Bonjour & سلام
* Arabic:Arabic has definitely gone on the back burner for the time being. it has been pretty interesting & I've learned some of the script which was what most attracted me if I'm being honest, but it's really waaay to hard (for me) and the investment of time & effort to get to any kind of useful level is too much at the moment. my admiration for people learning multiple languages with few common congnates has increased enormously!
I may circle back at some point & learn some more tourist-oriented phrases which might be handier when actually travelling somewhere Arabic-speaking.
* French:so back to the French. I hadn't abandoned it completely, I was still doing some Anki & some reading on my commute. I also started listening to JeFF again after quite a few weeks off & I was pleasantly surprised to discover I can follow it much better than before now & have some mental cycles to spare to think about the odd word if its meaning doesn't come to me immediately. I think that having a partial break has kind of allowed some more stuff to get internalized even though I wasn't actively working on it that much, which is rather nice.
I've also been watching
Stranger Things in French, with some fairly terrible French subtitles which don't even vaguely match what is being said on-screen, so it's maybe less of a cheat that it might be.
I can watch it full-speed without needing to pause it & I don't seem to haev missed any major bits of plot, so I'm quite pleased.
I have been toying with doing this DELF B1 prep course at a college near where I work in London:
https://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/french-delf-b1it's not so much that I want to take the exam, more that it's actually aimed at the B1 level instead of the rather vague levels offered elsewhere or the incredibly stretched-out course schedule that Alliance Française offer. even if I don't take the exam it would be useful to have a bit of focus to my studies & a bit more balance than my current lop-sided reading-heavy/speaking-light approach. I'm still not sure - I might be better off spending the same time & money on iTalki for one-on-one tuition - the hourly rate is somewhat similar - & I'm not such a fan of group learning. there is also mention of an interview which is slightly horrifying. I'll drop them an email & find out a bit more I think ...
I'm also currently in two minds about my French trip - I can't get any leave from work until the end of Oct & the prospect of camping in France that late in the year with the days getting shorter is not so appealing.
France will still be there next year, regardless of what happens with Br*xit.
so I am considering Morocco or Tunisia instead, travel around a bit, turn up & find hotels, buy train tickets, things that will force me to talk to people. maybe a bit of (Maghrebi) Arabic (see above). & perhaps even some sunshine as well.