Et puis, il y en a eu trois

So I’ve decided to drop French from the group. There were a few reasons.

1. I was lagging behind on it the most.
2. It was the most challenging / frustrating to learn.
3. I found myself feeling a sense of dread on the days when I was meant to do French.

The third is probably the most important reason – I’m doing this for myself, three languages is a lot, let alone four, so if it’s not sparking joy, why should I keep doing it?

The fact that it’s been frustrating / challenging isn’t specifically a reason to give it up, and I would say that it’s more of a “pause for now” than a “never again”. If I weren’t learning 3 other languages, this would be more manageable. I recognize the utility of learning French, especially given that I would like to live in Montreal at some point, for at least a little while. I will likely revisit this when it gets closer to that point, so I can focus more intently on it.

Lastly, the “lagging behind” became more apparent after looking at the analytics offered by Mango Languages. What it tells me:

Progress within each language:

Given that I started on Nov 29th, 153 days have passed. That’s averaging roughly 20 mins per day. With 4 languages, that’s only 5 mins per day on average. In reality, from looking at the logs, this is how long some lessons take me, but I’ve definitely also had days when I’ve spent an hour or more on a single language, especially more recently.

Around a month ago, I switched my practice cadence from “all languages every day” to “single language each day, on a schedule”. With French this meant each language once in a week, and then a few days of all-language-review (existing material, nothing new).

Switching to three languages means I can do each language twice a week, focused, with one day for all-language review.

One thing I’ve enjoyed about switching to single-languages per day (for up to an hour) is it’s let me start using a couple supplemental books – for Farsi, I have a book that is to learn how to write the script more correctly (and learn better pronunciation). I’m about 2/3 through this one, then I have a different book loaned to me by a Persian friend. For Swedish, I have an elementary grammar reader by Gladys Hird – I had checked it out at the library long ago and liked it enough to pick up my own copy. This focuses a LOT on reading and writing comprehension, and in a way it’s been more helpful than Mango Languages, except there’s no audio.