Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German, Italian)

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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Mar 17, 2019 5:17 pm

ロータス wrote:I'm doing this right now with Sejong, HTSK and TTMIK and so far have enjoyed it. I think the reason I haven't dropped it like in the past is because I only create cards for a few chapters then stop to just go through the deck. I just finished Ch7 cards yesterday and unsuspended Ch8 cards today. Be careful with English translation of sentences. I always felt like I wasn't really learning the grammar when I put Eng sentence on flashcards so moved to just adding notes to the back of my cards. Notes are for new words and grammar on the card. Do you add the audio to your cards as well? I put audio with the KR sentences and it is really helping with my 'silent reading' and pronunciation.

Yeah, I'm hoping because it's pretty simple to just copy sentences into Anki, and I'll only be adding a couple that I find useful each time I work with HTSK, TTMIK, or KFZ, that it won't be too time-intensive. I'll keep that in mind about the grammar! I'm definitely more focused on using it for exposure to vocab than grammar at the moment anyways. I haven't been adding any audio because I've been too lazy. :lol: I'm sure adding the audio would help. I'll look into including audio and see if I feel like it would take too much time.

ロータス wrote:Also on your Spanish and French, which do you feel was the easiest/quickest to start read in? I know your languages are at different levels but maybe you can remember how it was reading your first book/novel for each language. I would like to learn one non-Asian language in my lifetime and it has come down to these two. Mostly looking for a language that I can Assimil and then jump straight in to reading lol. And a language that has plenty to read online (besides news articles).

Spanish definitely was easier for me, but that's in part due to the order I learned French and Spanish. I had taken French for 5 years in school before I started Spanish, so I had the benefit of knowing a bunch of Spanish-French cognates in addition to Spanish-English and grammar structures that are similar between them, which I didn't have when I started French. My biggest hurdle when I started reading books in Spanish was that I was still incredibly shaky on verbs, so a lot of the time I wouldn't recognize a verb I should've known just because I wasn't familiar with the conjugation. That being said, I do think there are more Spanish-English cognates than French-English cognates (although I haven't actually checked, so I could be wrong about that, but it's been my impression) which helps a lot with reading Spanish. I think I would have found Spanish a bit easier even if I hadn't already had a background in French, but I wouldn't say there's a vast difference between them. I do know a lot of people struggle with French spelling and matching the sound of French to the written words. I have never had much trouble with that myself for some reason, but that's something to keep in mind. I'd say Spanish is probably a bit easier overall.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:00 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 5-9
-Spanish newspapers: 6 articles
-Isabel: episodes 35-37
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: unit 19
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 12
-Duolingo: 340 -> 348 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: nothing

French
-Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix: chapters 27-28
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episode 32
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: unit 32
-FSI French Phonology: nothing
-Memrise: 7/7 days (1600/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 204 -> 205 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started units 1.5-1.6
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (261/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 1.18-1.20
-Talk to Me in Korean Memrise: 7/7 days (164/171 items)
-Korean from Zero: lesson 2, part of lesson 9
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (281/527 items)

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 1.23-1.26

Still spent most of my time watching kdramas this week, but I managed to balance out my languages a little better than last week (including actually getting some things done in French, which I essentially completely ignored last week).

Korean:
I finished Healer (힐러) and Romance Is a Bonus Book (로맨스는 별책부록) last Sunday. I really enjoyed Healer overall, and while it wasn't my absolute favorite of the 5 I've watched in the past 2 weeks, I think it's the one I'd be most likely to recommend to other people since most people could probably find something to enjoy in it — there are good characters, good action, a fairly interesting mystery, good family dynamics, and a nice romance. I enjoyed Romance Is a Bonus Book overall, but I kind of lost interest near the end, I think in part because I had to wait a week for the last 2 episodes. I did really like the characters and the dynamic at the publishing house. I thought the romance was sweet for most of the show, but I got a little bored by it near the end. It was still a cute show overall, though.

