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

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 49-52
-Spanish newspapers: 4 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: part of unit 18
-Duolingo: 476 -> 483 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: nothing
-Alta mar: episodes 3-8 (done!)

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 18-21
-French newspapers: 4 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 55-58
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 41-42
-Memrise: 7/7 days (3021/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 320 -> 327 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: part of unit 1 lesson 11
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (626/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.13-2.14
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean: started chapter 1
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Fight My Way (쌈, 마이웨이): episodes 14-15

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 4.3-4.7

Pretty much back to normal this week! I feel like every 3-4 months I burn out on language learning, but after taking a break for around 3-4 weeks, I feel refreshed enough to get back to things. So I guess you should expect me to need another break around September or October?

I think part of my language burn-out the past month was a bit of an SRS burn-out, but I'm planning on making some slight changes with all the Korean SRS-ing I'm doing that should help. Getting through all the new cards in my Spanish Anki deck has already helped, and I'll stop with the reviews once all cards are mature (I only have 32 cards that aren't mature yet, so it shouldn't be too much longer). I had finished the KFZ deck on Memrise a little while ago, and while I continued with reviews as I finished the course, those have gone down a lot. Now that I've moved on from KFZ to Integrated Korean, I think I'm just going to drop the Memrise deck entirely. I'm also not planning on adding any kind of Integrated Korean vocab SRS. For one thing, the vocab at the beginning is all review, so I don't feel the need to yet. If there's a sentence with an unfamiliar word, I'll probably add it to my Anki sentence deck, but I think that should be enough. I'm getting enough new vocab through HTSK and Evita's vocab deck. For the two Evita decks, I've only been adding 5 new cards per day, and I think I'll stick with that. For the grammar deck specifically, I plan on checking each day if the 5 next cards have grammar I'm already familiar with or if the concepts are completely new. If it's the latter, then I'll hold off on adding those cards until I've been introduced to the grammar elsewhere first, so that should help prevent that deck from becoming too challenging for me.

The biggest change I'm going to make, though, is that I had been adding 7 words per day with my Memrise TTMIK/HTSK decks regardless of the progress I made in the actual courses, which is part of what's made it challenging to keep up with them. I've finished the TTMIK Level 2 Memrise deck despite only being halfway through the actual course, and I'm on the vocab for lesson 15 of the HTSK deck despite only being on lesson 11 of the course. So I'm going to wait until I catch up in the courses before adding any new vocab. Once I get caught up, I'll go back to 7 new words a day, but I won't go on to vocab from the next lesson until I've gotten there in the actual courses. This should hopefully keep reviews from getting too overwhelming and will cut back on the amount of time I'm spending with Memrise every day. I don't want to cut out SRS completely because I do think it's helped a lot with getting Korean vocab/grammar to stick (it's probably less beneficial for French, but it also feels like less of a burden for French), but I think I just need to reach a balance so I don't feel like all my time is being taken by SRS.

Spanish:
I finished Alta mar this week! What I said about it last week still stands — it's not a great show, but it was entertaining enough, and the episodes are fairly short and there aren't too many of them, so it wasn't a challenge to finish the season. It's fairly similar to Gran hotel and Velvet in tone but I didn't like it nearly as much as Gran hotel. If there's a second season, though, I'd probably watch it. My comprehension was pretty good throughout the show — probably around 70-80%. It was also fun that a couple vocab words related to ships that I had picked up from Ladrones de libertad (which is about pirates) like "la tripulación" and "el camarote" popped up on the show (since it's set on a boat), which made me feel like the reading I've been doing has been helpful, even if it doesn't always feel like I'm getting a lot out of it. Now that I'm done with the show, I'm debating whether I should go back to La niña or check out something else. I do plan on going back to La niña at some point and finishing it, but I think I'd like to watch something else first.

Korean:
I'm only one episode away from finishing Fight My Way, finally. It's not a terrible show, and there are things I like which did keep me sticking with it, but there are also things that really annoy me about it, so I'll be happy to move on to something else.

