Lianne's 365 Days of French

[Lianne]

Day 345:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 11
a little bit of Kwiziq

Day 346:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 12
1 hour, 30 minutes (ish??) Kwiziq

Day 347:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 13
1 hour (ish, or more) Kwiziq

I have zero ability to keep track of my time doing Kwiziq because it's so easy to slip in and out of. My brain's like "Kwiziq...Kwiziq...37 solitaire games...check Facebook...Kwiziq...Kwiziq...YouTube...Kwiziq..."

Anyway, starting A2, I've made a change in my Kwiziq process. Before I was mainly doing the test of my study plan, and then any that I got wrong I'd read the lesson and add it to my notebook (so that theoretically I could reread all the tricky points whenever). This time, I'm reading each grammar point the first time it's presented to me. As a result, so far I'm getting 100% on nearly every quiz. It takes longer now, but I'm hoping it will be more efficient overall because I'm making fewer mistakes. Anyway, the content is still mostly easy so a lot of them I just have to skim. I'm currently at 21.59% on A2!

I also just made an account on Une dictée par jour. I haven't tried any yet but it's all ready to go and I plan to give it a whirl this weekend.

[Lianne]

Day 348:
50 minutes Kwiziq (got to 31.45% of A2)

Day 349:
53 minutes Kwiziq (got to 40.43% of A2)
20 minutes reading Miss Peregrine et les enfants particuliers (7 pages)

Day 350:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 14
25 minutes Kwiziq (got to 46.7% of A2)

Day 351:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 15

Day 352:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 16
29 minutes Kwiziq (got to 52.02% of A2)

[Lianne]

Day 353:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 17

Day 354:
30 minutes Pimsleur French V, lesson 18

Day 355:
15 minutes Kwiziq
45 minutes reading Miss Peregrine et les enfants particuliers (16 pages)

Day 356:
30 minutes reading Miss Peregrine et les enfants particuliers (11 pages)

Well, winter break has started with a cold. Luckily, it seems to be a rare mild cold. (I can tell because my usual colds start awful and stay awful for a very long time, whereas this one has just been a sore throat for several days. This has happened to me once before and it never got any worse and didn't last too long, so one can hope this is the same thing.)

[Lianne]

Day 357:
55 minutes Kwiziq

Day 358:
45 minutes Kwiziq

Day 359 (the 1st Day of Christmas!):
30 minutes Kwiziq (got to 77.73% of A2)

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season! My cold has gotten better (though it's been kind of on and off), but the overstimulation of holiday get-togethers has left me frazzled, to say the least. And then I went Boxing Day shopping today! Not a thing I usually do, but I had some specific sales I wanted to check out. I actually bought quite a bit. So now I'm recovering with caffeine and a cozy blanket. Hopefully the rest of my winter break will consist mainly of reading, watching cheesy Netflix Christmas movies, sleeping, and working on my French. And playing my new ukulele.

[Lianne]

Will you do another log like this next year? Do you plan to take the Dialang French test soon?

Yes and yes! I've been debating whether to just continue this log, but I think I prefer having logs for distinct chunks of time. So I will probably do a 2020 log.

As for the Dialang test, I will do that some time in the next few days, as soon as I am feeling better mentally. Right now everything is sort of fuzzy around the edges, so I don't think I would do my best work. I can't wait to see if I've moved up!

[Lianne]

Day 360:
1 hour, 23 minutes Kwiziq

Day 361:
30 minutes Kwiziq (got to 82.82% of A2 and 23% of B1)

Day 362:
1 hour Pimsleur French V, lessons 19 and 20

My Kwiziq premium month runs out at the end of this week! I think I've made excellent use of that time. Once I got the A2 stuff up into the 80s, with all topics read and just being improved upon, I decided to switch over to the B1 section to make sure I get through a lot of it before my time is up. Actually B1 is like half the size of A2 so it goes refreshingly quickly! I'd love to get A2 and B1 up to 100% by the end of the week, but we'll see. I'm done with family events and have the second half of winter break to myself. But also, my "brief cold" keeps flaring up again, probably due to the stresses of holiday get-togethers.

I also started the Dialang test a little while ago. I can't do it all in one sitting, but I've done two of the five sections so far. I'll finish either later tonight or tomorrow, and then post the results and the comparisons to my January test.

[Lianne]

OK. This is not yet my final 2019 post, but I just finished the Dialang test! So I wanted to do a post just on that and comparing to my results in January of this year. Here's what I wrote just short of a year ago:

Last night and this morning I did the Dialang French tests. There seem to be mixed opinions about those tests' accuracy here, but I figured regardless of how accurate it was, it would be useful to compare my scores at the beginning and end (and maybe middle) of my year of daily French, to measure my progress. Here are the scores I got:

Listening: B1
Writing: B1
Reading: C1
Structures: B1
Vocabulary: A2

Overall, these scores seem generous, particularly that C1 in reading! On all of the self assessments (where it asks you yes/no questions about your perception of your abilities in various circumstances) I got estimates of A2, so Dialang thinks I underestimate my abilities. That's probably true, but I still think the tests overestimated them. I feel like a lot of that is just the nature of a mainly multiple choice test that isn't being graded by a human.

Anyway, we'll see how my scores compare down the line!

And now (drum roll please) my results today!

Listening: B2
Writing: B1
Reading: C2
Structures: B2
Vocabulary: B2

Interesting! Everything went up except for Writing. On the one hand, I don't actually write, like, ever, so that's fair. But on the other hand, I've put a LOT of time into Duolingo and more recently Kwiziq, working on grammar, and therefore "writing" sentences. Ah well. And my previously lowest score, Vocabulary, jumped up two levels, which is nice. But C2 in reading... HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Dialang. You're adorable.

My self-assessments for Writing and Reading remained at A2, as last time. (I don't really think I'm only A2 in reading; I guess it's just certain specific contexts that are dragging my self-assessment down on this one.) My self-assessment for Listening went up to B1. So Dialang continues to think I'm better than I think I am.

[Lianne]

Day 363:
at least 1 hour doing Dialang tests: Listening and Writing (it was hard ok so I'm allowed to count this!)
20 minutes reading Miss Peregrine et les enfants particuliers (6 pages)

Day 364:
30 minutes reading Miss Peregrine et les enfants particuliers (10 pages)

Day 365:
at least 1 hour doing Dialang tests: Reading, Structures, Vocabulary
25 minutes Kwiziq (got to 30.29% of B1)

And with that, I have studied French every single day for one whole year!! I have learned so much this year, not only about French but also about study habits and learning methods. I look forward to continuing on in 2020 and making some great progress in the coming year!

Regarding the Super Challenge: I didn't actually start on the Super Challenge until one year ago. So, I would have been satisfied with a half challenge completed, since I was only working on it for a little over half the time. Sadly, I didn't quite make it with the books. I finished with 35.7 books (1785 pages) and 67.7 films (101.55 hours). I'm still proud of what I accomplished. And the 2020-21 Super Challenge will be the one where I finish, for real this time!

[badger]

well done on your Dialang results, sounds like you're making good progress. I took the test again & in spite of having done another six months' study, according to the results I seem to be regressing!

[lavengro]

And with that, I have studied French every single day for one whole year!!

Congratulations Lianne!

It has been a pleasure following your log, commitment and progress.