After finishing those, I started on Thirty but Seventeen (서른이지만 열일곱입니다). I wasn't super into it for the first few episodes, but it ended up possibly being my favorite by the end. I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone else because there are a lot of things that frustrated me about it, especially early on (there are so many occasions of characters almost meeting or almost finding something out but some silly contrivance preventing it, and while I expect a certain amount of that in romance stories, it got to be too much), and it took me a long time to care about any of the secondary characters, but I grew to really adore the two main characters, and they had my favorite romance of all the shows I've watched.

Finally, I started Suspicious Partner (수상한 파트너), which I haven't finished yet. It's definitely my least favorite of everything I've watched. It's half legal drama, half romantic comedy, and I like it well enough, but I don't feel as invested in the characters, relationships, or story as the other shows I've watched. I definitely enjoy it enough to finish it, but it's the only show I've watched over the past couple weeks that I haven't really gotten sucked into.

I didn't list the kdramas I've been watching above since I've been watching them with English subtitles, but I do feel like I've been picking up some things while watching them. I certainly wouldn't claim that what I've been doing is the most efficient way to learn, but it definitely is enjoyable. It's easiest with the shows that have Korean subtitles in addition to English on viki, which not all of the ones I mentioned have. Healer has both, but the Korean subtitles are a second or two delayed, which makes it hard to match up the English to the Korean. Thirty but Seventeen has Korean subtitles for roughly half the episodes. One of the good things about Suspicious Partner is that it does appear to have both Korean and English for all the episodes and the timing matches, so I've been noticing a bit more progress with that show. There are usually a handful of words specific to the topic of each show that are repeated enough that I can pick them up, like 변호사 (attorney) for Suspicious Partner, but they've been better for reinforcing vocabulary and grammar I've already learned. I already feel like I've been recognizing more vocab/grammar in the past day or two than I was just a week ago. I'm sure I'd learn even more if I paused after each line and looked more carefully at each sentence, but the primary purpose of all this kdrama watching has been enjoyment, and anything I learn from it is just a bonus at the moment. I'll work more intensively with kdramas in the future.

Over the past couple weeks, I've also been working through learning both the native Korean and Sino-Korean numbers, which I mostly have down, so I went back to lesson 2 of KFZ which was on the numbers and completed it. I also got through the HTSK units on regular conjugations for the different honorific forms, so I've been working on noticing which form is used by different characters and when in Suspicious Partner.

Spanish:
Despite saying I wanted to finish Isabel this week, once again that did not happen. I only have two episodes left, though, so this week for sure. After that, I'm not sure yet what I want to watch. I had been thinking of maybe taking a break for a week or two and using that time to do some Estoy vivo translations since I really haven't been doing that at all the past few weeks. I've also been thinking about rewatching Elite and working more intensively with it by watching each scene without subtitles, with Spanish subtitles, and then without again. I enjoyed the show a lot when I watched it last fall and had been wanting to rewatch it, it's a pretty short season so it wouldn't take to long to get through, and it was one of the shows I struggled with comprehension the most, so I'd like to see how much I've progressed since last fall and if I can improve my comprehension by working more intensively with it.

I'm still enjoying Ladrones de libertad so far, although it probably looks like I've made a lot more progress than I actually have. The chapters are often only 5-10 pages (compared to the Harry Potter chapters, which are usually around 25 pages), so I actually probably did a bit more reading with HP in French this week than Ladrones de libertad, despite getting through fewer chapters of HP.

French:
I haven't been feeling as motivated with French the past couple weeks, which I think is for a couple reasons. The first is my choice of show/book. I like Buffy a lot, but I've already watched it so many times that I don't have the urge to keep watching to find out what happens next. Even with something like Isabel, which I've been enjoying less than Buffy, I've been able to find more motivation to get through it because I want to be able to move on to something else already, but I don't have that same feeling with Buffy. It's the same case with HP5 — I've read it so many times that I know what happens, so I don't feel a strong push to keep reading. Once I finish HP5, I'll switch to a book originally written in French that I haven't previously read, so hopefully that'll motivate me a bit more. The other issue I've been having is just that I had been making pretty quick improvements in French due to being a false beginner as things started coming back to me, but that's leveled off a bit, so now I'm at a point where I'm making much more gradual progress. My progress in Spanish is also very slow at the moment, but my comprehension is a lot higher, so I'm at least able to enjoy it more. I'm not quite at that point with French yet, so I'm struggling a bit more without seeing much improvement.

