Today is
DAY 135 of learning French.
I am really thankful that I came across this forum in the infancy stages of my learning. You all are soooo helpful and I can't thank you enough.
This past week was a weird one as my French learning wasn't constructed as it normally is. I did not complete any Assimil lessons but instead paused on Lesson 78. I am doing an additional 14 day trial on Glossika. I think I may make a switch to learn Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening (RWSL) AND move back to the Pimsleur route only for pronunciation. I am not sure how much knowledge will be gained but I can always use speaking/pronunciation practice.
I am looking for a little guidance here. Glossika is perfectly challenging at the current level (took their practice test they marked me as A2). I find that now I am in the tail-end of Assimil the speech is around the same rate
which seems like perfect timing to me. I plan on learning 10 new sentences a day for RWSL and complete 1 lesson of Pimsleur a day. Glossika has a review portion that is taking me about 10-15 minutes that I warm up with. So far, it seems like a less strenuous version of Assimil. The only downside is it costs $30 a month. I plan to still continue my 1.5hr iTalki session each week. Those sessions have been helping me a lot. Once the New Year hits I plan to bump this up to 2-4 times a week.
I will be in France in about 3.5-4 months and want to make good use of my studies before traveling. So, please advise if you think there are more resourceful uses of my time that would be better to focus on.
**SIDE NOTE: I had my first random French conversation last week. I was eating outside downtown at a cafe. I was nervous but at the same time excited. I over heard a man speaking French and as he was walking by he said "hello". I said "hello" back to him and asked "if he was window shopping?". He said, "je suis desole. je suis francais". I was excited to say back "ce n'est pas un probleme, je comprends". This is where my brain turned off as the French man spoke so fast I wasn't sure he was still speaking French
Oddly enough, I was able to pick out 30-50% of what the man was saying. I had to apologize immediately and let him know that I had only been learning for 4 months- in French. He was taken back completely and we continued in speaking 'très lentement' for maybe 5 minutes. He was patient and kind as his English was not great. It seemed like he could relate to the troubles
I probably could have spoke to him for 30 minutes but I had to run.