SAC 2016 -- ceid donn

[ceid donn]

So I'm going start gearing myself up for a SAC this summer, probably will start early-ish, depending on my available time.

Main languages:

[flag=]gd[/flag]

Just the usual: working toward fluency. I need to focus some time specifically on pronunciation though, since that seems to be slipping a bit.

[flag=]fr[/flag]

Also working towards fluency and general comfort with the language. Will be focusing a lot of songs I want to learn and vocabulary building.

Possible other languages:

[flag=]br[/flag]

If I have time, I'll continue working on Assimil. But honestly, this isn't likely, unless I end up with a lot more time and motivation than I am anticipating right now.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

I need to review what I learned from Duolingo and TY.

[flag=]it[/flag]

I used to know a little from being around Italians when in grad school, but never actually studied. I have recently taken interest in it, for reasons. If I do start Italian, my goal will be simply to work toward basic conversational Italian, nothing too grand.

So that's all for now. Just wanted to make some sort of commitment, to get the ball rolling.

[ceid donn]

OK, update!

I'm going to add [flag=]ja[/flag] because I need to review that too. I actually have real world need for Japanese, so yeah.

I've been kicking over how I want to do this SAC, what goals I should aim for, how much time I can realistically commit to this, etc. I'm going to be unemployed this summer unless I find a job--which I'm not terribly optimistic about happening--but I do have other things I cannot abandon. However, getting back to my lang studies is something I really have been wanting to do since the holidays, so I'm doing it! I'm making a outline of SAC goals right now! Yes! It's happening!!!

I'm going back to a predetermined weekly schedule, which has worked well for me in the past.

Main Languages (Daily)

[flag=]gd[/flag]

-- daily pronunciation practice with Blas na Gàidlig and Speaking Our Language
-- daily listening practice with Litir do Luchd-ionnsachaidh and eLarnGaelic video interviews
-- daily reading practice with Litir do Luchd-ionnaschaidh and other resources to be chosen later
-- 3 journal entries a week

Approximate time: 1.5 hours each day

[flag=]fr[/flag]

-- daily pronunciation practice with Pronunce It in French
-- daily listening practice with resources from Goethe-Verlag, Français avec Pierre and other resources*
-- daily reading practice with news articles, poetry and novels
-- 1-2 journal entries a week
-- on days I do not write journal entries, I will be working on songs. I plan to practice the songs i know already to the point of ease and learn at least 3 new songs by the end of summer

Approximate time: 1.5 hours each day

* Some of the resources I will use will be items I have from Learn French with Alexa. HOWEVER this is NOT an endorsement. While the quality of her material is very good, she recently (last February) changed her website from a subscription-based service to lessons for purchase. I had renewed my sub last November and lost it when she changed. She has not given me any kind of refund nor do I have access to the new site and its materials. So I basically got screwed out of my money and therefore I withdraw all previous recommendations regarding her materials I have ever made.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

[flag=]ga[/flag]

1-2 hours of review with Duolingo and TY

[flag=]it[/flag]

1-2 hours of Duolingo and Goethe-Verlag Book2, plus basic grammar points and pronunciation practice

Thursday

Break day. Work only on main languages

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

[flag=]ja[/flag]

1-2 hours of review with Human Japanese and Goethe-Verlag Book2

[flag=]br[/flag]

1 hour working in Assimil, if I have time

------

I have not decided on a start day. Things with work as the semester begins to close is kind of weird and hectic so I don't dare try to start too early, but I am eager to start. I'll likely try to start as soon as I find Italian resources to work with. I could always just use Duo, but that gets pretty boring on its own.

EDIT: I think I have sufficient Italian resources to get started now. I will likely be starting very soon.

[IpseDixit]

[flag=]it[/flag]

1-2 hours - *** I still haven't found good introductory materials for beginning Italian. If anyone has any suggestions please post them. Free or affordable resources only--I am not going to be working this summer so money will be very tight. Also I really do need audio.

Have you tried googling "Italian grammar pdf"? I've found many results that look quite interesting, here are a few of them:

http://www.mercaba.org/SANLUIS/IDIOMAS/ ... talian.PDF
http://pdf.flyingpublisher.com/ItalianWithElisa2015.pdf
http://www.dfki.de/deepthought/techdocs ... talian.pdf
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Ima ... 677459.pdf
http://italiangrammar.altervista.org/gr ... erence.pdf

Likewise, YouTube has some Italian pronunciation tutorials, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxb62L0Lujc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZquFwErrs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOv6fXEFZl4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3U9zywlnOk

Btw, a passionate advice: stay away from the channel ItalianLessons101, they're not native-Italian-speakers and their pronunciation is not up to scratch.