I don't really need any solutions to my French motivation issues — the above is more just me trying to work out what my feelings are. I'm in no danger of dropping French, and it's not like I didn't know that progress would be slow considering the number of languages I'm working on at once. I think I'll feel more motivated once I get through HP5 and have something new to read in French, and with enough time, my comprehension will improve, which will also help. I just need to make sure that I'm still spending a decent amount of time on French and not skipping it to watch kdramas instead, because that definitely isn't going to improve my French any!


I'm not sure how much I'm going to have time to spend with languages this week. I'm getting over a cold which means I don't have a lot of energy for anything at the moment, and I have family visiting next weekend, which means a lot of time spent on various errands and chores to prepare for that. My absolute minimum goal is to finally finish Isabel, which shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:39 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 10-13
-Spanish newspapers: 4 articles
-Isabel: episodes 38-39 (done!)
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: part of unit 20
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: part of unit 12
-Duolingo: 348 -> 358 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: ~30 min of ep 15

French
-Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix: chapter 29
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 33-34
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 33-34
-FSI French Phonology: nothing
-Memrise: 7/7 days (1749/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 205 -> 209 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1.7
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 6/7 days (310/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 1.22-1.24
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (171/171 items)
-Korean from Zero: lessons 9-10
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (327/527 items)

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.1-2.4

Like I mentioned last week, I have family visiting right now, so I didn't have as much time to spend on languages as I'd like, but I still got a good amount done (although French continues to be neglected a bit, unfortunately).

Spanish:
I finally managed to finish Isabel this week! I should probably clarify that despite being kind of negative when talking about it recently, I don't think it's a terrible show or anything. I did really enjoy the first season; I think I lost interest once Isabel had gained power and was no longer in the position of being an underdog. And I get that it's based on history so it's not like I think they should've changed things so she didn't become queen, or anything like that, but it just means that seasons 2-3 weren't for me. I do think there are things to recommend it. The acting is pretty good (I like the two main actors a lot). It's also easier to understand than shows like La casa de papel or Elite due to the lack of slang; I'd say it's around the level of Gran hotel, maybe? By the end my comprehension was around 90-95%. It's also a great show to watch if you want more exposure to vosotros conjugations, because it's used a lot. I'm not sorry that I watched it, but I'm definitely glad to be done with it, and I'm ready to move on. I'm still debating what I want to do next for listening, like I mentioned last week. I definitely want to spend a little more time on Estoy vivo translations (and I did make more progress on those this past week). I do think I want to try to start rewatching Elite and work with the episodes more intensively, with and without subtitles. I think I'm just going to play it by ear this week and see what I feel like doing.

Korean:
I feel like I'm just repeating what I've said about Korean the past few weeks, but oh well: not surprisingly, I spent a good amount of time watching kdramas again this week! First, I finished Suspicious Partner (수상한 파트너). I liked it well enough, but not to the extent of the other shows I had watched. After I finished it, I started Just Between Lovers (그냥 사랑하는 사이), and I'm really enjoying it. It reminds me a bit of Thirty but Seventeen (서른이지만 열일곱입니다) in terms of some of the plot points (two people who met as teens being involved in a tragic accident and the show focusing on them dealing with the aftermath and meeting again as adults and trying to confront their past), but it is a bit more subdued/serious/melancholic; there are fewer attempts at humor (which was one of the things I struggled a bit with at the start of Thirty but Seventeen) and goofy side characters. That being said, I don't like it as much as Thirty but Seventeen, but I still am enjoying it a lot.

