rpg learns Spanish, French, German

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rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
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Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:35 pm

Not actually a whole lot to log this week. Still in Paris, which means I've still had a bunch of contact with French, but to be honest I think just one hour of conversation on eg iTalki is probably higher quality than the entire last week of French interactions. That's what happens when you travel with English speakers in places with decent levels of English proficiency :)

Nothing in German again (nor will there be anything this upcoming week). I'll have to make sure to resume German quickly once I get home so that I don't lose too much ground or lose the habit.

For the SC, I logged Le petit prince which I finished last Sunday as predicted. It's a charming little book; this was the first time I had ever read it since for a while (even before I had started studying) I had been saving it to read in French. I decided to just log it as 50 pages for SC purposes. I read another 200 pages of HP4 in French as well (a good chunk of that today, which was a rest day after some very busy days preceding). That puts me at only just a crack over halfway through the book, which means it'll most likely take me another two weeks to finish the whole thing.

I also started my Spanish course last week. This was the most Spanish I've spoken in a little while (a year and a half, I think, since we spent NYE in Mexico City) which made me a little nervous. Especially since I've really switched my brain over to French over the last 1-2 months, so to speak. But it's still gone okay. The class so far is a little less interesting than I was hoping since I'm spending a lot of time listening or reading some absolutely banal opinions and reactions to these works, provided by these 19- or 20-year-old undergraduates... it gives me flashbacks to all the worst parts of school English classes. There's still plenty to learn, though; I've spent all day procrastinating on finishing Jose Marti's essay Nuestra America which I find a challenging read.
7 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:57 am

Just got back home. Very jetlagged but here's my weekly update anyway.

In French I actually finished HP4 yesterday, a week earlier than I was expecting, thanks to a large amount of reading I ended up doing on Friday. And thanks to my flights today I'm nearly 200 pages into HP5 already. I didn't watch anything this week, but I brought back box sets of season 1-6 of Engrenages and seasons 1-5 of Le Bureau des Légendes, two shows I have been hoping to see for a while. Unlike with Spanish, it seems like most of the best French TV isn't easily available for streaming in the US (or if it is, it's only with burned-in English subs, which makes it unwatchable for me).

In Spanish I read a couple essays and short stories for my class, which I didn't bother logging for the SC, and I just watched an episode of Vis a vis for the first time in a while. The class is okay but not amazing. I don't think it was worth the tuition money unless I end up taking some more interesting upper division classes at some point. At any rate it's a very manageable amount of work so at least it's not too disruptive.
5 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:34 am

I took several weeks off from logging, as you can see. It's been a fairly busy time and it's going to stay busy for a while as we just got a young puppy.

In Spanish I finished my college course with an A or A+ (waiting for the final grades). Overall I'm not sure this was worth the money (substantial) for what it was... it was certainly not the best advertisement for the university system. There wasn't actually all that much reading (around 10 or so texts, but each was no more than 5-10 pages at most) nor that much writing (in total all of my essays summed to around 5.5 pages double spaced, which is nothing) nor that much speaking (maybe an hour across all of the classes... at most) nor that much listening (around 20 hours of class time).

In French I just finished reading HP5 today, finally (been doing a lot of reading while monitoring the puppy). Only two more left. If I can sustain a similar reading pace to the past few months I'll have no trouble finishing the reading part of the SC; the film part may end up being the bigger challenge after all.

Speaking of the film part, I started watching Le Bureau des Légendes. It's good; I'm most of the way through season 2 already. Unfortunately I started watching it with my SO with English subtitles and so I'm kinda stuck with them on. Still doing my best to listen to the French anyway (though this show has a lot of other languages too--Arabic, Russian, Farsi, English, etc.) but it's certainly not optimal for language learning and I'm a bit disappointed. I'm still logging this for the SC, even though I'd prefer logging 150 "purer" hours, in part because I'm not sure I'm going to have the luxury of tossing out the 40 hours it's going to end up being.

In German I've done very little. I was planning on resuming after my Spanish class finished. Now with this puppy I'm not really sure; right now I have even less free time than I did two weeks ago... I've done a few flashcards and finished watching the Nicos Weg A1 video and that's about it.
5 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:14 am

This week in French I took a break before continuing on to HP6 (as the 5th book was quite long) and started reading Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, which will be my first "real" French novel if I finish. It's not nearly as hard as I was expecting, actually, though it's also not as good as I was expecting, to be honest. Not sure if I'm going to continue with Verne after this; he does have a couple more iconic novels that I feel like I should read (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) but so far I'm not sure his style is for me. Anyway, I'm over halfway through the book and will probably finish it this week.

In German I took my first class today after a two month break (and it threw me in the deep end--it was on adjective endings). It went okay (better than I was expecting given the long break) and I'm looking forward to scheduling more classes.

Nothing in Spanish this week--I've been busy!
7 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:57 pm

A late update for last week, and a brief one as I don't have too much to say.