I started Integrated Korean this week. I skipped past finishing the Hangul practice at the beginning because I got a little bored and wanted to go back to doing grammar, so I jumped to the first chapter. It's all review so far, but that's fine. I like how the book is laid out, and the extra practice in the workbook is nice. I bought the answer key for the workbook (it isn't provided with the workbook — it has to be bought separately), but I wish that there were also answers available somewhere for the textbook exercises (unless they are available somewhere and I just haven't found them?). There aren't that many exercises in the textbook so it's not a big deal, but it would be nice to double check my answers. I'm also sprinkling in Professor Yoon's videos as review, although I don't really know that I need the extra review on the concepts that have been introduced so far, so I might hold off on watching more until I get to more challenging concepts.

[eido]

How are you liking Integrated Korean?

For me who wants to eat up Korean like potato chips, I thought the grammar points covered in each book (I ordered "Intermediate 1" and "2") didn't add up to enough to be worth it.

I ended up going with Ewha. The later books are in all Korean, so I thought that would give me a challenge.

Congrats to you for going about Korean in a more systematic fashion than I could muster.

[brokenrecord]

How are you liking Integrated Korean?

For me who wants to eat up Korean like potato chips, I thought the grammar points covered in each book (I ordered "Intermediate 1" and "2") didn't add up to enough to be worth it.

I like it so far, but I've only just started it, and the first chapter is very basic, so it's hard to tell. I'm not sure how much of the grammar will be completely new to me throughout the book, but I tend to like having the same grammar concepts taught to me in different ways, so I don't mind if there isn't a lot that's new. I mostly just enjoy the exercises in Integrated Korean, particularly in the workbook. I was using Korean From Zero before, and I liked how it taught grammar, but there weren't a lot of exercises for practice, so I'm enjoying how much more the Integrated Korean textbook and workbook appear to have. I also have the beginner Korean Grammar in Use that I plan on switching to at some point, but I don't feel quite advanced enough to start it yet. I'm thinking after I finish both of the beginner Integrated Korean books I might be ready to switch over to KGIU.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 53-63
-Spanish newspapers: 10 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 21/21 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 18
-Duolingo: 483 -> 512 crowns (21/21 days)
-La niña: episodes 23-29

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 22-29
-French newspapers: 10 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 59-66
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 43-45
-Memrise: 19/21 days (3428/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 327 -> 357 crowns (21/21 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: unit 1 lesson 11
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 21/21 days (626/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.15-2.17
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 21/21 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 1: chapter 1
-Anki: my sentence deck: 21/21 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 21/21 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 21/21 days
-Fight My Way (쌈, 마이웨이): episode 16
-Her Private Life (그녀의 사생활): episodes 1-4

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 4.8-4.17

I went out of town for the 4th of July holiday here in the U.S. last week and was traveling on the weekends when I'd normally update, so I missed a couple weeks of updates, but I have been making a good amount of progress (except the week where I was gone, where I just stuck to Anki/Memrise/Duolingo).

Spanish:
I think I mentioned in my last post continuing my break from La niña to watch something else, but when I was trying to decide on something to watch, I realized I didn't have the mental energy to start something completely new and wanted to continue with something familiar instead, so I've just stuck with La niña. I also realized that the third season of La casa de papel comes out at the end of this week, and I know I'm going to want to watch that, so I figured I'll switch to that when it becomes available.

I'm getting very close to being done with Ladrones de libertad. I have 4 chapters plus an epilogue, and I usually can get in around 4 chapters a week, so I'll probably put in a little extra effort this week to finish it. I have no idea what I'm going to read next. There's one more book in the same series, and I do enjoy it a lot, but I've been reading this one for so long, and I think I need a bit of a break from YA fantasy books, so I'll probably try to find something else.