Watching kdramas has continued to be very motivating for me. I'll notice a word/grammar point in the Korean subtitles that I recognize which will make me feel good, then I'll come to another sentence that I can't figure out at all, which just motivates me to make more progress with TTMIK/KFZ/HTSK, since I'm still at such an elementary level that every new thing I learn opens up a whole world of things I can suddenly understand. Really, I've just been having a lot of fun with Korean these past few weeks, which I think was missing the first month or so of starting Korean. I was a bit hesitant with Korean because my reasons for learning it were based on wanting to learn it as a teenager even though I have no practical use for it now, and I think there was also a part of me that secretly believed I was incapable of learning a language so dissimilar to English (even though I generally believe that anyone can learn any language to a comfortable level if they're willing to put in the time/effort). But as I understand more and more, I start feeling like maybe I am actually capable of getting to a level where I'd be able to watch or read things comfortably in Korean (not anytime soon, but someday).

So since I've been feeling especially motivated with Korean recently, I added a couple things this week. First, I downloaded Evita's Korean Sentence Deck. It's nice that most of the sentences have audio (which I've still been too lazy to add to my own Anki sentence deck even though I know it wouldn't take too much time), and I feel like any extra exposure to Korean sentence right now is beneficial for me. If I get to a point in the deck where I'm getting introduced to sentences with grammar that I haven't gotten to yet, then I'll probably set news cards to 0 per day for a little while until I get caught up. But so far I've been having fun using it. I also have been taking Viki's Drama Vocab quiz which I had seen AndyMeg post about before. It's quick and fun to take. I've been trying to take it at least once a day. I plan on keeping track of the percentage of words in dramas it thinks I know and the number of easy, medium, and hard questions I get right, and see if those gradually improve. At the moment, on average it thinks I know about 18% of the words in kdramas, with my best score being 39% and worst being 4%. The number of easy words I get right has ranged from 6 to 10 (average of 9), although the end of last week it was almost always 9 or 10. For medium, I've gotten 1 to 7 correct (2.6 on average), and hard 0 to 4 (1.4 on average). I probably won't post about it every week here, but I think it'll be fun in a couple months to compare where I am with where I started off.


Anyways, I'm probably going to take it a bit easy this week because I had almost no downtime the past few days, and I need to recharge a bit before I have enough mental energy to devote to anything. But it's a safe bet that this week will involve more kdramas, at least!
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Apr 01, 2019 9:54 pm

brokenrecord wrote:German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.1-2.4

Do you just listen to the audio, or do you download the PDFs too?
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Mon Apr 01, 2019 10:23 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
brokenrecord wrote:German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.1-2.4

Do you just listen to the audio, or do you download the PDFs too?

I just listen to the audio. My goal with German right now is simply to refresh my passive knowledge but not spend too much time on it, and just listening to the audio is enough for that purpose.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Apr 07, 2019 1:51 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapter 14
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: unit 20
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 12
-Duolingo: 358 -> 376 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: finished ep 15, ~55 min of ep 16

French
-Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix: chapter 30
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 35-36
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 35-36
-FSI French Phonology: unit 7 part 1
-Memrise: 7/7 days (1900/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 209 -> 216 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: most of unit 1.7
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (359/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 1.24
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (171/171 items)
-Korean from Zero: part of lesson 11
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (367/527 items)
-Anki: My sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.5-2.8

So I took it easy at the start of the week, but I started missing Spanish and got back to my normal routine in the second half of the week, resulting in me getting a decent amount done. This week my goal is to try to get back to my normal routine.

Spanish:
I decided rather than split my attention between Estoy vivo translations and working with Elite intensively to instead just focus on getting the Estoy vivo translations done for now. Then I can try working with Elite, unless there's some other new Spanish show on Netflix or wherever that I'm eager to watch.

French:
I've still been slacking a bit with French compared to Spanish/Korean, but I did manage to do a little FSI French Phonology, which is a success. I think I'm going to try to focus on finishing it over the next few weeks and then try to do the same with FSI Basic Spanish. I only have 3.5 units to finish with FSI French Phonology, which shouldn't be too challenging to finish. (FSI Basic Spanish is a different story, but I refuse to abandon it.)

