French, Hungarian, Japanese, Swedish

2022 language learning updates and the #GlossikaChallenge

Posted by Cat Ramos

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Why is it that every year, I have such posts about language goals…and every year, there’s a new language in the list. 😀 But my life is not an exciting life if it does not involve language learning of some sort!

October ushered in my favorite season with this exciting news from Glossika:

Credit: Glossika

Was very excited and decided to join before I read all the details. Today, I learned that it is for people who are not yet subscribers to Glossika. Sad face. They will get one month of free use of the system for any language of their choice (seriously, Glossika’s list is HUGE). If they win the challenge, they get 3 months of free access to Glossika’s entire catalog.

Argh, I wish they would also have some kind of challenge for existing subscribers. Not that we need it. We’re fans anyway. But it would still be fun to do a challenge while you are crushing language goals, right? So keeping my fingers crossed for a challenge like that!

For the last quarter of the year, I am giving my languages a final push, my trusty Glossika by my side (in my phone, actually) :

Hungarian

I had so much progress last year with my online Hungarian classes, but I stopped when the school changed teachers. This year, my Hungarian is only on maintenance mode. I have finished the Glossika course (which is up to C1 level) and I revise the sentences a few times a week. I meant to join the 3-month Assimil challenge on Twitter, but I never got around to doing it. This month, I might aim to do two chapters per week. Or not. Again, no pressure. I am now giving myself 2 years to finally pass at least a B2 language exam. 🙂 At least in two years, I would expect myself to finish all the Hungarian books and materials I have accumulated throughout the years!

Swedish

My current love. This is where I am pouring all my efforts in this year. My resources for self-study are:

  • Pimsleur – completed in Q1. No serious language routine should be without Pimsleur.
  • Duolingo – tree completed, going through the Legendary levels. Despite the robotic audio, this has been a great supplement to my studies.
  • Glossika – no explanation needed
  • Rivstart – I aim to finish the A1/2 book by year end. Together with Babbel, this is where the meat is. My online class uses an older edition of this, but it is just as good.
  • Babbel – I was almost done with all the Beginner levels, but it was progressing too fast and I felt I wasn’t absorbing much, so I dropped it and focused on Duolingo, which had more repetitions. Switching to Duolingo helped me understand the structures I learned with Babbel because I kept repeating the same sentences over and over. Now that I am done with Duolingo, it is time to pick up where I left off with Babbel.
  • Online class – I joined an online A1 class in July. Sadly, it is not progressing as well as I had expected. It is so slow, and there’s too much Hungarian being used in the class. I feel like I am learning more Hungarian than Swedish, if I am being honest.

Japanese

Since moving to Hungary, I have less and less chances of using my Japanese. I am not actively studying it, nor do I intend to in the medium term.

For Japanese, it is only in maintenance mode. I do a really short daily session on Memrise for vocabulary. Then if I have some extra time, I do a session of Glossika for 25 repetitions. I have not been doing Glossika Japanese consistently so I have not finished the course, and I am at the B1 level.

French

But this is the least serious of my languages this year. Just trying on for size. I have had a few forays into French before. I studied a bit at Alliance Francaise in Manila, then took a few lessons on iTalki until Hungarian took priority and I abandoned French completely.

Then somehow, in the past months, something has rekindled my interest in the French language. I cannot quite explain it. But it was strong enough to get me to shelve my plan to learn Spanish. I had all sorts of reasons for doing Spanish: the biggest one is that people at work THINK I speak Spanish because of my name. But it is what it is: I am saying a temporary adiós to Spanish and bonjour to French.

I have a lifetime Premium subscription to the app Speakly, which I got a few months ago from an email promo. This app comes with 7 languages (French, Spanish, German, Italian, Estonian, Finnish, and Russian) and I intend to use Speakly for almost all of the languages included – this is seriously one very good app that is also pleasing to the eye.

For now, I only do the bare minimum for French: the target is a measly 5 points daily, that’s it. Aside from Speakly, I am also slooowly working my way through the Duolingo tree. Their French course is definitely one of their very best. I am especially loving the Audio/Podcast section.

That is the Q4 push! So far, I have been very consistent. Little bits here and there everyday really do add up. My language tracker on Toggl shows I average at least an hour on a normal workday, even on busy monthend days. Pat on the back, hair flip, then I am off now to get some more studying in!

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