In French I did finish Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours as expected. This book is certainly not what I had thought it was going to be. I found long stretches of it kind of dull (Verne's obsession with geography, recurring discussions of boats, an uncomfortable orientalism) but Verne did at least know how to dramatically end a chapter (I believe this novel was serialized and it shows in the writing).

Still not in the mood for continuing with HP just yet, I ended up starting two small books simultaneously this weekend: Candide, and La place by Annie Ernaux. I'm around halfway through each and will probably finish both this week; they're both a pretty reasonable level. For short books I try to space out the reading a little bit, because if I zip through them too quickly I notice I completely forget them, and it frustrates me when a year or two later I have barely any recollection of a book I've read.

I finished S2 of Le Bureau des Légendes; this show is still going strong and I'm looking forward to the other three seasons.

In Spanish and German, nothing. I was too busy this past week to squeeze in any German classes. This week is hopefully a little lighter and I'll try to get a few in. My German's at such a precariously low level that if I ignore it for too long I'm going to forget it all.

Edit: I should probably take this time to examine where I'm at for my Super Challenge goals, as there are four months remaining. I need to read 1500 pages of French, watch 67h of French, and watch 52h of Spanish. A few months ago I was complacent about the film portion and worried about the reading. Now it's the other way around. I'll get the reading done if I read 100 pages a week, which I've been managing for the past several months. Film wise I need to watch about 30h a month, though, which means I need to step on the gas. That's an hour a day! I may need to do a lot of binge watching...
6 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:56 am

This week in French I finished three (!) books--though they were all short. I finished Candide and La place from my previous post. Both were good; I enjoyed Candide a lot (a very goofy book) while La place was a more subdued piece of autofiction and barely a novel, and though it left me pretty cold most of the time, I'd be interested in reading more Annie Ernaux, and language-wise it wasn't too hard. I have a paper copy of Les Années coming in the mail now. After I finished those two I started L'Amant by Marguerite Duras, which I finished this evening. This one I didn't enjoy quite as much. I think this book is often recommended to intermediate readers but I found the language a bit complicated--not the vocabulary but just the structure of it all. There were a lot of pronouns without obvious antecedents and other things that made me have to work a little bit to understand what was going on in some passages. Maybe if I had read this in English I would have enjoyed the prose more, but I'm still a relatively inexperienced French reader so it just didn't hit for me.

Next up is probably Balzac, I think! I might try Le Père Goriot, which is already on my kindle, and see how I do with it.

I watched one episode of Le bureau des légendes season 3 and that's all. Nothing in Spanish or German even though I said I would do more German classes this week. Tomorrow's a holiday and I'll have to use the time to come up with a plan to make some more progress in German.
6 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:05 pm

I didn't update last week but even with two weeks I don't have too much going on. Only progress in French still. I watched S3 of Le bureau des légendes, which is still a great show in any language and feels a little underappreciated outside of French learner circles. I also watched the film Le corbeau by Henri-Georges Clouzot, which was decent, and has an interesting historical context behind it.

In reading I read Le père Goriot by Balzac. It was pretty slow going at first, and I was fairly bored for a while, but I think the back half of the novel and especially the ending really brought everything together. I finished last night and I ended up deciding to go back to HP and start HP6. I think I partly just want to be able to say that I finished the series and I partly want to return to something a little easier--the language in these other novels is a little more complicated and it takes me longer to read.

Nothing going on in Spanish or German still....hmm!
6 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Mon Sep 27, 2021 2:19 am

Some great progress in French this week as I finished reading HP6 this afternoon--so I managed to get through all 600 pages in a week. Not too shabby! With that I'm now several hundred pages ahead of schedule for the French reading part of the SC and it's all but certain that I'll finish this part comfortably. The last HP book would bring me over the line, but for the moment I'm actually going to return to French literature and likely knock out another short Balzac novel (haven't decided yet), now that the pressure's off a bit. I think my plan is roughly to read a few more shorter French novels, read HP7, and then start tackling some longer works.

On the film side I also made some nice progress, getting 9 hours in via a few episodes of Le bureau des légendes S3 and a few films. The first was Les Amants, an early Louis Malle film about a bourgeois woman and her relationships with various romantic partners. Apparently this is the film that provoked the obscenity lawsuit with the famous "I know it when I see it" line about pornography. I can see why; there's a section that's pretty racy for a film from the 50s. Not my favorite film ever but enjoyable enough. Then was La Cérémonie, a late work of Claude Chabrol. This one was fascinating and had a very remarkable final sequence. Great film. Finally, Van Gogh, a Maurice Pialat film. Ugh. Long and boring. The less said about this the better.

With that, my French film portion has overtaken the Spanish film one (103h vs 98). I have 99 hours and about 3 months left, so I need to get in an hour a day. That's still well within the realm of possibility, but it's more than I've been doing. I'll probably need to get in a few days of binge watching here and there to help out.