Korean:
More kdramas this week, of course. I finished Just Between Lovers (그냥 사랑하는 사이), which I did like a lot overall, but I started getting a little tired of it near the end, I think in large part because there was a bit too much melodrama and lack of communication for my taste. After that, I started Chicago Typewriter (시카고 타자기), which is really excellent; I still have a few episodes left to watch, but assuming it keeps the consistency, it'll shoot to the top tier of kdramas for me. It's a bit different from the other things I've been watching — it mixes fantasy (ghosts/past lives) with historical elements (flashbacks to the 1930s Japanese occupation of Korea) and a little mystery/action, and it has really interesting characters, friendships, and a nice romance. The one negative is just that there are only Korean subtitles for the first two episodes, which means I haven't been picking up as much vocab/grammar from the show as with ones that have both English and Korean subtitles, but for entertainment purposes, it's great.

I also have been doing slightly better with pacing myself, in part because I'm enjoying the show so much that I want to savor the experience. But I've also been trying to do something language-related between each episode, like reading 5 pages of HP5, or translating 5 minutes of Estoy vivo, or other things like that, so I'm not just bingeing episodes without doing anything else. I'm going to keep trying to do that this week. Some day I'll get tired of kdramas and focus my attention elsewhere, but until that day, this seems like the best plan for me.

In terms of learning Korean (as opposed to just bingeing kdramas), things are pretty much the same. I don't feel as frustrated with vocab as I did a month or two ago. I'm really enjoying using both Anki sentence decks, and I think they're helping a lot.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Apr 14, 2019 1:49 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 15-20
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: unit 21
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 13
-Duolingo: 376 -> 396 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: episodes 16-17

French
-Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix: chapters 31-34
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 37-40
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 37-38
-FSI French Phonology: units 7.2-8.1
-Memrise: 7/7 days (2049/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 216 -> 238 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: unit 1.7
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (412/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 1.25-1.26
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (171/171 items)
-Korean from Zero: lesson 11
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (412/527 items)
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.8-2.13

Spanish:
The Spanish tree on Duolingo got updated a couple weeks ago, and I'm finally getting to the new lessons, and unfortunately I'm finding it really frustrating since there are a lot of alternate translations that should be accepted but aren't. The worst was getting to the introduction of the imperfect, because most of the time it'll allow translating something like, "Mis padres siempre me visitaban en enero," as "My parents visited me in January," but sometimes it won't, and it usually wants "My parents use to visit me in January," which just sounds wrong to me. It'll usually be okay with, "My parents used to visit me in January," but occasionally it won't. I started doing "use to" just so it would stop marking me wrong even though it sounded wrong to me, but then there were some occasions where it would only accept "used to." It's incredibly annoying. Besides that, I was on pace to finish the tree sometime this year, but with the next lessons, I feel like I never will. I still plan on finishing the tree, and despite those complaints, it's generally good Spanish practice for me, but it is a little frustrating.

French:
Duolingo also updated the French tree this week, and I have different frustrations about the French tree. With Spanish, it seemed like lessons were mostly added in the middle of the tree, but here I think they redid a bunch of the early lessons, so I've had to go back to the very basics and go through lessons on translating "bonjour," and "très bien," which get really boring really quickly. The French tree seems even further away from me ever finishing it. I've been trying to make an extra push with both the Spanish and French trees to do more lessons than I normally would a day so I can get through them already (especially with French, at the very least least I'd like to get back to more advanced vocab/grammar).

This past week, I realized I wasn't too far away from finishing Harry Potter, and I've been itching to jump to a new book in French, so I determined how much I'd need to read per day to finish by the end of this coming week, and I've been sticking to it so far. I only have 4 chapters left, which is around 87 pages, and that shouldn't be too hard to get through this week. I'm very excited to finally be able to move on to a new book since I've been reading this one since last fall.

I've also been making a concerted effort with FSI French Phonology. I'm pretty close to being done with that as well (I have 2.5 units left), and at the rate I'm going, I should finish in the next few weeks. After that, I'll try to turn my attention back to completing FSI Basic Spanish, but I think it's a bit much to try to get through both at the same time.

