A language learners’ forum

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 32-39
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 30
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish: units 25-26 (done!)
-Duolingo: 693 -> 725 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: nothing
-Criminal: Spain: episode 1

French
-Malronce: chapters 19-25
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 84-85
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: unit 1
-Memrise: 6/7 days (5000/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 455 -> 462 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: part of unit 1.15
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 6/7 days (638/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.03-3.04
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 6/7 days (34/173 items)
-Integrated Korean: started chapter 6
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Goblin (도깨비): episode 13

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: nothing
-Dark: nothing
-Easy German: 2 videos

Italian
-Wellesley's edx Italian Language and Culture Beginner Course: unit 1.5

Spanish:
Finished Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish this week! I bought it sometime in my first year of learning Spanish, but I only used it on and off for the first couple years. I think it was a good review, but it probably would've done me more good to finish it earlier on before moving on to the other courses I've used. I think if I could do things over, I would probably complete the courses I've used in the following order: Duolingo/Language Transfer (simultaneously), GdUdE A1-A2, Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish, Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses, Perfecting the Past, and GdUdE B1-B2. I don't think Complete Spanish is great as a very first resource because it requires too much knowledge of vocab and doesn't go very in-depth into the grammar. The downside of GdUdE A1-A2 as an early resource is that it's entirely in Spanish, so you need at least some background before starting it, but I also feel like the exercises (especially for the A1-A2 book; this isn't as true of B1-B2) are more fill in the blank than translating entire sentences (or even paragraphs) into Spanish, which I found more challenging to do in PMP early on. In any case, it doesn't really matter now since I did them in the order that I did them and there's no going back!

I started Criminal: Spain this week. It's a new Netflix miniseries which has 3 episodes each set in the UK, Spain, France, and Germany (all completely disconnected stories). I've only watched 1 episode of the Spain series, but I did struggle a bit to follow it. The show is entirely set during police interrogations of suspects, so it's entirely monologues or dialogue between a couple characters about what occurred. The issue wasn't that there was a ton of unfamiliar vocab, but that if I missed a word or a sentence, it would be hard to follow the plot from there just because I couldn't fill in what I had missed from context clues. It's a good challenge for my Spanish listening comprehension, and I may rewatch the episodes with subtitles to hone in on what I'm missing. Since there are only 3 Spanish episode, it wouldn't take long to do so. I also plan on watching the French and German versions at some point, but based on my difficulty following the Spanish version, I definitely don't feel ready for those series yet.

French:
Finished the Memrise course! And then promptly forgot about Memrise entirely the next day, which is why I only have 6/7 days this week. The plan is still to continue with reviews until the end of October and then reevaluate how long I want to continue with reviews, if at all, based on the amount of time they take and how beneficial I feel it is. I should also reevaluate if I want to keep up the reviews of some of the old Korean Memrise courses I've completed but am still using.

I've been making progress in the Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses book, and I think I like it better than the Spanish version so far, although I can't really put my finger on why. I'm also kind of enjoying it more than Progressive Grammaire du Français Intermédiaire, mainly because I find the exercises to be more useful so far.

German:
A poor week for German. It wasn't that I didn't want to do German specifically, but Saturday is my German day, and at the end of this week I was just really stressed and tired and needed a break from everything, so no German happened. I think I may need to shift around my language-learning days because I've found it difficult the past couple weeks to fit in German on Saturdays. I think it's mainly because by the end of the work week, I need a break, and I had gotten used to having Saturdays almost entirely free (apart from Duolingo/Memrise/Anki). I think I may try shifting German to Sundays, which are now devoted to Korean, since I don't need the entire day for Korean, and I can have my free Saturdays back. My scheduling plans are probably not of interest to most people, but typing it out helps me work through things in my head, and I like to be as transparent as I can be about how I'm fitting in (or failing to fit in) studying 5 languages.