You might also find the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia useful since it has an audio recording for each entry.

[ceid donn]

Thanks, IpseDixit. Very appreciated. I am wary of those YT series like the one you mentioned--I know French well enough to weed out the good from the bad, but not Italian. That's why I was asking for recommendations. I'll look at the grammar pdfs you posted. I'm not going to be concentrating heavily on grammar--my main focus is going to conversation and basic reading/speaking skills--but I will need references for grammar, no doubt. I'm assuming with my background in Latin and French that Italian grammar won't be too difficult for me. *fingers crossed*

Anyhow, I'm such a derp. I mentioned Goethe-Verlag for my French studies but completely forgot that, of course, I can use that for Italian and Japanese as well. So I'll be editing the weekly plan above to include that for those languages

[ceid donn]

Well, I'm starting my SAC now, so it'll going to be more a spring-through-summer thing than just summer. Since I already have a plan in place, I'm very eager to get started. Why waste time when I'm feeling motivated? And when I'm excited to review Irish AND to start a new Romance language, I know I'm motivated! Since it's almost midnight here, I'll be starting the week with the Monday schedule. Conveniently I'm having a touch of insomnia tonight and have already started looking at GV Italian lessons lessons 1-5.

For progress updates, I'm aiming for twice week, so the cover the Irish/Italian half of the week as well as the Breton/Japanese half.

[IpseDixit]

Looking forward to seeing you in the Italian subforum , it's a relatively active subforum (by Unilang standards, that is) and I've created a simplified version for beginners of "the person after me" game.

[ceid donn]

Grazie per l'incoragiamento, IpseDixit. I will try my hand in the Italian subforum when I can say more than "Sono una donna" and "Roma è la capitale d'Italia". I am pleased to find Italian very agreeable and enjoyable so far. It does remind me a lot of other Romance languages, but unlike Spanish or Latin, it doesn't feel like a chore. (My apologies to native Spanish speakers, although I've known many Spanish speakers who understand why I feel that way about Spanish. )

After the first day I decided I need to make a quick change of plans, particularly with Irish. Even after a few months away from Duo, I am still finding the format very boring. I can probably manage a little Italian each day but I just can't do that awful Irish tree again. It was by far the worst designed tree I've done at Duo. It does not present grammar points and vocabulary in a useful, intuitive way, it actually confused me greatly on things that from studying Gàidhlig I shouldn't have been confused about, the sounds files are very incomplete (and I'm disappointed that this hasn't changed over the past several months) and I really don't care at this point in my Irish learning whether I can ask directions to Blarney Castle or not.

Soooo, I'm going to use materials from House of Ireland instead. I did that this morning and found it much more productive than Duo.

Since I'm here I'll do a general update of what I'm working for Week 1-A (gd, fr, ga, it):

[flag=]gd[/flag]

Working on pronunciation,. listening and reading with Litir 871. Reviewing lyrics to Air an Traigh, Ma Bhios Tu Fo Mhulad and Tha Mi Fo Smuairean .

[flag=]fr[/flag]

Reviewing lyrics to Ecrire Quand Même, Le Vie Simplement and Je Veux and getting a ton of pronunciation and listening practice that way. Reviewing impersonal verbs. Reading various poems by Prévert.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

Reviewing "to be" forms and basic vocabulary and pronunciation using pdfs from House of Ireland beginner courses.

[flag=]it[/flag]

Studying GV Book2 1-5: Persone, La famiglia, Fare la conoscenza, A scoula and Paesi e lingue. Working on the first section in Duo. Just generally getting my feet wet with Italian spelling, grammar and pronunciation.

[Dormouse559]

Je Veux

Love me some Zaz.

Reading various poems by Prévert.

I did a reading of one of his poems for the final in a pronunciation class.

[ceid donn]

Yeah, I love Zaz too. I love Je Veux. It's the first song of hers I heard. The first verse is pretty easy but I am not at all confident with singing the second verse. And it's not a song where you can flub the words. You have to be in command of your enunciation or it just doesn't cut it. Port Coton on the other hand, I can flub a little. But that song was written by Raphaël Haroche and he tends to write songs you can mumble your way through.

