I'm aliiiiiiiive!
No, but seriously, I finally felt 100% healthy again by Sunday so I've spent the beginning of the week pushing myself to run a little (my half marathon is on the 24th (!!) so I'm doing a trial at the gym to make sure I go) and I'm feeling ready to add language learning back into my schedule in a more structured way.
However, since we're now almost two-and-a-half months into the new year, I've had a look back at what I've been doing. The 365-day language challenge has been working really well for me. Sure, some days I'm only watching TV, but I have literally come into contact with Mandarin for at least 30 minutes every day so far. I can feel the difference, too—even when I'm not
studying studying, I'm still picking up words and phrases and getting used to the rhythms of the language.
On the other hand, some of my languages are getting a lot of neglect. In particular,
Basque and
Polish.
I've barely studied either language all year and I'm not really finding that I'm making time for them. I do like them both though, so I'm not
dropping either language, per se, they're just going to be put away for a while and I'll take them out and dust them off when I fancy a change of pace.
...There is another reason behind this decision, though. I really,
really want to take part in iguanamon's FLC again. I went too hard too fast last time; I chose two languages that were pretty much unrelated to anything I'd learnt before and burnt out suuuuuuper quick. But I've been thinking about this round for a while, and I think I'm going to go with... *drumroll*
French!Now, I wouldn't be starting this as a complete beginner; I took GCSE French about... twelve (?) years ago now, but I haven't touched the language since. I know I remember basic words ('hello' 'please' 'thank you') and some basic constructions (like simple sentences, not that I can remember conjugation), but I don't think it's anything too excessive and I'd definitely label myself a false beginner.
So I'm gonna go ahead and join in with that.
I'll start tomorrow (14th March) since it's almost midnight here anyhow and hopefully, by November I'll have muddled my way through enough that I can hold a conversation? Maybe? We'll see.
No goals for this week; I'm going to cobble together some FLC resources and start working on that and see how I distribute my time over my other languages now I've set two of them aside. Hopefully it'll be a little more even!