brokenrecord wrote:Spanish
I started Criminal: Spain this week. It's a new Netflix miniseries which has 3 episodes each set in the UK, Spain, France, and Germany (all completely disconnected stories). I've only watched 1 episode of the Spain series, but I did struggle a bit to follow it. The show is entirely set during police interrogations of suspects, so it's entirely monologues or dialogue between a couple characters about what occurred. The issue wasn't that there was a ton of unfamiliar vocab, but that if I missed a word or a sentence, it would be hard to follow the plot from there just because I couldn't fill in what I had missed from context clues. It's a good challenge for my Spanish listening comprehension, and I may rewatch the episodes with subtitles to hone in on what I'm missing. Since there are only 3 Spanish episode, it wouldn't take long to do so. I also plan on watching the French and German versions at some point, but based on my difficulty following the Spanish version, I definitely don't feel ready for those series yet.

Oh, yes, this show is definitely a challenge for any L2 speaker/learner. I watched the French one and then watched the English one with my mom, since she has no patience with my wish to watch everything in one of my TLs. I haven't gotten to the Spanish one yet. I should do that today.

French:

I've been making progress in the Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses book, and I think I like it better than the Spanish version so far, although I can't really put my finger on why.

I'm with you there. I have used the PMP books for ages with German, French and Spanish and there is something about the Spanish ones that just, I don't know, irks me. I used to think it was just my lack of a broad enough Spanish vocabulary and my need to constantly look up words to do the exercises, but there's something else about it.

German:
A poor week for German. It wasn't that I didn't want to do German specifically, but Saturday is my German day, and at the end of this week I was just really stressed and tired and needed a break from everything, so no German happened. I think I may need to shift around my language-learning days because I've found it difficult the past couple weeks to fit in German on Saturdays. I think it's mainly because by the end of the work week, I need a break, and I had gotten used to having Saturdays almost entirely free (apart from Duolingo/Memrise/Anki). I think I may try shifting German to Sundays, which are now devoted to Korean, since I don't need the entire day for Korean, and I can have my free Saturdays back. My scheduling plans are probably not of interest to most people, but typing it out helps me work through things in my head, and I like to be as transparent as I can be about how I'm fitting in (or failing to fit in) studying 5 languages.

Yeah, I can completely understand this. I usually study all day on Saturday, but yesterday I needed to not do anything study-wise for most of the day. I needed a break (by evening I felt up for some Clozemaster and Memrise, at least). Sometimes we just need that. And if you're working and self-learning languages during your off-hours, you can really overextend yourself, so you have to give yourself some leeway for when your body and brain are just like, "Nope, not today." This is why with Russian, which I'm studying only one day a week, I aim for "one day on the weekend" so I can work around days like yesterday.

I routinely study multiple languages at different levels and at different intensity, and over the years, I've learned what works for me and what doesn't. I'm a strong believer in if your schedule isn't working for you, change it until it does, and don't waste energy beating yourself up over not being able to stick to the old schedule. I think what you're doing here is really smart and beneficial.

And don't think of your study plans and schedule as not relevant to your log here--it's entirely relevant. As a self-learner, your study schedule is your key to reaching your TL goals. The good thing is, as a self-learner, you're your own teacher and boss and whenever your schedule stops working for you, you can change it. That power is yours!

Cèid Donn wrote:Oh, yes, this show is definitely a challenge for any L2 speaker/learner. I watched the French one and then watched the English one with my mom, since she has no patience with my wish to watch everything in one of my TLs. I haven't gotten to the Spanish one yet. I should do that today.

Okay good, glad I wasn't the only one who found it challenging! I don't think I'm going to check out the French one any time soon, but I am intrigued at how they differ. I haven't gotten to the English version yet, though, so that'll probably be first, after I finish the last episode of the Spanish one.

Cèid Donn wrote:I have used the PMP books for ages with German, French and Spanish and there is something about the Spanish ones that just, I don't know, irks me. I used to think it was just my lack of a broad enough Spanish vocabulary and my need to constantly look up words to do the exercises, but there's something else about it.

Yeah, I definitely felt like I needed to do a lot more looking things up in the Spanish one when I first started it, although my Spanish was weaker then than my French is now. So far the French one seems to have a lot more practice exercises for each grammar point, and I feel like it goes into a bit more depth with the grammar. It's the first French PMP book I've used, but it makes me more inclined to check out a couple of their other ones as well, like the Intermediate French book.