I'm trying to memorize this Prévert poem, as it's short, memorable and quite silly:

Quartier Libre

J'ai mis mon képi dans la cage
et je suis sorti avec l'oiseau sur la tête
Alors
on ne salue plus
a demandé le commandant
Non
on ne salue plus
a répondu l'oiseau
Ah bon
excusez-moi je croyais qu'on saluait
a dit le commandant
Vous êtes tout excusé tout le monde peut se tromper
a dit l'oiseau

[Dormouse559]

Yeah, I love Zaz too. I love Je Veux. It's the first song of hers I heard. The first verse is pretty easy but I am not at all confident with singing the second verse. And it's not a song where you can flub the words. You have to be in command of your enunciation or it just doesn't cut it. Port Coton on the other hand, I can flub a little. But that song was written by Raphaël Haroche and he tends to write songs you can mumble your way through.

Oh, yeah, I guess I'd call Zaz's writing style more conversational, like a really fast conversation. Lately, I've been really into her covers, like "Dans ma rue" and "Tous les cris les SOS".

I'm trying to memorize this Prévert poem, as it's short, memorable and quite silly:

Haha, yeah, it is. I am curious where that bird comes from though. For my class, I read "La Grasse Matinée".

[ceid donn]

Update for week 1-B

I am suppose to be working on Japanese, but that's not happening because I've come down with an odd flu-like illness that in addition to making me exhausted and headachy, is causing me serious back pain and general muscle stiffness. So my language studies have been largely limited to what I can do while lying in bed:

--working on this week's Litir for Gaelic
--listening French and Gaelic songs and reviewing the lyrics
--listening to GV Book2 files for French and Italian

That's about it. It's not much but at least I'm doing a little something each day. I really have not tried to work on Japanese yet because with how bad I'm feeling it seems one language too much at the moment. This is not exactly how I wanted to kickstart my SAC but what can I do?

[ceid donn]

My illness is really taking its sweet time, so for however long it takes me to recover for it I'll be following an amended schedule:

I will not be working on Breton or Japanese. I will continue doing daily work on Gaelic and French, but cutting myself a bit of slack due to my limited energy reserves. I'll work on Irish and Italian on alternate days.
[flag=]ga[/flag]

Today is going to be Irish review today. This week I'm working on reviewing chapters 1-8 in TY Irish and looking for an Irish song that I like enough to learn.

[flag=]it[/flag]

I'm going to working mainly with GV Book2 files. I worked on 1-10 last week, so this week it's 11-20. This seems to be a very good way for me to just get familiar with how Italian sounds and feels. If I am up to it, I'll do some Duolingo, although...ugh. Not terribly excited about that.

[flag=]gd[/flag] [flag=]fr[/flag]

In addition to another Litir for Gàidhlig and some poetry reading for French, I'm going to be focusing on getting the lyrics to some of the songs I'm working on nailed down. I really need to do writing practice for both but that will likely have to wait until I'm feeling better.

[ceid donn]

It's been one of those weeks. I'm still sick, but getting better. It's not helping that allergy season is a full throttle mode here.

Anyhoooo.... Update, kind of, for Week 2.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

My motivation to get on with Gaeilge has actually skyrocketed this week, possibly to an all-time high, which has led to some very old frustrations. I still hate how with many Gaeilge instructional materials they break grammar down like it's Latin and it's sooooo artificial for a Celtic language. Seriously, fuck declensions. To the nine. I much prefer the way we learn this stuff with Gàidhlig: listen and read the language as native speakers use it, pick up and learn small phrases to remember patterns of gender, plurals and genitive forms, and be happy because you're speaking Gaelic now, no matter how imperfect it is. With Irish it gets so...anal. I feel at times that I'm back slogging my way through Wheelock's Latin, and that's a hell I never want to go through again.

The other issue I'm having is a critical lack of useful materials for self-study. And by that I mean, useful for someone like me, someone who knows Gàidhlig and is extremely tempted to give up on finding good audio resources and go through learning Gaeilge using Gàidhlig pronunciation. And I know that's lazy and not kosher, despite the fact that a good number of Irish speaker would still understand me quite well.

Unfortunately the version of the old Teach Yourself Irish on archive.org no longer has the pdf with the embedded audio, and I can't get the AIFF files they have there to convert to MP3 or another format that I can use with any of the audio conversion software I have because codecs won't install properly and yadda yadda yadda. ARGH. So I broke down and got the audio version of the Living Languages Irish, since I have a bunch of unused Audible credits, and I ordered a TY Complete Irish set, although I know it's a different version from the older TY.

