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[alaterdate]

I fell into a Stardew Valley hole since I decided to play it in French. My thought process goes, "it's immersion" and then I have leeway to play games through all my free time instead of actually studying. But truthfully, I've mined some surprisingly useful words from it. Some farming related words were in a story in the graded reader I'm working through and that was fun for me. But after a bit I tend to not talk to the townsfolk much, alack. I also accidentally gifted Robin a pebble because I thought the quest said she wanted rocks (when it was actually asking me to mine rocks) and she didn't like that, whoops. Another thing that tripped me up was that Clint has a quest on the board to kill 50 "Vers" and for quite a while I could not figure out what that meant because otherwise they are just called "Larves" in the wiki and game.

I tried to get back into using Anki with the frequency list from routledge and at first I was making my own cards, but it's so tedious. I found a deck someone else made and started using that. But I realized that I'm not a flashcard man anymore. They bore me. And secondly, I shouldn't waste time going over words I already know nor words that I'm going to be frequently exposed to anyway (duh 🤦). We can chalk this up a bit to me not being aware of the anki meta of only using Suspend, Again, and Good. But with the premade deck and suspending the super easy ones I've decided to give it another honest go (third time's the charm? I would like to be able to say "I know X many words" just because I'm a sucker for metrics).

I got some French Language Study materials for free a while ago and finally dug into them at the end of last year to see what would be useful. Wish I could have gotten the Windows 3.1 disc to run, while I don't think it would be useful it would have been fun for a bit. The most useful thing I got was definitely the copy of "Pronounce It! Perfectly in French" Learning a new language you will be told, multiple times, that learning the sounds is essential. And it's true, but going through this book and accompanying CDs I have to check how words are pronounced less and less. And hopefully it can help me develop my ear further.

It's been a month of going through this "course" I made for myself with the materials I've gathered and my reading was already the thing I was most comfortable with, but I've learned more actual grammar points instead of just floating by on what I was only vaguely aware from that one semester in college. Yet, I remain too intimidated to dive into a full length novel. My writing is simple. My listening is still abysmal if it's not "slow french," but I will focus on that later. Speaking is about as simple as my writing. I don't exactly know what I want to do for output. People always suggest journaling, but that tends to get me really caught up in rabbit holes. Right now I just do the description exercises from 50 French Coffee Breaks.

I've taken a few different online assessment tests and they put me in B1, so I'm pleased with where a month of actually going through a text book & other assorted learning materials has gotten me. And I planned out four months worth of things to go through. My goal is to read that novel afterward.

Comments

[pauraque]

I've also run into inconsistent translations when playing games in French, as if different people translated different chunks of the game and didn't compare notes. I've also seen confused translations where the person obviously didn't know or understand the context; my favorite was a boss in WoW called Thorngrin the Tender, who appears in a plant-themed area, tending a garden. The French translator called him Rirépine le Tendre, which he definitely was not.

I should get back on my French too. I know there's a French practice group at the library, and I always think I should go, but it's hard to motivate myself.

[alaterdate]

Lmao. Maybe he gave really good hugs.

A study group sounds fun, but I understand the lack of motivation to get up and go to something like that. Even deciding to actually study on my own was a commitment.