Cèid Donn wrote:Yeah, I can completely understand this. I usually study all day on Saturday, but yesterday I needed to not do anything study-wise for most of the day. I needed a break (by evening I felt up for some Clozemaster and Memrise, at least). Sometimes we just need that. And if you're working and self-learning languages during your off-hours, you can really overextend yourself, so you have to give yourself some leeway for when your body and brain are just like, "Nope, not today." This is why with Russian, which I'm studying only one day a week, I aim for "one day on the weekend" so I can work around days like yesterday.

I routinely study multiple languages at different levels and at different intensity, and over the years, I've learned what works for me and what doesn't. I'm a strong believer in if your schedule isn't working for you, change it until it does, and don't waste energy beating yourself up over not being able to stick to the old schedule. I think what you're doing here is really smart and beneficial.

Yeah, that's definitely something I've had to work on with self-studying, and especially as I've added more languages, since my old method was doing as much language-learning as possible in all my spare time, having no time for anything else, getting burned out, taking months off at a time, and then coming back to things when I got the urge again. I've been trying to be more consistent with language-learning in the past year and a half, and I've done a lot better with it, and part of that is listening to myself when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed and working on not feeling like a failure even when I know I could've technically achieved more. I'm not always successful at not feeling that way, but I'm trying, at least! Aiming for one day on the weekend is smart, and I think that's what I'm going to have to do with German, aiming to get everything done on Sunday, when I have more energy, but still having Saturday as a back-up just in case.

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 40-48
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 31
-Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up Close: units 1-2
-Duolingo: 725 -> 760 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: nothing
-Criminal: Spain: episode 2

French
-Malronce: chapters 26-33
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 86-87
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: started unit 2
-Memrise: 7/7 days (5000/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 462 -> 469 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: finished unit 1.15
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (664/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.05-3.06
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 7/7 days (50/173 items)
-Integrated Korean: finished chapter 6
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Goblin (도깨비): episodes 14-15

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 6
-Dark: episode 5
-Easy German: 1 video

Italian
-Wellesley's edx Italian Language and Culture Beginner Course: unit 1.6-1.7

Spanish:
I rewatched the first Criminal: Spain episode with Spanish subtitles this week, and it turns out that I actually understood much more than I thought last week! There were some details I missed, but I definitely followed the main plot just fine. I then watched the second episode, and I found it much easier to follow. I'm not sure if that's because I got used to the voices just from the first episode, I had more of an idea of what to expect, the plot was genuinely easier to follow than the first episode, or because after my experience with the first episode, I was more okay with knowing I was missing some of the details. I think part of what I found more challenging about the first episode, too, was that it required more of my attention/focus to follow things, whereas normally I find it easier to tune in and out when watching Spanish TV. In any case, I don't think I'll be ready for the French or German versions anytime soon!

I started the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up Close workbook this week. I'm not a huge fan of the way it's structured so far. In the other PMP workbooks I've used, the chapters are interspersed with grammar explanations and exercises, but so far in this one, it's all explanations and then some exercises at the end. That may not hold true for the rest of the book since the first two chapters are pretty short, but I like the balance between explanation and practice in the other workbooks better.

Korean:
Usually the way I use HTSK is that I read through the unit, take notes on the main points, and add example sentences that I feel could be good to have extra exposure to for the vocab or grammar to Anki. When I finish reading through the unit (which I usually break up across several days, since they're long, and I have other Korean activities), I use the sentence and dictation practice videos to help practice the new grammar. I liked the practice videos when I was first starting to use HTSK because I wasn't getting a lot of practice elsewhere (especially before I started KFZ, and even that didn't have a lot of exercises), but this week I decided I need to stop using them, or at least the Sentence Practice videos. I don't want to be too harsh on the creator of the course because HTSK is a really excellent, free resource, but honestly I've been finding myself increasingly frustrated with the Sentence Practice videos. His explanations just go on and on and he keeps repeating information that he already provided, and it feels like it takes forever to get through them. They could be cut so much shorter. And it's not just that he's repeating info from previous lessons, but he'll repeat things he said in the very same video. And honestly, by unit 15, I don't need to be reminded that Korean doesn't have a word for "the" so you don't need to translate "the" when translating the sentences. In any case, I get a lot of practice with IK and in more depth than the HTSK Sentence Practice videos, so I think it's best if I use HTSK as an intro to new grammar/vocab and a resource for mining sentences but not worry too much about it otherwise. I'll probably stick with the Dictation Practice videos since I don't get that kind of practice elsewhere really (maybe a little listening in IK, but not a huge amount) and there are no explanations so it takes much less time to get through them.