This week I finally do have an update for German; I took four Lingoda classes. Oof. I've essentially taken a 3 month break from German and, as happens with languages you have a low level in, I've atrophied a whole bunch. Vocabulary is a particularly weak point; while I'm hardly an expert on German grammar yet, I think my tiny vocabulary is holding me back the most right now. I have all these Dino lernt Deutsch graded readers available and it's probably high time I made use of them. I really dreaded each one of my Lingoda classes this week, so in order to make them less painful I'm going to need to actually put it some work into German. Now that the pressure's off for the reading part of the SC maybe that'll help me dedicate some spare moments.
6 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:06 pm

I haven't updated in several weeks. Time to rip off the band-aid. Overall my language study hasn't been as extensive as I'd like, but I guess we all say that all the time, don't we?

I've really only done stuff in French, where I finished season 4 of Le bureau des légendes. Only one season left! I've been avoiding doing any reading about the show online to avoid spoilers, but I hope they're making more of it (or if not, that this season ends satisfactorily). It's a great show. I've watched a few more films since my last update too: La mariée était en noir, a Truffaut film with obvious heavy Hitchcock influences, decent enough; Au revoir, les enfants, another Louis Malle film and a really fantastic one at that, highly recommended to anyone; and Le Trou, one of the great prison escape films and one I've been meaning to see for many years now.

I haven't read much in French, though. I started Balzac's La peau de chagrin and completely stalled out during this feast scene: it's hard to understand, not very interesting, and it goes on for ages and ages. I need to either push through (I'm told that after this the book gets much better) or give up on this book and move to something else (maybe I should go back and knock out HP7).

No updates in Spanish yet again though I came close to watching some Spanish TV. I should have some more time this weekend and hopefully I can put some of that towards Spanish. Don't want to go too long without much exposure, after all. Also thinking about trying to read some children's books in Spanish to kickstart my Spanish reading. Harry Potter worked well for French but it might be a bit too soon to go through them all over again, so it may be better to find something else.

German had very little activity these past few weeks. I reviewed a few things here and there but overall it wasn't very productive.

I actually came back to Mandarin about a week ago, though, mostly via HelloChinese which I started working through. I've still retained a lot of the stuff I've hit so far in the app from when I focused on Chinese two years ago, but I've learned some new vocabulary that I never learned back then as well, and if I keep going the amount of familiar stuff is going to decrease. I'm happy enough just going through this app a little bit every day for now.

I'm also learning how to read Hangul. No plans to spend much time on Korean right now, but I always hear that Hangul is so easy to learn to read, and I think learning how to pronounce these things is actually pretty useful.




The reason I was going through these other languages is because I'm thinking of quitting my job and making my own language-learning app/tool, so I've been trying out a lot of existing tools with a lot of different languages to get a sense of where the market is at these days.

In a lot of senses it feels pretty foolhardy. My job pays me a lot and objectively it's not that difficult. Making a successful app/product would take a lot of hard work over a long period of time and has a high probability of failure.

But the other side of the coin is that I really don't like my job right now and am really unmotivated, and the idea of working hard on building something myself is exciting. I think I know the state of the language learning market well enough and have some ideas I think could be good. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time (a couple years). And while taking on Duolingo or Babbel, companies with hundreds of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, may seem impossible, getting a thousand or so paying subscribers feels a lot more doable. Don't need to magically solve everyone's language learning problems, just some of them.

Anyway, I'm not sure. Thinking about quitting around the holidays but not really sure yet. I'm almost tempted to pull the trigger right now, but financially I think it's worth it sticking around until annual bonus payouts at the end of the year--if I'm going to be going with little income for a long time, it's probably good to save money while I can. And I may change my mind about this still; it's not set in stone by any means.
4 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150

rpg
Orange Belt
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 2:21 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B2), French (B2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8368
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Re: rpg learns Spanish, French, German

Postby rpg » Wed Nov 03, 2021 5:06 am

Another overdue update. It won't be too long.

With French I watched season 5 of Le bureau des légendes, which was the most recent season and it seems like the final one. Great show, all things considered. I read that the ending was controversial in France and I can see why it would be, but overall I thought it was a really good show and I'd recommend it independently of my French learning.

Reading-wise I dropped the Balzac book, which was probably for the best, and I picked up HP7. Might as well complete the series, right? Not going through it as quickly as the previous one, but that's due to time rather than difficulty. I'm about 250 pages in so far.

I've also continued in Chinese with HelloChinese. Right now it's mostly still review with a few new vocabulary words here and there. Not taking this super seriously, just spending a little time on it every day or every other day.

Nothing in Spanish or German to report these weeks, really.

I decided to pull the trigger on quitting my job. I'm going to be working full-throttle on a language learning tool starting this weekend. I'm both nervous and excited: nervous because it's a very competitive space and because it's going to be tough to be successful as a one-man show, but excited because I feel like I have some good ideas about what I'm going to build and I feel like I can execute on them. We'll see, though! I'm not ready to share more details just yet (haven't written a single line of code yet, after all) but if all goes well I'll share more here eventually.
4 x
Super challenge 2020/21
French reading: 4534 / 5000      Spanish reading: 81 / 5000
French movies: 115 / 150       Spanish movies: 98 / 150


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