French:
Not much to say about French. I've made decent progress with L'alliance des trois and am past the halfway point, but I still have a ways to go. I have grown to like the story more as it's gone on. Overall, my progress with French just feels very slow. I think my comprehension with Buffy has increased a bit, and reading has gotten a bit easier, but there's still plenty I don't understand. This used to be the case with Spanish, though, and I just had to keep reading and watching things in order to progress, so I'm trying not to get too frustrated.

Korean:
I finally finished Fight My Way (쌈, 마이웨이). It wasn't terrible, but it was definitely my least favorite kdrama I've watched, mostly because i just really didn't like the storyline with the secondary couple. I moved on to Her Private Life (그녀의 사생활), which I'm liking so far. It's a light romantic comedy, and it won't be for everyone, but I'm finding it entertaining enough.

I've also managed to get through the first chapter of Integrated Korean. So far it's been entirely review, and really, most of the book looks like it'll be review for me, but I can do with the extra practice.


I'm going on a longer vacation in three weeks, one where I'll likely have almost no time to do anything with languages, so I'm going to try to get as much in as I can for the next few weeks. Maybe I'll even get back to FSI Spanish!

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Ladrones de libertad: chapters 64-68 (done!)
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: nothing
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 19
-Duolingo: 512 -> 526 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: episode 30
-La casa de papel season 3: episodes 1-8 (done!)

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 30-33
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 67-69
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: unit 46
-Memrise: 7/7 days (3577/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 357 -> 372 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1 lesson 12
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (626/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.18-2.19
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean: started chapter 2
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Her Private Life (그녀의 사생활): episodes 5-16 (done!)
-One Spring Night (봄밤): episodes 1-4

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 4.18-4.22

Spanish:
First, I finished Ladrones de libertad this week! I enjoyed it overall. It was very similar in style/tone as the first two books in the series, but spread its focus across more than just two characters and was less romance-focused than the first two. There's one more in this series, with another coming out this fall, I believe. I'll probably end up reading both of them because I do enjoy the series, but I think I need a change of pace, so I'm going to switch to something else this week. I haven't fully decided what yet, but I'm leaning towards La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

I also watched all of season 3 of La casa de papel this week. I thought it was good! I think the first two seasons ended perfectly, so I wouldn't say a third season was really necessary, but it was fun seeing all the characters again, so I found it worth watching (although it does end on a cliffhanger, which is a little frustrating, but it looks like they're shooting a 4th season now, at least). My comprehension was really great from the start, probably around 80-90%. I remember last summer when I started the show for the first time struggling so much more with comprehension, and I was worried I'd struggle a bit here just because I haven't been doing as much listening recently, and the listening I have been doing is to La niña, which is a Colombian show, so the accents are a bit different. Granted, like 95% of all the listening I've done has been to shows from Spain, so I'm certainly more familiar with those accents than any other country, and I was already familiar with most of the main characters' accents from the first two seasons. Still, it makes me feel like I've really improved over the past year, and it's so fun to be able to sit down and watch a show in Spanish for the first time with no subtitles and just be able to enjoy it.

Korean:
I got really sucked into Her Private Life this week and ended up finishing it. It's been awhile since I've binged a kdrama like that, but it was exactly the kind of thing I was in the mood for. I liked the plot in the first half of the show more than the second half (it started falling into some overused kdrama cliches near the end), but I had gotten so attached to the characters that it didn't bother me too much. The best part about getting sucked into kdramas is that it always makes me feel more motivated to learn Korean, which I've been struggling with a bit recently. It's not like I've seriously considered dropping Korean, but every once in awhile I'll get into a mood where I wonder if I'll ever be able to learn Korean to a decent level (just in terms of comprehension — I don't really care about ever getting to a point of being able to speak Korean since it's unlikely for me to have any opportunities to speak Korean to anyone in the future anyways) and I start thinking that learning Korean has been a waste of time. I think I end up feeling this way about Korean and not my other languages because it's a brand new language for me whereas I started learning French about 17 years ago, and while Spanish is more recent, I can already do so much with the language, so even if I never progress further, it won't feel like a waste of time. But it's not like I expected to be a lot further in my knowledge of Korean after just 7 months (and I think it has more to do with my own general self-doubt than anything specific to Korean). In any case, it's nice to feel more motivated towards Korean than I've been feeling recently.