I will finally finish Goblin this week! Despite my previous complaints, I've actually really enjoyed the past couple episodes. I think the time jump helped with my issues with the age difference between the two main characters (even though it's still huge considering he's an immortal being). I'm eager to start watching something else, though, since I've been watching Goblin for roughly 2 months now.

German/Italian:
I moved my German work to Sunday, like I mentioned I'd try doing last week, and I think it'll work better for me. One nice thing too about it is that I can aim for doing my German work on Sundays, but if I end up too busy and don't get everything in, I still have the rest of the week, including Saturday, as a back-up. I've been struggling a bit with fitting Italian in, though (it looks like I did a lot, but units 1.6-1.7 of the Italian course I'm going through were incredibly short). I can tell I'm going to need a better system in the near future for rotating through all 5 languages, but I haven't come to any solutions yet.

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 49-55
-Spanish newspapers: 5 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 32
-Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up Close: units 3-4
-Duolingo: 760 -> 795 crowns (7/7 days)
-La niña: nothing
-Criminal: Spain: episode 3

French
-Malronce: chapters 34-39
-French newspapers: 5 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 88-89
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: part of unit 2
-Memrise: 7/7 days (5000/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 469 -> 476 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1.16
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (680/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.07-3.08
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 7/7 days (67/173 items)
-Integrated Korean: chapter 7
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Goblin (도깨비): episode 16
-Hotel del Luna (호텔 델루나): episodes 1-16

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 7
-Dark: episode 6
-Easy German: 1 video

Italian
-Wellesley's edx Italian Language and Culture Beginner Course: nothing

Spanish:
I continue to not be a huge fan of the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up-Close book. I'm pretty familiar with grammar terms in general, and I typically enjoy grammar, but the way the book is written is just so unnecessarily convoluted and confusing. It's a good thing I've learned about the subjunctive previously, because if I was just trying to use this book to teach me how it's used, I would be completely lost. I'm going to keep working with it because a) I bought it and don't want to feel like I've totally wasted my money (luckily it was only $10, so that helps a bit), b) it's fairly short (only 7 units, the last of which is all practice), and c) it's at least a decent source for practicing when the subjunctive should be used. Although I also think the exercises could be better. There have been two in two different chapters so far that have just involved translating sentences in Spanish to English, which seems fairly useless to me. I have no problem understanding the subjunctive when it's used. Exercises that make me decide whether I should be using it or not are way more helpful for me. After I finish this, I think I may get Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive, which will hopefully be more useful — it's by the same authors as Perfecting the Past, which really helped me with the preterite vs. imperfect, so I have higher hopes for it.

I finished Criminal: Spain, although I still need to rewatch the third episode with subtitles. I did rewatch the second one with subtitles, and my feeling last week that I had understood the 2nd episode better than the first one was correct. There were way more scenes where I felt it was a bit pointless to be rewatching them with subtitles since I had understood everything perfectly well. There were one or two details I missed, but overall I followed the story just fine. So I may just rewatch a couple scenes from the third episode rather than the entire thing. I'm not sure what I'm going to watch next. There's still La niña, but I honestly just haven't felt very motivated to return to it. I may end up dropping it entirely. It'd be one thing if I only had like 5-10 episodes left, but I'm not even halfway through the series, and I just don't really care about any of the characters or plot at all at this point. I watched a decent chunk of it and got some exposure to Colombian accents so it wasn't entirely a waste of time, but it might be time to move on from it. That being said, I also struggle with making decisions (which is why I'm constantly thinking about what I'm going to do next in terms of what I'm reading, watching, courses I'm using, etc. so when I do finally finish, I've already made a decision and can go right to the next thing), and since there's nothing in particular I feel in the mood to switch to, I may end up just taking the path of least resistance and return to it for a bit.