I did read through a couple of blogs today and was happy at how little I needed to look up. So, that was a small victory. Also listened to some archived recordings on Raidió na Life and watched some videos on You Tube.

I do seriously need to work on writing Gaeilge because I am utterly lost when it comes to remembering where the accent goes. With Gàidhlig words, I know the pattern of when to use the accent and where to put it, but with Gaeilge is seems very weird and irregular.

Despite issues, I am happy I did get some productive work done this week so far with Irish--reviewing vocabulary, working on pronunciation, reading and listening practice--even if in a rather disorganized and annoyed way. Again, small victories.

Have not found a Gaeilge song I like enough to learn yet. Not sure why this is such a seemingly hard task. I guess I'm not looking in the right places.

[flag=]it[/flag]

Have not done much because I've gotten a wee bit obsessed with Irish this week. I am reciting GV Book2 files each night before bed though, and I listened to so You Tube videos of spoken Italian and was happy at how much I could already understand. It's something.

[flag=]gd[/flag]

The usual weekly Litir and started reviewing with Speaking Our Language. Plus I've started reading An Sgoil Dhubh by Iain E. MacLeòid--so far I'm really enjoying it. Also I spent a good amount of time working on a couple of songs.

[flag=]fr[/flag]

Not very much with French this week aside working on my songs.

[ceid donn]

Update for the end of Week 2:

I'm feeling much better but there are other things hogging up some of my free time so I'm going to be sticking to my amended schedule until the semester is over, most likely. It's possible I may drop Japanese altogether from this SAC. We'll see.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

Most of my work this week has been with Irish, and I feel I made some small progress. I've been focusing on learning pronunciation, using various audio and videos wherever I can find them, and it seems to be paying off. The better I get at Irish pronunciation the easier it seems for my brain to keep Irish and Scottish Gaelic straight and separate from one another. Aaaah, I knew there was a hidden bonus to not being lazy about pronunciation!

One thing I've started to facilitate this is writing out Irish words and phrases with their Scottish Gaelic counterparts in a Moleskin cahier journal. So now I have lists to read through to practice distinguishing Irish from Scottish Gaelic, as well as simply to practice Irish pronunciation. These cahier journala are rather slim volumes, so I'm going to make it my goal to fill two entire journals with Gaeilge > Gàidhlig phrases by the end of summer.

[flag=]gd[/flag]

I mainly have worked on a single Litir this week, although my study partner had to cancel tonight so we did not get to read through it together. I'm on chapter 5 in An Sgoil Dhubh and I've been working on the song Maili Dhonn exclusively for the latter half to this week, which is coming along rather well. I did earnestly mean to work on Blas na Gàidhlig and Speaking Our Language this week, but just didn't get to them.

[flag=]fr[/flag]

The past couple of nights I have been really working on Je Veux and La Vie Simplement, which too are coming along nicely. My voice is a bit out of practice, having not sung for a number of months. But it's starting to loosen up and it's making the French easier. Also I have been going through GV Book2 files before bed, along with the Italian ones.

[flag=]it[/flag]

Just doing GV Book2 right now. I'm a little worried that my sudden motivation for Irish is going push Italian further and further to the back burner. Truth is, Irish really would be more beneficial for me to learn right now, but I do genuinely what to learn some Italian, even if it's just the basics. However, I do find GV Book2 really good for basic rote learning, so even if I just learn some basic sentences and words, and can recall them and pronounce them easily by the end of SAC it'll be something.

[ceid donn]

Well, my health has taken a turn for the worse again and with it, I can feel my depression creeping in. That fact that I'll seen be unemployed isn't helping either. At least I have my languages.

[flag=]gd[/flag]

The novel I'm reading is by a native Lewis Gaelic speaker and I am very happy that I've not needed to look up many words at all. Most look-ups so far are words I recognized but couldn't recall immediately what they meant. But as far as words completely new to me, not many at all. In fact, just one. A nice change from the last Gaelic novel I read, which was by a US-born learner/now-fluent speaker who apparently felt he needed prove how much Gaelic he had by using an extensively diverse selection of lesser used words. But that my Gaelic vocabulary is pretty much on par with native Lewis speaker's writing seems like an achievement. It certainly makes reading in Gaelic more enjoyable.

