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Misty's Language Learning of 2023



2023 is almost at an end, and it has been a good year for me! I don't know how to introduce this, but here is a summary of my language learning efforts this year, separated by language.

French

I should probably be writing this part in French, but oh well. I don't really want to annoy anybody who expected this page to be in English.

Anyways, my French obsession levels were very, very, very high this year. I am particularly proud of how much I listened to the radio in French this year. The stations I listened to were ICI Musique (this is the Francophone branch of the CBC, which is basically like the Canadian version of the BBC) and also a local station. Every single time I drove my car I turned it on, and eventually I got to know the DJs and really understand them well. Even the advertisements were useful listening practice. I feel like I got to discover a lot more about Québec and just French Canada in general. Also, I was on an Air Canada plane and discovered their Francophone playlists on the entertainment system, there was one song that I couldn't stop listening to on my flight to and from the UK. They also had a lot of movies from Québec which was good, although I honestly struggle watching them without subtitles.

I have been watching the news a lot, mostly France 24. It has become quite easy to understand, although sometimes when they interview a random person on the street it can be hard to comprehend. I also just like watching Radio Canada because I can at least recognise the places they talk about. I do like France 24 for its international focus, as someone who likes international relations it is much appreciated.

As for books, I have been reading a lot in French, specifically Arsène Lupin novels. I love Lupin to bits. At first the books were super difficult, but now I can read them quite well without having to look up a word every five seconds. The 1970s Lupin series was quite enjoyable, but a lot of the episodes got taken off of YouTube. I also read some translated romance books, they were quite easy to read. If there was a word I didn't know, I could usually guess it from the context. I have also managed to spontaneously use my French with real people. One lady was even confused because I told her I was British. She asked me "Why are you speaking French then?" but in the end she was happy that I was learning. Sometimes if I know the person already knows English, I will tend to switch back to it if I am stuck, so I've got to learn not to do that. Sometimes I have a brain fart and it is hard to find my words, but people seem to understand me fine enough. A lot of people use Anglicisms all the time anyway, so if I need a word I can use them. They don't teach you many Anglicisms or even much slang at all in my French courses, so you end up talking like a textbook.

As for Francophone countries, I would particularly like to visit Switzerland. I think I have seen it from a plane (if you fly to Italy from the UK I am quite sure that they go over the Alps), but I would much rather like to see it from the ground. I don't know why I am fascinated with this country, it just looks so beautiful and they speak so many languages there.

Anyways, I am going to give myself a pat on the back for this year's French learning. I think I did well. I could probably live in a country that only speaks French without any problems.

Mandarin Chinese

I am sorry, Mandarin, I have neglected you a bit. Luckily my enthusiam is returning!

I think I was mostly just fed up with our teacher's methods. To be frank, their classes were boring and they relied on the textbook way too much. Even though their intentions are good, I still prefer the other professor that I had. This caused the classes to feel like a bit of a chore. Because I was focusing on my other courses, I didn't exactly put that much focus on the language. Somehow I still got good grades though.

I really want my enthusiasm for the language to return to what it was when I was 13 and I first discovered it. My interest in the culture is growing, but I still don't feel confident using it outside of the class. Also, I don't know how to write most of the characters, so if I was stuck in the middle of nowhere in China without a computer, I would be unable to write anything other than "Hello!" and my name. Some of the other groups in my university are learning the writing, but our group started during COVID so everything was online and they didn't really give us any writing practice. Chinese would take a lot longer to learn if I factored in writing. I do have a book that teaches you to write, but only the basics. I can recognise the radicals fairly well, but I am just lost on how to start learning how to properly write now. I know at least a 1000 characters, so would I have to study all of them? That would take so long.

Even after a few years, nobody in my class feels that good at the language, even though the course is now called "Advanced Chinese". Some people can barely form a sentence, and I am not exaggerating. Even though there are a lot of Chinese people around to practice with, none of us are that confident. It's also hard for me to find Chinese media I enjoy. I'm not really interested in watching one of the 100 episode dramas that are on Netflix.

