Should Know Better But French, Spanish and Japanese

[Sarafina]

Sarafina, what does the title of your log mean?

Because I should know better than try to juggle three languages when I'm not even a strong B2 in any of those languages and I'm learning of two of those languages as a beginner. Ideally I should focus on French intensely and try to get it to a relatively high level before then engaging in another language.

But I have a wonderful opportunity to learn Spanish to a decent level for free with a friend who is really good at teaching. I can't pass that up. For Japanese I'm taking the 'slow-burn' approach and not outputting until maybe after 9-18 months and working solely on pronunciation and listening comprehension for the first 6 months at minimum. So when I do decide to focus on it, I won't be starting from stratch.

[MamaPata]

Oops, I didn't even notice the 2019 bit. I just saw December! I feel like you will be able to do that. Will be very interested to see your progression.

[Sarafina]

Oops, I didn't even notice the 2019 bit. I just saw December! I feel like you will be able to do that. Will be very interested to see your progression.

Thank you. I hope so as well.

[Sarafina]

I'm waiting until payday before I pay for the DALF C1. I can't believe that I'm actually signing up for this. I've already registered at the Institut français. But I'll still be in uni at that. But I'll be at my own accomodation but still I'll have to travel practically 3 hours from my uni to the exam centre. Hopefully there wouldn't be any exams scheduled on the last two days of term. I'll have to miss two days of school which makes me a little nervous. But I don't want to give myself any more excuses to chicken out and there will always be a slight inconvenience regardless of what date I pick.

I've January exams for French. It's basically mostly a grammar and to a lesser extent a translation test. What is tested is knowledge of grammatical terminology, pronouns, articles, interrogation, negation and being able to conjugate verbs to the present, future, perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, conditional, imperative, subjunctive. I'm using the Practice Makes Perfect French All in One, French Grammar and Usage and Practising French Grammar. The last two resources come from my uni- I don't particularly like them. The section on verbs is just too long-winded. So I'll be using solely French All in One for the grammar bits related to verbs and Ted's French Grammar.

I've been bingewatching episodes of Hôpital Hilltop. I really enjoyed watching it. There's only 11 episodes on YouTube. I'm thinking of actually buying the DVD so I can watch the remaining 41 episodes. There are some episodes that are genuinely moving and the voice acting for the much younger characters is generally pretty good. I think the French version is far better than the English dub. The same with Steven Universe- I can't bear the original voice acting and I think the French version is much better and actually bearable.

I wonder if anyone else has the same experience with prefering the foreign dub to the actual original.

Apart from Hôpital Hilltop, Steven Universe and Over the Garden Wall (the French voice actors did a great job in my opinion), I prefer the original usually English version. It's one of the reasons why I struggle to rewatch House of Cards or How To Get Away with Murder in French because I much prefer the original voices. But with Japanese animated movies, I've never enjoyed a single dubbed version and I always prefer to watch it in Japanese but with English subtitles. But I've met people that are the opposite.

[Sarafina]

I'm upset that there isn't any more episodes of Hôpital Hilltop. My payday day will be on the 21st January. I will immediately pay for the DALF C1 as soon as I wake up on that day. I'm so nervous but excited about the challenge. On the same day, I'm going to do Dialang test. It would be interesting to see what I get. It might be pleasant surprise or a nasty shock. Regardless, I need to know how much work is on my hands.

Spanish will be playing a bigger role in 2019. There's some really interesting internships in Latin America which I found out through my uni and I talked to a couple of people that had gone through the same program and they recommended that I apply for it and one of them is helping me with my CV and the interview process. The internships are between 6-8 weeks in the summer. I need to improve my Spanish then- I want to be at least conversational. But balancing that with aiming for C1 for French will be difficult.

When I watch stuff like Terrace House, there's at least 30 phrases that I can understand in a given episode which is nice I guess.

[Sarafina]

My Spanish flatmate wouldn't be able to continue our weekly Spanish lessons. I'm a little bit disappointed and it kinda almost killed my motivation to learn Spanish because it was nice having someone that held you accountable week after week and he was really enthusiastic and knowledgeable about second language acquisition.

Now Spanish is no different from any other language that I'm fighting to learn on my own. I'm considering putting it in the backburner. Maybe I'll dabble with Brazilian Portuguese instead or even Korean or Persian. But I'll probably still try to persist with it.