After I finished Her Private Life, I started One Spring Night. I'm actually not sure how much I like it so far, but I'm finding it weirdly addictive. Most of the kdramas I've watched have been on Viki, so I watch with both Korean and English subtitles at the same time and am able to pick up some vocab a bit easier that way, but One Spring Night is on Netflix, so I only have English subtitles up (I'm pretty sure there's a browser extension to add Korean subtitles at the same time, but I haven't felt like looking into it), and I'm finding that I'm able to pick out words pretty well even without having the Korean written in front of me as an aide, which is kind of nice (although obviously having the English subtitles helps with that — with no subtitles, my comprehension would probably be like 5%). As a side note, I've also noticed that I've been getting faster at reading 한글 than I was just a few months ago. When I started learning Korean, I would pronounce each letter separately in my head to get the sound of the syllable, but now I'm able to read by syllable, and I assume with more practice, I'll be able to read words as a whole rather than by syllable.

[an onyme]

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1 lesson 12
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (626/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.18-2.19
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean: started chapter 2
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Her Private Life (그녀의 사생활): episodes 5-16 (done!)
-One Spring Night (봄밤): episodes 1-4

How to Study Korean and Evita's Anki deck? Hello, me from a year ago!

In any case, it's nice to feel more motivated towards Korean than I've been feeling recently.

That is really great, and something you can always return to to remind yourself of your motivations. Fortunately, there are literally enough K-Dramas out there to not be able to watch them all in a single lifetime. I hope that feeling keeps up!

(I'm pretty sure there's a browser extension to add Korean subtitles at the same time, but I haven't felt like looking into it

The lack of customizability of Netflix subtitles is something that bothers me very much. One thing that I can really recommend though is the Audio Description for the Netflix-produced Korean material. The pronunciation is very clear, the register is constant, and the "captions" are essentially what is happening on the screen so it is the perfect material to improve your Listening Comprehension with. I tend to obsess too much over efficiency, so the fact that the Audio Description fills up the "dead time" with even more native audio is a big plus.

[brokenrecord]

That is really great, and something you can always return to to remind yourself of your motivations. Fortunately, there are literally enough K-Dramas out there to not be able to watch them all in a single lifetime. I hope that feeling keeps up!

Thanks! There have been a good number I've watched that I've really loved, and it always pushes me forward with learning Korean when I do. My problem is when I choose a kdrama that I end up being less into. I always feel obligated to finish every kdrama I start since they're only 16-20 episodes maximum typically and tell a complete story, but it ends up taking me so much longer to finish the ones I am less into, and my motivation wanes during that time. I should probably just be more willing to drop ones I'm less into because, as you said, there are always plenty more to check out!

The lack of customizability of Netflix subtitles is something that bothers me very much. One thing that I can really recommend though is the Audio Description for the Netflix-produced Korean material. The pronunciation is very clear, the register is constant, and the "captions" are essentially what is happening on the screen so it is the perfect material to improve your Listening Comprehension with. I tend to obsess too much over efficiency, so the fact that the Audio Description fills up the "dead time" with even more native audio is a big plus.

Yeah, it would be nice if the Netflix subtitles were more flexible. Thanks for the suggestion about audio description! I had seen people mention using it with Spanish shows before, where I don't really need it, but I hadn't considered using it for Korean shows for some reason (maybe because I've watched most of them on Viki -- I think this is only my second kdrama on Netflix). There are definitely a lot of moments in One Spring Night without dialogue where it would be beneficial. I'll try it out and see how I like it!