Let's hope that next year things will go a bit better. There are a lot of opportunities out there for students studying the language, so I would really like to keep studying and maybe travel to a Chinese speaking country one day.

Italian

My summer language... I didn't have time to study it once the school year started again, so I am probably forgetting a lot. Busuu put me in the B1 course, which means I have made good progress after about a year. I got bored of the Duolingo course, it was so repetitive and eventually was too easy for me. I already wrote elsewhere about my studying experience with the Assimil L'italien sans peine course.

I went to Italy in the summer, and I successfully managed to ask "Can I have some milk for my tea?" and then specify whether I wanted hot or cold milk. That made me feel good. It was hard to practice, especially if you are travelling with people who don't speak the language. The television channels in the hotel weren't that easy to understand, but were entertaining. The programmes I saw were these: Some kind of You've Been Framed like series with a puppet, Italia's Got Talent, and also some old Cartoon Network shows.

Italy this year was quite nice, very hot and also busy with tourists. I forget how good their sandwiches are, even the most basic fillings taste so good! I finally got to try cacio e pepe pasta, and it was amazing! There was also a restaurant that gave out blocks of parmesan as the free appetiser, which was yummy. And my favourite dish (in the same restaurant) was this gnocchi dish with some kind of creamy cheese sauce. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water... Next time I think I would like to visit the countryside or the beach, not the places which are packed with tourists. The hotel basically felt like I was in America. It's not that I have anything against people enjoying the world and travelling, it's just that I would like to be fully immersed in the country and see real locals. Sometimes it is fun seeing cars that come from other countries there, especially British cars because you know that they would've had to take a ferry and drive all the way through France to get there. It sounds like a nice road trip idea. I didn't really watch much Italian TV at home to study, except this one series called Fedeltà. It was OK, but not all that romantic. I did watch this other film called L'estate più calda. That was really enjoyable. It feels like there isn't all that much Italian content on Netflix.

Eurovision

This has nothing to do with language learning, but I want to comment on it. This year was my first time ever watching Eurovision, and it was great! I only watched the final and some clips of the earlier performances.

My favourite song was Moldova's, it was really unique and also catchy. Albania also had a good song. My own country's song wasn't that good, I am really surprised that they beat Germany in the final. Germany's band, Lord of the Lost were great, I don't know why they got so little votes! Their costumes were unique and I liked how positive the lyrics were. I also adored Italy's song, it was so beautiful and probably had the best vocals.

I feel like Finland should've won over Sweden, because Cha Cha Cha was so much more fun, I feel like it got the crowd hyped. It was such an upbeat and danceable tune. Loreen's Tattoo was dramatic and also quite good, but I think it was unfair because she had already won Eurovision before. Shouldn't they have entered some new?

Anyways, I liked the spectacle of Eurovision. I will definitely watch it again next year.

Goals for 2024?

I would like to start learning Romanian again when I have some time, and also focus on improving my Chinese. Also, if I have the space to start a new language, I would like to try something from the Slavic family. I already know how to read the Cyrillic alphabet, so it shouldn't be too hard to start. Apparently a lot of them have a case system, and I don't understand cases all that well yet. If I keep trying with Romanian, I'm sure I will understand them soon! Romanian will be a good bridge between the Romance and the Slavic family, even if I don't get a high level, it will still be useful.

As for Slavic languages, I only know a bit about Russian. A lot of the words sound familiar, even the pronouns and non-loan words sound similar to languages I already know. That's probably because of their shared Indo-European heritage. I'm not really sure how many languages a human being can be fluent at, so I'm not sure if I really want to take on another language. I don't want to be someone who doesn't know anything fluently because they split their time too much between five different languages.

We will see what the next year brings, hopefully more travel opportunities. I am pleased at least with my French learning efforts, I honestly feel like I am really getting good at it.


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