I'm going to hold off on writing practice in Gaelic until I finish this novel. This novel, I find, is very readable and the Gaelic is very flowing, natural and unpretentious--exactly how I hope my own Gaelic writing will be one day. Upon finishing this, I will work on my writing and hope a bit of the author's Gaelic will have rubbed off on me. One should live in hope, not expectation, eh?

I just discovered last night that I can download the sound files in the LearnGaelic dictionary and have started making short playlists of recordings I've picked out to practice some of my weaker areas in pronunciation. I'm quite happy about this, as I can tailor it to exactly what I need.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

Why can't I, like, just be able to speak Irish, like, now? I want to learn it, but again, it often feels like an immense amount of work and I'm not exactly sure why. But I can't let that discourage me as I feel at long last I'm progressing with it.

I'm going to have to start writing in Irish soon, and writing where other people can see it and read it and stuff. You know, face my anxiety and just do it. I have a couple of avenues for this, ones I hope won't result in a bunch of unhelpful, excessively anal "corrections". But nonetheless I'm scared. Overly zealous Irish learner types can be so...um...overbearing and I really wish I could avoid them all completely, but I know I can't. Someone hug me.

I had a dream last night where I was yelling at someone in Irish. I guess that's evidence of progress, even if It wasn't particularly good Irish.

[ceid donn]

Update for Week 3. It's Week 3, right?

[flag=]gd[/flag]

I've been quite productive with Gàidhlig this week. I've watched 4 episodes of Speaking Our Language, worked on a new Litir, read 2 more chapters in An Sgoil Dhubh, read an interview, have worked on my songs nearly every day and have been working with one of LearnGaelic's Look@ grammar videos, which I'm also using for dictation practice.

Also came across this on You Tube. Gu math èibhinn!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btg-aEPNiRg&list=PL4o93rxTR880oOHnVyHUZg2t1BCtngeHh&index=5

[flag=]fr[/flag]

Again, not much beyond reading French on social media and working on my songs. I hope to watch some videos today and listening to some Book2 files.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

I'm continuing to work on my little Gaeilge > Gàidhlig notebook and am working on listening skills and pronunciation. Also, I went over verb forms this week--I'm just going to need a ton writing practice with this. My notebook is helping but I'll need more rigorous practice. Soon.

[flag=]br[/flag]

While I haven't 'been doing any work with Breton because of my focus on Gàidhlig and Gaeilge, I am missing it a lot and I totally wanderlust for it every time I pass by the nightstand where I keep a stack of Breton materials. Hopefully I can get back to it soon.

[flag=]it[/flag]

While I did read through a couple SQA past papers for intermediate Italian this week to gauge how well my reading comprehension is coming along (and I dare say, not too shabby!), I haven't gone over my Book2 files for the past two night. Shame on me. Shame, shame, shame. Can't let this slip. Will be working on them immediately. Like, as soon as I post this.

Honest!

[Dormouse559]

Again, not much beyond reading French on social media and working on my songs. I hope to watch some videos today and listening to some Book2 files.

If you're interested in the news, maybe try RFI, too? They have their normal programming, and under the "Journaux" menu, they have a news bulletin "en français facile". The hosts speak more slowly and very clearly, while the reporters speak somewhat faster.

[ceid donn]

I've used RFi stuff before but kinda grew tired of it. I'm not much into using news for language learning these days. World news is depressing enough when it's in English.

Update for Week 3 going into Week 4:

[flag=]gd[/flag][flag=]ga[/flag]

I'm going to have a seriously busy week at work coming up, which combined with my depression, that's now in full swing and does not want to go back into the box quietly, and my health issues, I fear I'm not going to get much done. And that bothers me because all I am in the mood to do these days is study Irish and Scottish Gaelic and be left alone.

I took a break yesterday from all my languages and today I've mostly just done Scottish Gaelic since I'm meeting with my study partner tonight. In addition to working on my weekly Litir, watching videos on LearnGaelic and working on pronunciation, I've been re-doing my Speaking Our Language MP3 playlists to include files from the LearnGaelic dictionary and MP3s from the more advanced SOL episodes..

I worked through the entire Learn Irish audiobook this past week. It's not very long, rather disappointingly, but it's good practice. I also started using some of the Colin and Cumberland files for Irish. I used those when I first started learning Scottish Gaelic and found them useful for retention through repetition.

Tonight I'll be working on putting together materials to use at work this week since I'll be spending a lot time there, and most likely a fair amount of downtime while I wait for admins to get their crap together.