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 1-6
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: finished unit 25
-Anki: 7/7 days
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: unit 20
-Duolingo: 526 -> 537 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: episodes 31-32

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 34-41
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 70-71
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: units 47-49
-Memrise: 7/7 days (3728/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 372 -> 383 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: finished unit 1 lesson 12
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (626/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.20-2.22
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean: finished chapter 2
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-One Spring Night (봄밤): episodes 5-16
-My ID Is Gangnam Beauty (내 아이디는 강남미인): episodes 1-16
-What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (김비서가 왜 그럴까): episodes 1-5

German
-Deutsch Warum Nicht: lessons 4.22-4.26 (done!)

I've been really productive this week (which means this update is fairly long), in part just from generally feeling motivated, but also because I'm going on vacation to Ireland and Scotland for 2.5 weeks this coming Saturday, so I've been trying to get in as much as I can before that trip, since I know I'll have essentially no time for languages when I'm there. I've also shifted my sleep schedule recently so I'm getting up half an hour earlier than I had been (I'm not much of a morning person, typically), and it's actually helped a lot. I feel more up for doing work on languages in the morning, before I've gone to work, when my mind is rested and fresh, than in the evening, when I get back from work and am generally a bit drained.

Spanish:
I started La sombra del viento this week. So far, I'm finding it interesting, and it's definitely a step up from the YA fantasy series I was reading. Not that it's a huge struggle to read, but with Ladrones de libertad, I typically needed to look up 1 word per page at most, and often I'd go several pages without needing to look anything up. The language in La sombra del viento is a bit more advanced, and I'm finding I need to look up a couple words every page or so. It seems like a good step up in difficulty, and it's probably good for me to challenge myself a bit more.

I also have finally gotten to the point where all the vocab in my Anki frequency deck for Spanish is mature, which means I feel ready to drop it. I suppose I could keep it going for awhile since the reviews per day are pretty low at this point, but I don't think it's helpful enough to be worth it, and since it's a frequency deck, it's not like I won't come across the vocab frequently enough in other contexts to help reinforce it. So much of the deck is cognates, anyways, that it feels like a waste of time. I think making a sentence deck with unfamiliar vocab (kind of like my Korean one) could be beneficial, but I'm trying to cut down the amount of SRS I'm doing right now, so I think I'll hold off on that for awhile.

French:
I essentially never have any use for languages other than English at my job, but this week the fact that I have some knowledge of French was actually helpful for once, which was exciting. I'm a data analyst, and my boss had collected some data for a small study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that she wanted me to work on. She was going over the data with me and was looking through her files for an English version of the survey questions that had been administered but could only find one in French (plus Swahili and one other Congolese language), and I was able to tell her that the French version would be fine since I can read in French pretty well. The actual data is in English (I mean, it's essentially just numbers), and I'll only need French when referencing the original survey questions, but it's still nice to get an opportunity to actually use one of the languages I'm studying in real life.

I realized I'm fairly close to being done both with L'alliance des trois and Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire, so I've been putting a little extra effort towards finishing both. I was able to get through 8 chapters of L'alliance des trois this week and I only have 8 to go, so my goal is to finish it this week. I'm not planning on trying to finish Grammaire Progressive this week since that would require more time than I'd like to devote to French grammar, but at the very least, I should be able to finish it shortly after returning from my trip. I've been finding the past couple weeks that my comprehension of Buffy seems to be a bit improved, and I've been looking up fewer words per page for L'alliance des trois, which has been motivating. I've been in a kind of weird place with my French where I understand a lot, but I still have some glaring holes, so I keep feeling like I should be more advanced than I actually am. Hopefully my increased comprehension means I'm getting closer to the level I think I should be.

Korean:
Back to bingeing kdramas! There's something about kdramas I find so addictive. I think I got a little burned out on them a couple months ago (and a lot of them follow similar formulas, so if you watch a bunch at once, it's easy to get tired of them) and then hit one that I wasn't that into (Fight My Way) which stalled me a bit, but I had enough of a rest from them that now I'm back in the mood to just watch them all the time. There are definitely things I dislike about them, but right now these light, fluffy, romantic comedy kdramas are basically exactly what I'm in the mood for.