I don't know why I spend hardly any time on Japanese. I thought after the IB I would be neglecting French in favour of Japanese. I think it's because with French I can have fun with the language directly. I can enjoy French movies and TV series without subtitles and I can have decent and fun conversations in French and I can relax and read a French book. But with Japanese, everything is new and challenging and I'm at that beginner stage where I can't relax and engage with native materials directly (without intensive studying). But I find Japanese to be such a fascinating language and there are Japanese filmmakers/directors that I adore and I'm really interested in Japanese literature and history and Japan is a country that I want to at least live there for at least one year.

I'm having second thoughts about the internships in Latin America because it's unpaid and I have to pay for the flight tickets. It's a little annoying and harder to swallow because I know someone who managed to secure a really really good paid internship for the summer. I wouldn't even mind doing unpaid internships in countries that I'm actually really interested in or I have a decent knowledge of the language already (France, Switzerland, French-speaking part of Canada or Japan). The name of the company that helps to organise this internship didn't have anything available in those countries. I was interested in their opportunities in China but it was basically just teaching English. To be fair to them, at least for that one they paid for your accomodation and meals and you also received an apparently relatively decent salary. But it didn't interest me at all.

I'm paying the DALF exam today or tomorrow. I should have paid on the 22nd but I had an exam and I was exhausted and I went back home to spend the reminder of the week with my family. I'm so excited and nervous about this exam. It's going to really be a challenge. But I really need this.

There's so much cartoons and TV series available in French on YouTube. I have too many TV series to finish watching.

I'm disappointed in myself that for my talk, I still haven't properly addressed my pronunciation and grammar issues. Although, I'm doing more grammar focused work than before. I still haven't seriously followed my plan to really improve my pronunciation. Although I feel like my pronunciation has improved (a byproduct of binge-watching TV series and French YouTube channels) but there's still plenty of room for improvement. I was meant to be daily monologue/vlog in French which never happened. I'm proud about how consistent I've been with French since the year has started.
When I pay for the test, I'll create Google docs (Excel) to record exactly what I'm doing and using and the time spent and a brief comment. It might be useful for someone who may have a similar aspiration. I've seen things like that on Reddit and I find them to be really interesting and useful.

[Sarafina]

I HAVE ACTUALLY DONE IT. MAYBE IT'S BRAVERY OR STUPIDITY. I'VE SIGNED UP FOR THE DALF C1 AND I'VE PAYED FOR IT AND EVERYTHING.

It starts on the 13th December. I chose the Science option. It was painful parting with £150. My friends laugh at me for voluntarily doing so much overtime during Christmas to pay for an exam that nobody is forcing to do and it isn't complusory. I've basically quit my old job and I'm going to have to look for part-time work in uni in order to pay for the DALF prep Italki lessons.

This month, I've been pretty consistent with French and I've been increasing the time I spend doing focused grammar study. It's not enough though. I need to come up with a proper study plan and routine.

[Sarafina]

The excitement has worn off and the fear has kicked in. I am not sure if I'm even a solid B2 yet. And I have 321 days to somehow get myself ready for the C1 exam. I don't want to have wasted £150. I've found about 5 DALF related prep books and three general books that are aimed at French natives that want to improve their writing. I don't know how many DALF prep books are necessary. I know the more the better but those books aren't cheap. I'm worried that I haven't given myself enough time. But that's what makes it a much needed challenge to push myself out of my comfort zone.

My plan for the rest of January and February is to not to dive into the prep books and past papers just yet because it will only freak me out and demotivate me. I'm going to develop a stronger foundation in the language by focusing on mainly my grammar and pronunciation. I know I've said this a billion times before. But I've already built some momentum with some serious grammar study because of the January grammar exams so I just need to continue and intensify that. And to have to finish as much of the French animated series that I've saved on my YouTube channel. They're fun to watch and they're great for my level: I usually have high comprehension but it's not completely perfect comprehension so I'm still learning random words every now and there. As much as I enjoy them, I need to move to more serious and advanced listening material by March.

I haven't been doing much reading despite doing my personal super challenge++.