Korean:
I finished TTMIK level 1 this week! I like that they have a dialogue at the end for practice, and I definitely struggled with it. I listened to it twice through without looking at the transcript, then read through the transcript, and then listened to it again, and my comprehension did improve each time, but my listening comprehension is definitely really weak right now. Which isn't surprising since I've been doing essentially nothing to work on it. I'm not too worried about it at the moment — I am getting some practice through all the kdrama watching (even though it's with subtitles) and TTMIK and the audio on Evita's sentence deck, and I plan on doing more focused work on listening at some point in the future, when I have a stronger grasp of vocabulary/grammar. I was pleased to find that I was able to read through the transcript without much trouble.

This week was fairly light on kdramas compared to the past couple months. I finished Chicago Typewriter (시카고 타자기), which I absolutely loved, and it's definitely one I'll want to rewatch in the future. After I finished that, I started Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (역도요정 김복주) because it has a really high rating on viki and I saw a lot of reviews of people saying it was really lighthearted and fun. Unfortunately, 5 episodes in, I'm not a huge fan of it. It's definitely my least favorite thing I've watched so far. I don't like the lead actress's acting very much, I find it really hard to buy her as a weightlifter, the lead male character is kind of a jerk to her, and there are some other things about the plot having to do with the main female character's weight which I'm also not a huge fan of. On the plus side, it does have both English and Korean subtitles for all the episodes so far, and some of the reviews I saw did mention it gets better as it goes on. Since it's only 16 episodes total, I do plan on continuing to the end, and it's not like I hate every single thing about it, but there are definitely more things I dislike than any of the other kdramas I've watched. But since I haven't been as into it so far, I haven't been spending all my free time watching it, which I guess is good?
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Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), French (low intermediate), German (low intermediate), Korean (beginner), Italian (beginner)
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:03 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 21-25
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: unit 22
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 14
-Duolingo: 396 -> 409 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: episode 18

French
-Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix: chapters 35-38 (done!)
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 41-42
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: unit 39
-FSI French Phonology: units 8.2-9.1
-Memrise: 7/7 days (2200/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 238 -> 251 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: unit 1.8
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (462/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.1-2.2
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (47/226 items)
-Korean from Zero: lessons 12-13
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (456/527 items)
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.13-2.18

I'm still following the schedule I mentioned a couple months ago of alternating each language as my primary focus for the day, and it's been working out well. It's helped me make sure that I'm not neglecting any language too much for the most part (except for the week or two where I did almost no French because I was too obsessed with whatever kdrama I was watching). There are some days where I only end up focusing on the primary language and don't do anything in the other languages (apart from Anki/Memrise/Duolingo), but it's helped me make sure I have time for other interests so I'm not just spending every spare second on languages. I do sometimes want to make faster progress, but I suppose that's the trade-off for focusing on improving 3 languages (not counting German because of how little time I spend on it) where the most advanced one is intermediate at best. It's not even the rate of progress that really frustrates me as much as I just get a bit tired reading the same book/watching the same show for months and months and would like to get through them sooner so I can move on to something else.

French:
I finally finished Harry Potter 5! I've been reading it since November at least, and while I enjoy the series and that book in particular, I've been ready to move on to something else for awhile now. That being said, my reading level in French has definitely improved since I started it, and particularly the last 200 pages or so I felt were much easier to read. I'm leaving Harry Potter behind for French at the moment (I will probably end up reading the sixth book in German, but I'm going to take a break from the series for at least a few weeks), and I plan on starting the Autre-Monde series by Maxime Chattam. I saw it mentioned by both Cavesa and zjones several months back and I had noted it as something to check out whenever I finally finished Harry Potter. It's YA fantasy, which is obviously a genre I enjoy, it should be around my level, and it'll be good to read something that was originally written in French that I haven't read before. Hopefully I enjoy it!