I think I mentioned not being sure if I liked One Spring Night last week, but it did grow on me as it went on, especially the second half. I looked into adding the audio description as suggested, but it actually wasn't available for the show, so I didn't get the opportunity to try it out. After finishing that, I jumped to My ID Is Gangnam Beauty. There were a lot of issues I had with it, but there was enough I liked to keep me hooked. My ID Is Gangnam Beauty is on Viki, so I'm back to watching with both English and Korean subtitles simultaneously. There was one instance where I missed the subtitle for the line of dialogue, and it didn't seem vital enough to rewind and see what it was, so I kept going. However, the line I missed was the start of a text conversation being read aloud, so the text was displayed on screen in Korean as the conversation went on, and I was really proud that I was able to translate the Korean on the screen to figure out what I had missed. Granted, it was a very short sentence (something to the effect of one character asking the other what they wanted to do after their class ended), but it was still exciting, because it makes me feel like I really am making progress. I certainly wouldn't have understood that sentence without an English translation 3+ months ago. I'm definitely nowhere near ready to drop English subtitles for Korean subtitles and probably won't be for awhile (there's still a lot of vocab/grammar I have left to learn first), but it's nice to feel like I'm making progress towards that point. Anyways, after finishing that show, I started What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, and it's a bit cheesy/cliched, but I'm also having a lot of fun watching it, so I'll probably be making my way through the show pretty quickly this week.

German:
After roughly 6 months, I've finally managed to finish Deutsch Warum Nicht! I liked the course a lot, although I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to new learners. It's a good introduction to a lot of grammar points, but I think you'd need additional exposure through other sources to really learn the grammar, and it doesn't introduce a lot of vocab. There are worksheets to reinforce the grammar/vocab for each lesson, which I skipped, so that would probably help, but I don't think I'd use it as my only resource if I was a true beginner. That being said, it was absolutely perfect for my purposes, where I've already learned all the grammar and vocab it introduced years ago and just needed a refresher.

Now that I'm done with that, I've decided to continue with German solely through reading books and watching TV — a pure entertainment-focused approach with no extra time devoted to SRS-ing vocab or doing grammar exercises. I'm sure working through a grammar workbook or SRS-ing vocab would be beneficial, but I already struggle with juggling 3 languages, and anything I do with German will be a step up time-wise compared to 15 minutes of listening to Deutsch Warum Nicht while I get ready for work each day. Right now, I have 2 days per week devoted to each of my languages (except for Duolingo/Anki/Memrise, which I do daily) with Saturday as a free day. There isn't really a good place to fit in German, so it'll probably mostly fall on Saturdays. My plan is to go slowly with German and not try to do as much with it as I do with French/Spanish TV and reading because I think I'd burn out too quickly if I attempted that. My goal will probably be something like 1 chapter and 1 episode per week. If I feel motivated to do more, then that's great, but I'm not going to push myself too hard. I'm going to go back to where I left off with Harry Potter in French several months ago and read the 6th book in German (I previously read the first book and a half in German 2 years ago, which will hopefully help). For TV, I think I'm going to try watching Dark, since I've heard good things about it. I will probably hold off on starting with this until after I'm back from vacation because I'm going to be fairly busy this week taking care of last minute things before my trip, although I might fit in a little reading if I can find the time.

[brokenrecord]

Congrats! You are the first person I've seen actually finish a frequency deck and stop once you met your goal

Thank you! There was definitely a part of me that thought I'd never finish it, and it does feel a little weird to actually stop using it since I've been using it for off and on for roughly 3 years now.

I look forward to seeing how you handle a pure entertainment-focused approach after only a few resources. Is this the magic of learning a romance language? xD

To be fair, I took German in college for 3 years in college and got to a pretty decent level (at least B1, maybe B2), and I also spent some time 2 years ago brushing up on German for several months before a trip to Berlin which involved reading a few books and watching some TV without subtitles, so my passive German is pretty strong and just needed refreshing. But the similarity to English is a huge advantage, and I know Spanish being a romance language (plus my previous knowledge of French) allowed me to jump to reading books in Spanish/watching TV far sooner than I'll be able to with Korean!