Korean:
I finished Goblin this week and then jumped to Hotel del Luna, which I obviously really enjoyed, since I ended up finishing the whole show. It's actually a bit similar to Goblin in some ways, but I liked it a lot more. And any time I get really sucked into a kdrama, I immediately feel more motivated to learn Korean, so I'm going to try to take advantage of that this week before the feeling fades (or hopefully I'll find another kdrama I like just as much to keep me motivated).

I'm on the last chapter of Integrated Korean Beginning 1, and I've already bought Integrated Korean Beginning 2 (although it'll probably take me 2 full weeks to finish the first book). I still have Korean Grammar in Use Beginning, but I think I'll at least wait until after I finish the second Integrated Korean Beginners book before switching to that. I don't think the IK books cover all the grammar in the KGIU Beginning book, but I figure I can at least do the sections that I've been exposed to at that point and decide from there if I want to finish it all or not before moving on to the IK Intermediate books.

German/Italian:
I've been doing better with German, but I've really dropped off with Italian. The strong urge I had to learn Italian back a month or so ago has faded, and since I didn't find a consistent time to fit it into my schedule, it's been left behind. I'm considering dropping it entirely for the moment, at least until I have a better handle of balancing 4 languages. On the other hand, I should be finishing the Spanish Duolingo tree this week, and I'm thinking about replacing it with a combo of the Italian and German trees, which would at least keep Italian going in some form for me. I had been doing 1 crown on the French tree and 5 on the Spanish tree per day, so I've been thinking about redistributing that time to something like 2-3 crowns on the French tree and then 1-2 lessons on the Italian and German trees per day (not full crowns, since I'm not advanced enough to be testing out of full levels like I can with French and Spanish). And I think I do better when I have multiple resources for a language, because if I get a little bored with one, I at least have others keeping me motivated and continuing on. Despite me saying that I've been struggling finding the time for German and Italian, I've also been considering buying a German workbook of some sort, although that may just be because buying language books brings me joy. I've been trying to resist, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold out.

Basically I think my main issue now is that it requires too much energy for me to remember to do Italian (and German, to a lesser extent). I need to find a way to work it into my life like I have my other languages so it can just be part of my routine. Unfortunately there aren't quite enough days in the week for everything I want to do, which is my eternal struggle. Doing 2 days a week of French, Spanish, and Korean has been working really well for me this year, but there aren't enough days in the week to add 2 for German and Italian as well (or even 1 day of each). Changing things up requires either sacrificing some of my additional spare time (which I need so I don't get burned out) or cutting down on my other languages (which I'm not willing to do yet), so I'm stuck in this holding pattern of trying to remember to find time for Italian. And yes, I realize this is why it's recommended not to add a bunch of lower-level languages at the same time! I knew this was going to be an issue going in, but I went ahead with it anyways (and to be fair, German is at a low level now, but based on my prior experience with it, it shouldn't take as long to get it to an intermediate level as it would if I were starting from scratch). I'll figure something out eventually.

Spanish
-La sombra del viento: chapters 56-64 (done!)
-Spanish newspapers: 4 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 33
-Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up Close: units 5-6
-Monarca: episodes 1-10 (done!)
-La casa de las flores (season 2): episodes 1-4
-Duolingo: 795 -> 815 crowns (7/7 days) (done!!!)

