in love with a girly. Some parts of life are unpredictable, I suppose.

In any case, next year I'll probably shift my focus to be at least 50% french to get it from an iffy "advanced" to truly being fluent (lol @ "truly being fluent," you know what I mean though) in preparation. Especially since I'm hoping to get a bilingual FR/EN grad degree (Études Européennes? Globalisation? Sciences Po?) in the near future. If anyone knows anything about Belgian universities, give me a shout. Of the programs I've collected most are at ULB, but I kind of want to try living somewhere other than Brussels for a bit. From what I've heard Ghent is the best school (plus it's soooo picturesque, who doesn't want to live in Ghent!?), but it's dutch not french so I'm only left one english degree option that suits me. KU Leuven's also meant to be good, but again, dutch- also I think Leuven would bore me as a town I've been there once and I feel like that was enough. They do offer a few French degrees though, and one caught my eye, but I feel like 100% french would get exhausting? Plus I think I'd like the english to buoy my grades a bit since obviously I won't be able to write as well in French as I can English. We'll have to see I guess.

As for now, I've continued reading my weird french book. I've also started watching Black Mirror with french dub and subtitles (also french), but I got sidetracked by The Great Interior Design Challenge (since I can fall asleep watching that one as it's easy viewing)- which at least had subtitles I could put on in french. I stopped going to the Duolingo meetups for Spanish, whoops. Sunday afternoon just isn't a nice time for me to have to haul my booty downtown, literally next door to my work, by choice. Oh I also did start developing a resource for Lithuanian cases which encompasses absolutely everything so I can have it all in one place. I'll share it once it's ready enough (it's on my google drive) in case anyone wants a look. I felt like anything about cases was either really split-up and disjointed or really shallow information. I wanted something that included everything you'd need to know about every case all in one stop. Hopefully, it doesn't become too much of a monster. Also been watching some Auksinis Protas, and am proud to say I can actually answer some of the questions! To be fair, they're mostly about things like geography or famous people where the words are similar, but still!

How do y'all stay motivated to keep working on languages when it's not a language block you've hit, but a general life one? Any tips? Tbh I probably just need to finally suck it up and see a therapist or something, but not on this student budget

[heartlandexpat]

In case anyone's wondering where my french actually is right now, I'll say I got a 4/5 on the AP French exam in 2015 (when I graduated high-school) here - https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/cour ... lture/exam

However, I would still argue I should've gotten a 5 lol My essay on the evils of Monsanto was brilliant, the only thing that brought my down was my conversational speaking. Yes, this is a very important skill, I know. However, the prompt threw me because it was about Moroccan culture like foods, activities dancing, which I knew little about and would have struggled on in English. Oh well, should've blagged something better than I did I guess!

I'd like to take another exam in french, something nice and official. Maybe at the end of next school year, but I'll need to research into it a bit. I might like to be a translator as a side gig in Belgium and I think it'd certainly help getting my french up to snuff beforehand, and to be able to advertise whatever certification I got. I wonder if there's any belgian-french specific courses I could take as well, as to be honest I prefer their dialect anyways. None of that 4-20-10 nonsense and less throat pain from the Rs haha!

These days I'm rustier as I've hardly used it for more than a few sentences at a time since (besides a few drunken escapades in Brussels). Honestly, my french gets 100x better when I'm drunk