January/February
-My goal is to finish the never-ending 'Practice Makes Perfect: All in One' book and make cloze-deletion/translation style cards on Anki for each example sentence. Hopefully after completing this book, I would have eliminated all of my more elementary mistakes and get my grammar skills to decent level and I already discussed how I was supposed to use Jun's method to help to internalise the grammar even though his advice was aimed at Japanese people who wanted to improve their English his advice is applicable to any foreign language. (one main tip he gives to being able to say tl language sentences with no hestitation and smoothly by just looking the nl translation as a prompt and building more complex sentences from that but the goal isn't to mindlessly memorise it but to internalise the grammar point)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ZFe7-NJwE

-Finish going through the texts that I've saved on Readlang: Le Monde de Charlie, Du Côté de Chez Swann and two novels by Camus.

-To finish watching: (This list has gotten ridiculous and I'll be happy and impressed if I even finish a third of it)
The site that I used to watch Steven Universe/ATLA/Star vs The Forces of Evil is only available for members and membership is available only via invitation through their Discord. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon.
So in the meantime I'll watch Adventure Time and Ours pour un et un pour t'ours and Le Monde Incroyable de Gumball
Arthur (12 episodes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byDzuHo ... JDB4G94aSj
Mes parrains sont magiques (13 episodes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20E_1An ... vsG2sxLdmL
Magic La Famille (21 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pciWnFg ... _sBC1n-7q7
Le Monde selon Kevin (24 episodes but half of it is blocked in my location),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R94vFu ... sk&index=5
TIMOTHÉE VA À L'ÉCOLE (25 episodes- I can't remember how many episodes I've watched so far),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsJJEV- ... Yf4WrWoJ80
D'Artagnan et les Trois Mousquetaires (26 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p0t3g9 ... 968861B864
Bouba le petit oursan (26 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLRUDwH ... czBD6lP5ha
Ed Edd Eddy (29 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh0SsRz ... FseqSZZHrV
Tib et Tatoum (29 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o_Cojz ... AxTQ-QIXO9
Les jumelles de St-Clare (33)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8diJ06 ... BSs9KiE5tS
Petite Bonne Femme (40),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apgYwtP ... qDMsUDSDks
Tico et Ses Amis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVzC0_U ... 9dsKDcdk8a
Il était une fois (41),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0pUKsM ... 0879116BAB
Sindbad (42)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPqyT2s ... GCTIZyvbOI
Le Petit Lord (43)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCgZcc1 ... QM4-aBKd8K
Princesse Sarah (47 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBRUsyI ... hN3w5nxXf4
Raconte-moi une histoire (47)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MxgD1v ... Ugx0GKs9QA
Vanessa et la magie des rêves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23tcFkz ... CgBNopQ4_K
Les 4 filles du Dr March (48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz_74c5 ... dArOMJuWI7
Karine l'aventure du Nouveau Monde (50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMCa7Ve ... 9WDy8GznbY
Pollyanna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKyyCkh ... Nzicb_y-h-
Heidi fille des Alpes (52 episodes),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eNEHUV ... 230c2M_dCY
Les Jumeaux du bout du monde (52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmVx0C ... -JFm7z968o
Totally Spies (52 in total)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inKCn1N ... fT6GGmWxG1 (Season 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VKPvR3 ... TnZKkOFUFu (Season 2)
Mew Mew Powers (53)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMlcMU ... MegrF7-02l
Gigi (63 episodes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9b9BP- ... OwA6eQXZYZ
Maya l'abeille (104)

-I still need to finish going through the entire Phonétique Progressive du Français book and Learn French # 8 Hours To Pronounce Correctly French Language ( I wonder if anyone has actually watched all 8 hours of this video- I think I watched this one hour of this before I dropped it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEkmMR_jAk&t=4428s )

From March, I'll start the intense DALF specific prep with a tutor from Italki. I don't think that one lesson a week is going to be enough. Ideally, it would be nice to have at least 3 lessons a week but I don't know if my budget will allow that- hopefully things go well with job-hunting and the pay isn't as awful as my last one.

[Lianne]

Thank you for posting that YouTube list! I'm always happy to find more French shows to watch! Just today I added another profile on my Netflix account and set the language for it to French, and I'm so excited about all the French stuff I'm gonna watch on it.

[Flickserve]

I already discussed how I was supposed to use Jun's method to help to internalise the grammar even though his advice .

Could you point me to that post? Interested to read it.

It wasn't in this thread right?