Korean:
I finished Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (역도요정 김복주) this week. I did end up liking it a lot more after the first 5 or so episodes. There were still some things that annoyed me, but overall I enjoyed it. It's still one of my least favorite kdramas I've watched (though that's not saying much considering how much I've enjoyed almost all the other ones). After that, I started Touch Your Heart (진심이 닿다), which I've really been loving. It's just incredibly light-hearted and sweet, which is exactly what I wanted, and it has both English and Korean subtitles, which is the helpful to me for picking up vocab or reinforcing vocab/grammar I've already been introduced to.

I've gotten to a point where I'm noticing some small errors in KFZ, which is a little annoying. A couple weeks ago, I found a sentence where 이월 was translated as January instead of February, and this past week, I came across a sentence with 친구 translated as teacher instead of friend. It's not a big deal, but it does make me wonder how many mistakes there are that I'm not advanced enough to notice. I guess this is why it's good to learn from multiple sources!

I'm getting close to finishing KFZ (although I'm probably still a month or two away) and I'm starting to think about what my next steps will be when I'm done with it, since I always love planning my language learning months in advance. When I started learning Korean, I didn't want to use any sources that cost money because I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit to learning Korean long-term, but I've really been enjoying the language, and I'm obviously completely addicted to kdramas at this point (and having books/TV I want to watch in a target language is pretty much the number one way to motivate me), so I think I'm ready to move beyond free resources. I'm still not 100% sure what my next steps are going to be, though. I like KFZ, but the reviews for the second and third books are less positive than the first one. I do want to use Korean Grammar in Use for Beginners (in fact, I've already purchased it, and it should arrive this week) now that I have some of the basics down, so I'm considering working through that next. I've thought about going through the online materials for KFZ books 2 and 3 for introductions to new grammar concepts while using the KGIU book for practice. I've also considered going back to the Sejong Hakdang books for additional practice. I've looked at the Ewha and Integrated Korean books, but I'm not sure about them. I'm trying to resist the urge to add as many resources as possible, because while I do like learning from multiple resources, there is a limit, and I'll never make any progress if I'm trying to get through 5 different books at once. In any case, I have several weeks to figure out my next steps.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Apr 21, 2019 5:32 pm

ロータス wrote:I think I said this before but if you do Sejong, be sure to check out the KR workbooks instead of the ENG version. I feel like you get more practice creating sentences with the KR version than ENG. Between Ewha or Integrated Korean, I would pick IK.

Thanks for your advice! I'll keep that in mind about the Sejong workbooks. I do like how the Integrated Korean book looks from the preview on Amazon, although there's no preview for the Ewha books, so I can't compare them. IK might be nice, though, because I could supplement it with the videos from Professor Yoon that suko linked me to before.

ロータス wrote:Random question but what does you Spanish deck look like? Just vocab or sentences? Do you add to is as you go along or it is a premade deck?

The one I'm working on right now is a premade deck for the 5000 most common Spanish words (it has both EN->ES and ES->EN so it's really around 10000 cards). It doesn't have sentences, just the word in English and Spanish and a picture. I honestly don't know how useful it is for me at this point since very few of the words are completely new to me, but I've been using it for so long that I just want to finish it already. I experimented a bit with making my own decks last year. I had one where anytime I'd come across a word I wanted to remember, I'd copy the sentence with the definition of the word on the back. I abandoned it because it felt like I was spending too much time on Anki, and I wanted to finish this premade deck first. When I finish this deck, I plan on going back to making my own deck where I add on words/sentences as I come across them, but I haven't figured out exactly how I want to format it yet.

ロータス wrote:Also have you noticed a big change in the French Duolingo tree after the change to A1-A2? Such as the sentences being better or about the same as before.