Your method of only 2 days per week for each language is interesting to me. You expose yourself to each language everyday through SRS and then for two days do the fun stuff xD Though I am curious on why you still do Duolingo when your Spanish and French are 'higher skilled' than it? Is it for the writing practice?

I do think Duolingo helps with writing practice, and for Spanish, specifically, it can be fun to get a new sentence to translate that I haven't seen before, and at first I'll think I don't know how to translate it, but after thinking about it for a minute, something will pop into my head, and it'll turn out to be correct. It helps me feel like I've been picking up things without even realizing it from the reading/listening work I've done. My French is at an okay level passively (which allows me to read/watch TV), but actively it's not as great, so Duolingo helps a little with that. That being said, I don't think Duolingo is a huge benefit for either language – the main thing driving me is finishing the trees. Especially for Spanish, where I actually finished the tree a couple years ago, but then they switched to the crown system and added a bunch of new levels, it bothered me that my tree was no longer complete. I don't think I ever finished the French tree before, but I know I'll feel accomplished if I finish it. And for both, it only takes maybe 5-10 minutes each morning, it doesn't feel like too much of a chore, and it's a way of making sure I do a little language work every day even if I'm not up for doing anything else. On the other hand, I was using Duolingo to brush up on German last fall/winter and ended up dropping it because my active German was so weak that I was finding it more of a struggle to use. If I started feeling the same way with French/Spanish, then I would just stop using it entirely.

And since you use both, between Memrise and Anki, which do you feel helps the most in learning new words? I assume that with Memrise, you are doing the reviews and learning new words per day.

For my French Memrise deck, I do the reviews and learn new words (usually ~21) each day. For each Korean Memrise deck, I had been doing reviews and 7 new words per day, but I ended up getting much further in the TTMIK/HTSK decks than I am in the actual courses, and the reviews had started getting too time-consuming, so at the moment I'm holding off on new words until I'm caught up with the actual courses. I'm not sure if there's a huge difference between the two in terms of learning new words. I think if forced to pick, I would say Anki helps more in learning new words because I have more flexibility in choosing how frequently the word comes up again (marking it easy vs. good vs. hard). I also just like being able to see the statistics Anki provides since I'm a stats person, although that doesn't really have anything to do with learning new words. But for me, vocab sticks best when I see the words come up in multiple different contexts, so seeing the same vocab sometimes pop up in my Korean Memrise decks as my Korean Anki decks has probably helped me the most. But it's also very dependent on the deck. There was a premade French Anki frequency deck I had been using, but I didn't like how it was set up, and I ended up dropping it and switching to the Memrise deck I'm now using, which I greatly prefer. So in that case, I found it easier to learn from Memrise, but more due to the deck itself than the specific features of Memrise vs. Anki.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 7-13
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 26
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: started unit 21
-Duolingo: 537 -> 551 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: episodes 33-34

French
-L'Alliance des trois: chapters 42-49 (done!)
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 72-73
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire: unit 50
-Memrise: 7/7 days (3877/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 383 -> 397 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1 lesson 13
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (638/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 2.22-2.25
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 2 Memrise: 7/7 days (226/226 items)
-Integrated Korean: chapter 3
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (김비서가 왜 그럴까): episodes 6-16
-Goblin (도깨비): episodes 1-7

German
-nothing!

French:
I managed to finish L'alliance des trois this week! I definitely feel like my reading comprehension has improved since I started the book. It seems like I'm having to look up fewer words than before, probably around 2-4 per page. I also got more invested in the story as it went on, so I think I'll continue with the series for now since it seems like a decent level for me.


Anyways, just posting a quick update before I leave the country for 2.5 weeks and most of my language-learning goes on hold. My goal is to keep up with Duolingo/Memrise/Anki, and that's it. I'm definitely not bringing any grammar books with me. There's a very tiny possibility I might do a little reading or TV watching, but I'm not counting on having the time/energy for it.