Amanda's 2019 Log: Spanish, Ancient Greek, and French

[philomath]

Goals for Week 20 (May 12-19)
Spanish:
[ ] Do Examen 1: Learn the vocab, do Pruebas 1 and 2.
[ ] Listening: 2 hours
[ ] Speaking: 40 minutes
[X] Vocab: Make Anki flashcards for all of the sentences in my notebook.
[X] Vocab: Review all Anki flashcards.
[ ] Reading: 40 pages
[ ] Writing: 1,000 words

Ancient Greek:
[ ] Do Lesson 1 in Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners.

This week I'm starting my new job, but hopefully I'll have time after work each day to accomplish my goals!

Results
Spanish
- Listening: 50 minutes
- Speaking: 5 minutes
- Vocab: Made 40 flashcards and reviewed them.
- Reading: 26 pages

This week I'm going to try something different. Instead of giving myself a goal like "X minutes of listening practice" or "X pages", I'm just going to make a schedule for myself and see what I get done. I'm expecting to have 45 minutes each morning to practice Spanish, and then I might do a little bit at night. (Especially speaking practice--I think I'm too sleepy in the morning to speak Spanish properly, so I should wait until later to do that.)

Monday
[ ] Watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Pick an area of grammar to review, and review it.
[ ] Review Anki vocab on the train.

Tuesday
[ ] Make Anki flashcards for the vocab in the DELE B2 prep book: Examen 1.
[ ] Practice reading aloud in the morning and practice speaking later.
[ ] Read on the train.

Wednesday
[ ] Begin DELE B2 Examen 1: Prueba 1.
[ ] Watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Review Anki vocab on the train.

Thursday
[ ] Practice reading aloud in the morning and practice speaking later.
[ ] Read on the train.
[ ] Write something!

Friday
[ ] Finish DELE B2 Examen 1: Prueba 1.
[ ] Review Anki vocab on the train.
[ ] Write something!

Saturday
[ ] Begin Examen 1 Prueba 2.
[ ] Find a podcast or talk show to listen to in Spanish.
[ ] Practice reading aloud in the morning and practice speaking later.
[ ] Start reviewing Homeric Greek for Beginners: Lesson 1.

Sunday
[ ] Finish Examen 1 Prueba 2.
[ ] Review Anki vocab.
[ ] Write something!
[ ] Finish reviewing Homeric Greek for Beginners: Lesson 1.

Okay, we'll see how this goes!

[philomath]

Monday
[X] Watch La casa de papel. (Watched for 20 minutes.)
[X] Pick an area of grammar to review, and review it. (Reviewed when to use fue and when to use era. I think I understand the difference between the preterit and the imperfect in general, but for some reason I get confused when it comes to ser.)
[X] Review Anki vocab on the train.
Extra: Made 19 flashcards and read 13 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Tuesday
[X] Make Anki flashcards for the vocab in the DELE B2 prep book: Examen 1. (Made 44 flashcards.)
[ ] Practice reading aloud in the morning and practice speaking later.
[X] Read on the train. (Read 1 page of El cuaderno de Maya.)

[philomath]

Wednesday
[ ] Begin DELE B2 Examen 1: Prueba 1.
[X] Watch La casa de papel. (90 minutes)
[X] Review Anki vocab on the train.
Extra: Read aloud for 13 minutes and read 14 pages of El cuaderno de Maya. I'm enjoying it!

Thursday
[ ] Practice reading aloud in the morning and practice speaking later.
[ ] Read on the train.
[ ] Write something!

Today I have a cold and feel too tired to study Spanish.

[philomath]

I stopped following the schedule I made for this week... Here's what I did yesterday and today though:

Saturday
- Read 4 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Sunday
- Practiced speaking for 6 minutes.
- Made 9 Anki flashcards.

I used to pause during speaking practice and write down phrases I had trouble with, but lately I've been too lazy. I record myself speaking, since that's a rule of the Output Challenge, so maybe I should make myself go back and listen to the recordings sometime.

Here are my totals for this week:

Results
Spanish:
- DELE B2 prep book: Made Anki flashcards for Examen 1: Vocabulario. There were a lot of words, so this took me longer than expected!
- Listening: 1 hour and 50 minutes of La casa de papel.
- Speaking: 19 minutes
- Grammar: 15 minutes
- Vocab: 72 words
- Reading: 32 pages

Ancient Greek:
- Nothing I really do want to start studying Ancient Greek again, I just need to make myself sit down and do it!

Getting sick in the middle of the week caused me to stop following the schedule I made. However, I think having a schedule of activities was a nice change from just listing the hours of speaking practice, etc. that I want to accomplish during the week. So I've made another schedule to try:

Monday
[ ] Listen to a Spanish podcast.
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Start studying Ancient Greek again!

Tuesday
[ ] Make a list of potential speaking topics.
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Write something!

Wednesday
[ ] Watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.

Thursday
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Listen to past recordings of speaking practice and write down any questions about grammar/phrases that came up?
[ ] Study more Ancient Greek!

Friday
[ ] Listen to a Spanish podcast or watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Make more Anki flashcards.

Saturday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Read El cuaderno de Maya or a news article.
[ ] Write something!

Sunday
[ ] Post sentences on iTalki for corrections.
[ ] Read El cuaderno de Maya or a news article.
[ ] Write something!