[flag=]fr[/flag] [flag=]it[/flag]

I'm tempted to take a short break from French but I really shouldn't. Daily exposure, even if minimal, is so very helpful for me. When I do keep up minimal exposure, I find myself talking to myself in French and having dreams in French.

My goal for this week, for both french and Italian, is to work on GV Book2 files at night before bed. I'm going to review 1-30 for Italian and continue repetition of 60-100 for French. And additionally for French, I will try to do dictation practice at least twice during the week.

After this week, I'll be looking in to going back to Lang 8. I do not know if there are any Irish speakers there, but I do know I can get help with French and Italian.

[ceid donn]

I have survived the worst part of my awful work week this week. Yesterday I came home from work and went straight to bed. I only got up for dinner. Needless to say I didn't get any language work done.

During my downtime at work yesterday and today, I was able to

-- [flag=]gd[/flag] listen to my Speaking Our Language audio file playlists and read a little bit of An Sgoil Dhubh
-- [flag=]ga[/flag] practice verb tenses
-- [flag=]fr[/flag] read some poems by Rimbaud

My copy of Teach Yourself Complete Irish came today and I'll be working on that starting tonight. I intend to finish it by the end of summer. My motivation for Irish has recently had another huge boost. Very weird how I struggled for years to find the desire to really learn it and now, bam!

After I have worked through a bit of TYCI, I'll be looking into finding a study partner like i have for Scottish Gaelic.

I also need to see if I can find a French study partner. But not right now, because until the semester is over with, it may might it hard for me to commit to a regular time. Also at the end of the semester, I may contact my old teacher from AGA and see if I can find someone who can tutor me in advanced Gaelic conversation. Native speakers who give private lessons (that I can afford) are hard to find states-side but there may be enough advanced learners around now for me to partner up with them.

I signed up for Lang-8 premium so I better make use of it. I'll be posting things in Italian, French and Irish. Not terribly hopeful about getting help with Irish but it'll still be good practice. I've already planned my first Italian and French post, and will write them later this week once things with work calm down.

I seriously gave thought to dropping Italian today, but no. I'll just do what I can, which may not be a lot. But at this rate it doesn't look like Japanese or Breton will be part of my SAC, sadly. I want to get somewhere with Irish too badly.

[ceid donn]

End of Week 4 update

Sadly, I'm going to drop Italian from this SAC. I hate doing it. I like studying a language where there are a lot of other learners and a lot of materials and native speakers online, but daaaaaiym, time. And energy. And stuff. I may add it back later, maybe do a little mini-TAC between SAC and WAC that focuses just on Italian. We'll see.

I survived this week at work, and can't say I got as much done with my languages as I wanted to. However, what I was able to do I feel was very productive. So it was quality study time and I'm happy with that.

[flag=]gd[/flag]

I'm going to try to finish An Sgoil Dhubh over the next 7-10 days so I can read other things. I have a ton of Gaelic books I either want to re-read again now that my reading skills are much better, or I've never gotten around to reading. Including another novel by the author of An Sgoil Dhubh.

Last night and this morning I've worked on my Gaeilge > Gàidhlig notebook, which has helped me a lot with reviewing some finer grammar points for Gàidhlig I've been neglectful about, even going so far as reviewing TAIC lessons. I've long needed to do this since I stopped taking classes with the AGA and stopped focusing on studying grammar specifically.

Tomorrow of course I meet with my study partner, providing neither us need to cancel. I'll be looking at the Litir for that today since I haven't had a chance all week.

[flag=]ga[/flag]

Like with Gàidhlig, I'm finding my Gaeilge > Gàidhlig notebook project to be very, very helpful. Especially with details I might overlook otherwise, like how in Gaeilge, dinnéar is masculine, whereas in Gàidhlig, dinnèar is feminine.

It's also helping me become more confident with writing in Gaeilge. I even tweeted my first tweet in Gaeilge last night. It was just "Tá sí go hálainn" in reply to one of my Irish tweeps posting a pic of their adorable kitty, but hey, it's start.

I've read chapter 1-7 in TYCI, but now am working on the exercises with the audio, which is a bit more laborious. But not daunting at all.

[flag=]fr[/flag]

Aside from reading some poetry and drilling with GV Book2 files, most of my work with French this past week has been with my songs. I do have something planned for a Lang-8 post which I will work on this afternoon. Much of what I've done with French this SAC has been quite productive, but I've yet to really sit down and do some writing. It's sorely overdue. (I should probably start doing my French updates in French as well. )