I gave some thought to starting a proper language blog, and decided that kind of project is too high maintenance for me at the moment. So I'm going to do an End of the Year SAC (but for brevity's sake, we call it a WAC), because I do find it helpful to set goals and check in on my progress, despite my tendency to change plans every other week.
First tier languages--the ones I am most advanced in and want to do the most intensive work in:
[flag=]gd[/flag] Gaelic
[flag=]fr[/flag] French
Second tier languages--ones I need to make some more progress in:
[flag=]ga[/flag] Irish
[flag=]br[/flag] Breton
[flag=]cy[/flag] Welsh
[flag=]it[/flag] Italian
Third tier languages--ones I want to review a bit, or use for laddering when possible
[flag=]ja[/flag] Japanese
[flag=]id[/flag] Indonesian
Fourth tier languages--languages in which at the moment I've lost interest, but 4 weeks from now, who knows?
[flag=]sw[/flag] Swahili
[flag=]ru[/flag] Russian
One reason I decided to do this WAC is because 10 days ago I started a mini-SAC-like thing with French where I'm doing about 4-5 hours of French study every day. And yes, I have actually been meeting my goals so far. My plan was to do this for 3 weeks, but I may extend it a forth week seeing how pleased I am with my motivation level and completion of daily goals. After this, I plan to do a similar thing with Gaelic. Woohoo.
I haven't completely sidelined all other languages, but I have been working them in around my French study, mostly by using Memrise. Lately I've been doing 6 or more hours of language study a day. Crazy, I know, but my current schedule and living situation as granted me this opportunity. So, carpe diem and all that.
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What I have done so far and what I'll be doing now:
Over the summer I completely reviewed my Duolingo French tree and kept it golden for a few weeks, and I did a fair amount of work with songs, pronunciation, and listening. I'm taking a break from Duolingo for now--some creepy-creepy stuff has been going on there and I just can't deal with that right now (plus I'm bored with their format and really need to be work wiith other resources)--and have been using Memrise, which has greatly improved since I first tried it out some years back. I signed up for the Pro membership so I can download courses to use offline and to have access to the other learning modes, and so far, I say it's money well spent.
The first part of my 3-4 week French intensive study has been going through Memrise's French courses 1-7, and after that I'll do their intermediate French course. I'm nearly done with 5 now--I may finish it tonight if I have the energy. I admit I'm finding 5 a bit duller than 1-4, largely due to it having so much about sports and politics. Blah. It'll be over soon. But so far, overall, I've practiced about 1700 words and phrases, and practiced them up to a rate of 95% correct or better. It's been really good practice too. One thing Memrise is good for is improving recall, which I admit with French, my recall, well, ça craint. Vraiment. It's in part because I don't get enough conversation practice, and part because i'm studying other languages. But cramming through these courses has been wonderful for my recall.
Another thing I really like with the Memrise French 1-7 courses is the videos of a very wide range of french speakers and boy, is it excellent listening practice. Plus the pro membership gives you a learning mode that is just these videos too.
In addition to the Memrise French 1-7, I am doing three other Memrise courses for francophones--Breton (a course based on the Assimil book), Japonais and Italien (unfortunately there isn't a good Indonesian course for francophones on Memrise yet). I do a little in each every day, although a bit more in Breton than the other two.
Outside of Memrise, I am watching French language videos on You Tube or parts of a French film on Netflix every day and taking notes on them in French. So far most of them have been Français avec Pierre videos, but hey, I like Pierre. But I've also been viewing segments of Comme un Chef and Amélie on Netflix. Also, when I'm done cramming through the Memrise basic courses, I plan to spend less time on Memrise and get back to my PUG books.
After this first post, I will make an earnest attempt to do future updates on my French studies in French. Oui, vraiment, c'est promis !
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At the moment I'm just doing some Memrise courses for more advanced vocabulary and doing some writing. I misplaced my copy of An Creanaiche so I'm a couple of episodes behind on Fa Chomhair an Leughadair. Those aren't very intensive, and the show is on a break while the presenter is off doing other Gaelic stuff. So I don't have to worry about getting too far behind. It's just a matter of finding my book and sitting down to listen to the broadcasts.
When I am done with my French intensive study I plan on doing the same with Gaelic, but it'll have to be quite different, content-wise. With Gaelic I'll be focusing on reading, writing and vocabulary building. I also have some DVDs I need to dust off and watch and there's plenty of videos on LearnGaelic I can use. I've given some thought to doing my own Memrise course, but I'm no sure if I will. Aside from deciding what it'll focus on, I would have to look into what creating a course on Memrise entails.
So that's where things are for now--a whole lot French, with Breton, Japanese and Italian on the side, and up next, a whole lot of Gaelic. At some point before the end of the year, I'll find some time for Irish and Welsh.