You might've noticed that I didn't include any reading goals during the week. I think reading during my commute is already a habit for me, so I didn't bother writing it down.

[lingua]

I used to pause during speaking practice and write down phrases I had trouble with, but lately I've been too lazy. I record myself speaking, since that's a rule of the Output Challenge, so maybe I should make myself go back and listen to the recordings sometime.

I have become a fan of recording myself even if I am not very consistent with it. I think it helps with fluidity. I do go back and listen to the last five minutes or so. It is difficult because i don't like my voice to begin with but I do feel like my accent is OK most of the time. So I do think it is worthwhile.

[philomath]

Monday
[X] Listen to a Spanish podcast. (Listened to Nómadas for 30 minutes.)
[X] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book. (Did 2 reading exercises. It took me 30-40 minutes--a little bit longer than I should take on the actual test. I underlined words I didn't know so I can make flash cards for them later this week. Among those words: embridiar, lidiar con, polifacético.)
[ ] Start studying Ancient Greek again! (Nope...oh well.)

Tuesday
[X] Make a list of potential speaking topics. (I found some speaking topics in my DELE B2 prep book and in an older version of the prep book that I found online. I should keep an actual list in my notebook though!)
[X] Practice speaking. (Spoke for 6 minutes about some language-learning advice that I heard somewhere: that you should try to adopt a different personality, sort of, for each language you learn.)
[X] Write something! (I wrote 119 words in my journal about my first week of work.)

I think the biggest problem with my Spanish routine is that I've been sticking to activities that are too easy. I can't just talk about my day while doing speaking practice, and while it's good that I've switched to writing my journal completely in Spanish, I should also try writing about more complex topics.

I wonder if I can find an iTalki tutor who is experienced with intermediate learners and could help me practice more advanced speaking and writing. I think I can do it on my own, but a tutor might motivate me more.

[MorkTheFiddle]

I wonder if I can find an iTalki tutor who is experienced with intermediate learners and could help me practice more advanced speaking and writing. I think I can do it on my own, but a tutor might motivate me more.

Tutors are not always what they seem to be. Several members have discussed this issue.
That being said, I would encourage you to try at least one session with a tutor just to see what it is like.
I've only used a language tutor once in my whole life. I was not expecting much from it, and in fact not much came of it. But the tutor was quite skilled, and the session taught me what I needed to know about help from a tutor on that particular topic. (I was seeking help on understanding the dialogue of a TV show).
Whatever you do, good luck.

[philomath]

Wednesday
[X] Watch La casa de papel. (30 minutes)
[X] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book. (Finished the reading section and wrote down more vocab words that I didn't know.)
- Extra: Read 14 pages of El cuaderno de Maya.

Thursday
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Listen to past recordings of speaking practice and write down any questions about grammar/phrases that came up?
[ ] Study more Ancient Greek!

Today (Thursday) I had to stay at work late, and afterward I was too busy doing laundry and making dinner to study Spanish or Ancient Greek. I'll try to make up for it this weekend though!

[philomath]

Friday
[ ] Listen to a Spanish podcast or watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Make more Anki flashcards.

Saturday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Read El cuaderno de Maya or a news article.
[X] Write something! (Wrote 349 words in my journal.)

Sunday
[X] Post sentences on iTalki for corrections.
[X] Read El cuaderno de Maya or a news article. (Read 7 pages of El cuaderno de Maya. The plot is rather dark, but I'm enjoying the book anyway.)
[X] Write something! (Wrote 92 words, which I posted on iTalki.)
- Listened to recordings of myself speaking Spanish from last month. I didn't notice many mistakes, although I often paused to think of the correct conjugation or vocabulary word. I need to start speaking Spanish faster.
- Practiced speaking for 12 minutes about the pros and cons of cooking at home vs. eating at restaurants.
- Reviewed Lesson 1 of my Homeric Greek textbook! Finally starting Ancient Greek again.

[philomath]

Results from Week 22
Spanish:
- Did all of the reading exercises in my DELE B2 prep book: Examen 1.
- Listening: 1 hour
- Speaking: 24 minutes
- Reading: 21 pages
- Writing: 751 words

Ancient Greek:
- Reviewed Chapter 1.

I think my biggest accomplishments this week were that I did some activities that I don't usually do: I listened to a podcast instead of just watching La casa de papel, I listened to past recordings of myself speaking and tried speaking about a different topic instead of just about my day, and I posted some of my writing on iTalki, which I haven't done in a while! I also started studying Ancient Greek again.

Here's my schedule for the upcoming week:

Monday
[ ] Listen to a podcast or watch La casa de papel.

Tuesday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Make Anki flash cards.

Wednesday
[ ] Listen to a podcast.
[ ] Write something--not just a journal entry.
[ ] Study Ancient Greek more!

Thursday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Practice speaking.

Friday
[ ] Watch La casa de papel.
[ ] Make Anki flash cards.
[ ] Write something--not just a journal entry.

Saturday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Listen to recordings of past speaking practice and rite down any questions about grammar/phrases.
[ ] Practice speaking.
[ ] Study Ancient Greek more!

Sunday
[ ] Do some exercises from the DELE B2 prep book.
[ ] Study Ancient Greek more!
[ ] Post some sentences on iTalki for corrections.
[ ] Write something--not just a journal entry.