French
-Malronce: chapters 40-47
-French newspapers: 4 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 90-91
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: finished unit 2
-Memrise: 7/7 days (5000/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 476 -> 489 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: finished unit 1.16
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 7/7 days (696/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.09-3.10
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 7/7 days (83/173 items)
-Integrated Korean: started chapter 8
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Thirty but Seventeen (서른이지만 열일곱입니다): episodes 1-16

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 8
-Dark: episodes 7-8
-Easy German: nothing
-Duolingo: 221 -> 222 crowns (3/7 days)

Italian
-Wellesley's edx Italian Language and Culture Beginner Course: started unit 2.1
-Duolingo: 6 -> 7 crowns (3/7 days)

Spanish:
First off, I finished my Duolingo tree! Finally. I mean, technically I did finish it once before, several years ago, but then they added a bunch of content and the crown system. While I'm happy about having finished it, it almost felt bittersweet. It's just weird because doing my daily Duolingo has been such a consistent part of my language-learning for the past year and a half (and I've been using it on and off since I first started Spanish, 4 years ago), and even though I use it with my other languages, it's still weird to be done with the Spanish tree. Doing Duolingo Spanish has been the very first thing I do every morning, while I eat breakfast, and the next morning after I finished the tree, I went back to the Spanish tree first thing and had to remind myself that I had finished it and to switch over to French. Anyways, it is nice to be done with it, even if it'll take some getting used to. I think I'm fully done with Duolingo for Spanish, even if they end up adding more crowns at some point in the future. I think I've gotten all I can out of it for Spanish, and I have the satisfaction of having finished it in its current form at least.

I also finished La sombra del viento this week. I didn't love the book, but I liked it enough that it kept me engaged, and it was definitely a step up difficulty-wise from what I had been reading previously. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to read next, but I'll probably stick with adult books instead of YA since I'm a little tired of YA at the moment, and I could probably do with the extra challenge for Spanish.

I ended up watching all of Monarca season 1 this week, which is a Mexican show on Netflix. I enjoyed it! It's not the greatest thing I've ever seen, but it kept me entertained. If it were 80+ episodes, like La niña, I may not have finished it, but a 10-episode season isn't too hard to get through. And my listening comprehension has just gotten really strong in Spanish. The first episode of a new show is always the toughest, and my comprehension was probably around 85-90% for it, and then 90-95% for the rest of the series. I'm really happy with how my Spanish listening comprehension has improved over the past 2 years. I remember how much more of a struggle it used to be, and now it doesn't require that much more focus than watching things in English. I almost never feel the need to go back and rewatch scenes with Spanish subtitles these days (Criminal: Spain being the exception, although I think that was more just me not being used to how much more focus and attention it required to follow the plot without any context clues).

Anyways, after that I started the second season of La casa de las flores, which premiered on Netflix this weekend. I'm officially dropping La niña. Like I alluded to above, if it weren't 80+ episodes, I might just go ahead and finish it, but it would just take too long to finish the show, I'm not invested in the story, and it's not like there aren't plenty of other shows to watch in Spanish. I may return to it someday if I do end up running out of other things to watch, but I'm done with it for now.

French:
I haven't had a lot to say about French recently since I have generally just been doing the same things as I always do. I was realizing this week, though, that my listening has improved without me realizing it. I think it's getting closer to 70-80% comprehension, when before it was more like 60-70% (I mean, those numbers are totally made up, but just to give a sense of the improvement). Sometimes it's hard to tell because I've watched Buffy enough times and know the plots so well that I don't need to devote all my attention to it to be able to follow what's going on, but I realized that there are fewer words or entire sentences that I'm missing. Anyways, I have 9 episodes left in season 5, and at that point, I will finally move away from the Buffy dubs and check out some native French content.

Korean:
I was feeling overwhelmed this week and a bit all over the place emotionally, so I ended up deciding to rewatch Thirty but Seventeen (which I first watched last March) because that show is like the TV equivalent of comfort food for me (not objectively the best — if there is such a thing as an objectively best TV show — but just really enjoyable and comforting to watch). It was interesting, though, that even though I'm still watching kdramas with English subtitles, I definitely found myself recognizing more words and even full (short) sentences than the first time I watched the show.

