June was very mean to me. May too. But especially June.
I was snowed under with tons of work — I am not complaining. I love what I do at the office, and I get great feedback with my work. But things started to pick up in May then became a full-blown monster in June.
June was also Newsletter Month at work, and I am a member of the committee and a huge chunk of my time at work has to be set aside for it. I made comic books, haha! Everybody loved it — heck, I loved it! I don’t know shit about Photoshop but I am resourceful and creative enough. All I had at my disposal were iPhone photo editing apps and Microsoft PowerPoint. My comics were COOL. If I may say so myself. 🙂
Then a new class started at school. I wanted to postpone it until July. But they absolutely wanted me to start teaching the class in June. In the last 2 weeks of June, I got really sick and had to stay home for 4 days. 4 days bedridden, in fact.
That said, my language learning missions have suffered greatly. I barely had time to rest and I sacrificed study time, as evidenced by my tracker below. 
Japanese
Can I confess something? I am really tired of N1. I am sick of it. I want to drop it. But again, I can’t. It is too important for me to give up. I want to level up in my teaching career, and for that, I need N1. It is a much revered qualification in the Japanese world. Even if it means drilling obscure words and Kanji day in and day out, I have to do it. Trudge on, soldier. Oh, and I love you, Memrise.
Hungarian
HungarianPod101.com – The Fastest Way to Learn Hungarian Guaranteed
One of my problems with Hungarian is vocabulary. So my friend and language partner Gábor came up with a solution. He asked me for a list of topics that I am interested in: sports, travel, movies, etc. Then, he put together a list of at least 70 words per topic in Google Docs: Hungarian in the first column and the English meaning in the second column. I am to study these words and make sentences in the third column. I don’t have to write sentences for all of the words, only those I am interested in. Then he will then correct my sentences and give feedback. I love this activity. I can immediately use the new words I have learned by incorporating them in patterns I already know.
A K-Pop egy zenei műfaj. Ezt nem szeretem mert nagyon unalmas. — Yeah, this is my opinion; deal with it.
The next topic is sports and out of 75 words, I’ve managed to write a whopping 9 sentences! WOW. What progress!
The Return of the Comeback!
I am very disappointed with myself because I let things slide. But things are now going back to normal bit by bit; I fell off the horse but I am back in the saddle and I am ready to start learning again.
For the most part, my Japanese routine will be pretty much the same. It is different when you are studying a language from scratch and studying for a certification. With the JLPT, a lot of that is rote memorization — usually words that you will only see in exams and obscure texts. I will need to introduce Sou Matome grammar soon. Also, Grace-sensei gave me a couple of books from the new Kanzen Master series, because I only have the ones from before the N1-5 “era”.
With Hungarian, I have changed my routine and have dropped FSI Hungarian from my list of resources. Each day (roughly one hour) will consist of:
- Memrise
- Glossika – I cannot recommend this enough! I love it so much that it merits its own blog post — which will happen as soon as I finish the Fluency 1 module (halfway done!)
- Main study – I am using HungarianPod101, Assimil, Colloquial Hungarian and Teach Yourself/Complete Hungarian
One thing that is glaringly absent in my list is an iTalki tutor. I am trying to curb expenses now, and it is one of the first to go. I cannot discount the benefits of having a real native speaker teach you the language, but sacrifices have to be made. I will have to make do with what I have right now.
It is not going to be an easy learning journey to December. But I will stick with it because this is what I want — I am 100% committed to my 2025 goal of 1 language a year. 🙂