I haven't noticed a huge difference in sentence quality, but since the change, I've had to go back to the beginning of the tree, and the sentences in the early lessons are always pretty basic. It's also been awhile since I started the French tree, so it's hard to remember what it used to be like. I noticed they did add some listening where they give you just a syllable and you're supposed to match it to the written French, which I think is kind of a nice feature since it can take some getting used to the differences between how French is spelled and how it sounds.
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Re: Michelle's 2019 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:20 pm

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 26-33
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses: units 23-25
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: part of unit 15
-Duolingo: 409 -> 424 crowns (7/7 days)
-Estoy vivo translations: episodes 19-21

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 1-5
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 43-46
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: half of unit 40
-FSI French Phonology: units 9.2-10.1
-Memrise: 7/7 days (2349/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 251 -> 267 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: unit 1.9
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (510/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.3-2.5
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (91/226 items)
-Korean from Zero: lesson 14
-Korean from Zero Memrise: 7/7 days (518/527 items)
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 2.19-2.23

Spanish:
I'm one unit away from finishing Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses, which I'm very happy about. I bought it probably around 3 years ago at least, so it'll be really satisfying to finally finish it. Once I'm done, I'll switch to focusing solely on Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish before adding anything new.

I made good progress with the Estoy vivo translations this week. I'm trying to push to get through them because I've been itching to start watching something new in Spanish, but I've been using my normal Spanish listening time for this. I do enjoy doing it, and I do think it's beneficial (and it's striking how much easier it is for me to do the translations now than it was when I first started them), but it's kind of like what I mentioned last week about getting a bit tired of the same routine and wanting to switch things up. If I continue at this pace, though, I should be done within the next two weeks, and then I can move on, so that's my goal.

French:
I started L'Alliance des trois this week. I like it so far. I didn't really know much about the plot before starting it, so it's been fun to see how things develop. For some reason I expected it to be more difficult than Harry Potter, I guess since it's not a story I'm already familiar with and it's not a translation, but I've found it to be around the same level, maybe slightly easier (there are fewer long descriptions about feasts or things like that, which in HP would normally include a lot of descriptive, lower frequency words).

I'm starting to get close to finishing Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire. I still have a ways to go with it (probably at least another few months until I'm done), but the end's in sight, meaning I got an itch to start figuring out what I want to replace it with when I'm done. I do want to go on to the other Grammaire Progressive books, but I've decided to take a break after this one and complete Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses first since it was helpful for me with conjugation in Spanish, and I think it makes sense to finish that before moving on to more advanced grammar with the other Grammaire Progressive books. I know that the Spanish Verb Tenses book was more helpful/challenging before I started GdUdE B1-B2 than when I finished it, and I do kind of wish I had finished Verb Tenses before going ahead with GdUdE B1-B2, so I'm basing this decision on that experience. I've already bought the French Verb Tenses book, and I've had to stop myself from rushing ahead and starting it. I'm trying very hard to just focus on one thing at a time, as much as the shiny newness of the Verb Tenses book might call to me.

Korean:
My drama watching dropped off a bit this week because there were some English-language books I had been meaning to read that I hadn't made time for, so I focused on those in the spare time that I'd normally devote to kdramas this week. I did finish the last two episodes of Touch Your Heart (진심이 닿다), and it's definitely one of my favorite kdramas I've watched. It's basically just a fluffy, sweet, romantic comedy, and it was a lot of fun to watch. I started on Fight My Way (쌈, 마이웨이), but I'm only a couple episodes in. I am enjoying it a lot so far, though, and it's had both English and Korean subtitles, which is nice.

I'm getting close to finishing both KFZ and the Memrise vocab course for it. I did receive Korean Grammar in Use Beginning this week, and I'm really excited to use it, but after flipping through it, I do think it might make more sense to jump to Integrated Korean first and then do KGIU. For vocab, I've decided to replace the KFZ Memrise course with Evita's Vocab Deck. Also, originally I had skipped past the vocab for the first couple lessons of KFZ because they were mostly set phrases, and I always struggle to memorize set phrases if I don't understand the grammar/vocab involved. But now that I'm almost done with KFZ, I went back and have been learning those phrases, and it really is so much easier to learn phrases when you understand how they work. I get why courses like KFZ introduce these phrases so early on, because people want to be able to communicate right off the bat, and they're things that are commonly said, but since communicating is not my primary purpose at the moment, it didn't make sense for those to be some of the first things I learned. Now that I have a little knowledge of Korean, it's so much easier to remember them because I actually understand what they mean and why they're constructed as they are.
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