German:
I've added Duolingo back to my German schedule now that I've finished the Spanish tree and have the extra time. I'm starting off at 221 crowns because I actually got fairly far in the tree 4-5 years ago (I may have even finished it at the time, but that was before they added a bunch of lessons and before the crown system was implemented), and I even did a little last fall/winter before I found myself frustrated by how much my active knowledge of German had diminished and ended up dropping it. But since I'm working more actively on German now, I think I'll find it less frustrating, and I feel ready to add it back in. Unlike with French (and previously, Spanish), my active German isn't strong enough to test out of entire crowns per day, so the goal is 2 lessons per day (although I'll probably end up testing out of the last crown or two for each unit, since by that point, I usually have practiced the sentences enough to be able to do so).

I feel like I've said this before, but I really feel like my listening comprehension has improved over just the 8 episodes of Dark I've watched. I was looking back at some of my posts and saw that I had said my comprehension of the first episode was something like 20%. The most recent episodes have been more like 50-60%. Definitely nowhere near Spanish, or even French, but rewatching each episode with German subtitles has felt increasingly less necessary. The vocab is still my greatest challenge, but I've picked up enough of the most frequently used words that I'm not missing as much as I did when I started the show. And I am finding the show interesting so far, so that helps, of course. I still have the urge to get a German grammar workbook or coursebook of some kind, but I haven't gone through with buying anything yet. I'm going to do my best to hold out for the rest of the year since I really don't need to be adding more to what I'm already doing. Plus, I just bought the Integrated Korean Beginning 2 textbook and workbook, and the Spanish Subjunctive Up-Close book is much shorter than I expected, so I'm going to need to buy a new Spanish workbook this week, so I should probably hold off on spending all my disposable income on language-learning materials for the time being.

Italian:
As with German, I've added Duolingo Italian to my schedule, and the plan is similarly 2 lessons per day (presumably with much less testing out of levels than German). I started off at 6 crowns since I did end up doing the first few when I started the edx course and was feeling really motivated towards Italian. (Actually, I used to have way more than that from back when I started with Italian on Duolingo like 5 years ago, but I reset all my progress a couple months ago since I couldn't remember any of it.) Hopefully this will at least keep me doing something in Italian even if my progress with the edx course is almost non-existent. I don't dislike the course, but I just struggle fitting it into my schedule, especially since it's not all-audio or all-reading or all-grammar, so figuring out the best time to do some work on it is hard. I may just drop it for now and focus solely on Duolingo for my intro to Italian, since I know I can fit that in my schedule, and then reassess in 2020 and see if I can fit in more Italian at other times (for example, if I ever manage to finish FSI Spanish, I could easily fill the time I usually spend on that with the edx Italian course). That was kind of what my plan originally was — 2019 would be for learning the basics of Korean and refreshing German, and then 2020 would be for introducing Italian. I just happened to get overly eager to start Italian and saw the edx course mentioned and decided to check it out. And I didn't want to drop Italian again entirely, but now that I have the extra time for Duolingo with the Spanish tree being done, I can do just a little Duolingo Italian every day for the rest of the year, and then focus on introducing more in 2020. I think this will be my tentative plan, although my moods and interests have been so variable lately that I can't promise I won't feel completely differently in a week!

Spanish
-El indiano: chapters 1-7
-Spanish newspapers: 14 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: units 34-36
-Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Subjunctive Up Close: started unit 7
-La casa de las flores (season 2): episodes 5-8

French
-Malronce: chapters 48-51 (done!)
-French newspapers: 14 articles
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: episodes 92-94
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: unit 3
-Memrise: 20/21 days (5000/5000 items)
-Duolingo: 489 -> 550 crowns (21/21 days)

Korean
-How to Study Korean: started unit 1.17
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Memrise: 20/21 days (727/1210 items)
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.11-3.12
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 20/21 days (123/173 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 1: chapter 8 (done!)
-Anki: my sentence deck: 20/21 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 20/21 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 20/21 days
-Come and Hug Me (이리와 안아줘): episodes 1-22

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 9
-Dark: episode 9
-Easy German: nothing
-Duolingo: 222 -> 238 crowns (21/21 days)

Italian
-Duolingo: 7 -> 21 crowns (21/21 days)


So I've been taking a bit of a break for the past couple weeks. I had a presentation at work that was very low-stakes (meaning that doing either really well or really poorly on it wouldn't affect my job much one way or another), but I didn't want to make a fool of myself either, so I took a lot of time preparing for it and couldn't really give much attention to languages. Thankfully it did go very well, but after it was over, I still wasn't really in the mood to devote my spare time to language study, so I continued the break. I feel like that might continue for the rest of the year. My mind has just been elsewhere recently, and with holidays and some travel/vacation coming up, I'm not sure when I'll have the time or focus for languages. I've been pretty good at keeping up with my morning schedule, which involves Duolingo, FSI, Anki, and newspaper articles, and I'll definitely continue with that, but otherwise, I'm not sure how much grammar/listening/reading I'll be getting in. Hitting on all of those at least gives me some exposure to each of my languages every day, even if it's not a lot. I want to try to fit in at least a little more than I've been doing, but my guess is it will be very inconsistent. I'm definitely not giving up language work, and I tend to get hyperfocused on one thing for several weeks and then it'll fade and I'll move on to something else, so inevitably I'll want to return to doing languages 24/7 at some point, but right now I think I need to give myself the permission to continue this break.

Breaks are a key part of studying and often much more helpful than pushing on. Enjoy it!

So like I mentioned in my last post almost 2 months ago, I ended up taking a break through the rest of the year. I've essentially only been doing Duolingo Italian because that was as much as I could summon the energy to do. I just needed a real break and chance to recharge from life/work/etc. I'm finally feeling close to back to normal, though, and ready to start back up again in the new year, with some adjustments. First, a summary of what I managed to accomplish this year (some of it begun prior to 2019, but all completed in the past year):

Spanish:
-Duolingo tree
-135 hours of listening (end year all-time total: 485 hours)
-1998 pages of reading (end year all-time total: 7298 pages)
-Gramática de Uso del Español B1-B2
-Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish
-Anki frequency deck

French:
-75 hours of listening (end year all-time total: 95 hours)
-1812 pages of reading (end year all-time total: 2012 pages)
-CLE Grammaire Progressive du Français Intermédiaire
-FSI French Phonology
-Memrise 5000 word frequency deck

Korean:
-Korean from Zero Book 1
-Integrated Korean Beginning 1
-Talk to Me in Korean Levels 1-2, 3.01-3.13
-How to Study Korean Unit 1 Lessons 1-16
-Memrise decks for KFZ Book 1 and TTMIK Levels 1 and 2

German:
-Deutsch Warum Nicht Units 1-5
-8 hours of listening (not counting rewatches with subtitles)
-197 pages of reading

Italian:
-nothing finished, just worked on Duolingo (36 crowns)

No resolutions for the coming year. My goal is just slow but consistent progress. And no new languages because I really just can't fit any more in right now.

I've been trying to think of ways to balance all 5 languages these past months, and what I've ended up at is just doing 1 day per language per week with 2 days off. I had been trying to think of other solutions because I'm worried that won't be enough, but I think it's a better choice than trying to do too much and burning out. There are still things I'll do every day (Duolingo for Italian, German, and French, Anki/Memrise for Korean, FSI for Spanish, and newspaper articles for Spanish and French) so hopefully that'll keep everything fresh. I'm dropping the old Memrise decks I've completed for French and Korean to give myself a little extra time. I also think I may drop HTSK entirely and just focus on Integrated Korean and TTMIK. Doing one language per day will also give me 2 days free per week, which I may end up using if I'm in the mood to do more languages, but I think having built-in extra time off will help. And I don't have a lot planned for Italian at the moment, so I may use some of the extra time on my Italian day for other languages if I feel like I need it Giving myself a day devoted to each language also makes me feel like I can get grammar books for Italian and German and start working through them, because I had been wanting to do that, but was worried about how I'd find the time. I may also add Language Transfer for Italian.

So that's the current plan for 2020! We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't work, then I'll figure something else out. The rest of this week is still going to be light on languages for me since I'm on vacation and don't have a lot of my grammar stuff with me anyways. But I plan on easing back into things next week (probably with a new log).

Happy New Year!