My language learning diary

(Learning French (as serious as I can), Finnish (just for fun) and Japanese (in the near future)

Hi guys. :slight_smile:

I want to tell you that I can’t take it anymore. It is true that I’m committed to only learning French and that I decided awhile ago that I will first study French for at least 6 months until I’m able to speak it, and then start to learn Japanese. This is still my decision but I decided now that I will start learning Finnish just for pleasure and fulfillment, with no pressure, just when I feel like it, so I decided not to make goals for my learning. I will do that one day when I decide to it to be my serious occupation. My dream is to live one day in Finland. I also feel that I will be more committed to my French learning here on LingQ if I start with Finnish here too because I learn French here and in the classroom, so it’s starting to be a bit dull just listening and reading French language. I love French, don’t get me wrong, but I want to try something new also.

I want to make kind of a diary on this topic, so I want to add that I would be thrilled if native French and/or Finnish people say hello, but the learners and other people are welcome, too. :slight_smile:

I changed my approach in learning French. I decided to read less lessons, to read one particular lesson, to listen more to that one lesson and to review flashcards of the lesson. How far it should take me? I concluded that 4 lessons a day are too many.
I know that successful language learners don’t recommend learning more than 1 or 2 languages at a time, but I started learning 3! I wanted to tell that I study French (higher beginner to intermediate), Finnish (absolute beginner) and English (Advanced), but I’m not in a hurry to learn English perfectly, I just read, listen to texts, etc. for pleasure, although I review lingQs after the lesson.

Maybe it would be easier to you to learn Russian instead of Finnish because Russian is relared to your Serbian.

Thanks for the advice! I I’ll take it. I like Russian too. Russian sounds more interesting to me than Serbian. I especially like the almost same words we have in our languages because in Russian, they sound cuter. I really like diminutives, too. :slight_smile:

OK, if you start learning Russian, you can find a lot of my Russian lessons for different levels here. Gpood luck!

Thank you!

Tu as choisi trois langues totalement différentes (français, japonais et finnois) et je trouve ça très intéressant ! Tu vas bien t’amuser je pense. Bonne chance en tout cas et tiens nous au courant ! :wink:

Merci! Ј’ai trouvé cela très difficile, mais dans le futur je vais apprendre le finnois aussi. :slight_smile: Je suis contente avec choisir la langue russe, c’est plus facile, mais elle est très amusant aussi.

I am not that sure about Russian. I’ve learned it for almost 8 years, and I am not even close to be able to speak it as good as english. Russian is beautiful language, but it’s also hard to learn. Finish is interesting choice, I would like to learn it too, or maybe Norwegian.
Anyway, good luck Ninche!

Hvala Zorane! :slight_smile: I’m maybe wrong, but after a few lessons here at LingQ, I concluded that Russian is not that hard and that maybe in other techniques it appears to be a lot harder to learn. I started learning English as a very young child, so I don’t know anything about how hard or easy it’s to learn. I consider myself as an illiterate native English speaker (half-joking) :smiley: and I don’t even consider it as my 2nd language, I mean, it doesn’t feel like it. French is truly my 2nd language. :slight_smile:

Bonjour! Bonne chance avec votre français. Je suis aussi étudiér la langue, et je trouve que j’aime la langue. Donc, j’espere que tu aime aussi, et faire enorme progrès dans la futur!

Merci. J’espere cela pour toi aussi! J’aime le français maintenant plus que j’ai fait autrefois.

Follow your heart. You feel the pull to learn Finnish, then do so. But be prepared 6 months or a year from now to face some frustration that you haven’t made progress with French. Any time we let ourselves be distracted, we put ourselves at risk of losing momentum. But what good is momentum if you aren’t headed in the right direction? Sounds like Finnish is where your heart wants to go. I give you permission to set aside French and follow your desires.

I decided that I would rather give up my wish to start learning Finnish (but I will still do that one day) than to neglect French. I decided to start learning Russian, which is related to my native language and learn it very little comparing to my French learning. I will still focus most of the time on French.

I have had almost the same problem you have. I was learning German and then after one month of learning I talked to my cousin about Chinese, he said he’s learning it and showed me Chinese characters which before I couldn’t distinguish from Korean or Japanese and even Egyptian. I was still trying to learn German. Gradually I forgot why I was learning it. I started dreaming about China and their funny traditions, about me doing business and having a good opportunity that I can speak Chinese. I spent almost one year and couldn’t make up my mind to start learning Chinese because I already started German. Then eventually I decided and now I’m happy I’m learning this language. I even feel like it’s easier to learn Chinese words than German words because of Chinese characters consist of parts which make sense if you assign it to them.
Your case is a little different because you have learned French farther than I did in German. So actually my example isn’t worth you to give up French. I just wanted to share. Good luck in learning French!

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I decided to still follow my heart and learn Finnish, but I won’t set aside French. I think that I can learn 2 languages at once. I want to visit France as soon as possible (when I become fluent in French) and my dream is to live in Finland one day. Russian is too hard (it’s an excuse!) for me, and Finnish is too, but I will manage to somehow start learning it properly.

I’m an absolute beginner in Finnish and I started to learn it from a starter book which contains audio. I heard that a lot of people recommend that for initial approach in language learning. How do you effectively study from them? Do you use some software like Anki for remembering vocabulary?

Srs software works, or just a notebook. Try not to nail every detail, go back and forward and after that, work with 2-3 other books/beginner sources, before going back to the first book again. Make notes and put the audiofiles on a mp3 player. I like to copy the dialogs by hand. Don´t try to remember anything, because you will forget almost everything anyway, just hang around, every day, and accept the slow process. The more relaxed (but still awake) you are, the better things will stick in your long term memory. Change strategy whenever you feel for it, most important is, that you do something in/with the language everyday or close to.

Yes, that’s a good approach to any new language!

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“Don´t try to remember anything, because you will forget almost everything anyway, just hang around, every day, and accept the slow process.”

An excellent piece of advice. Never really liked SRS but I think it’s because I was trying to hard. These days I use it to “familiarise” rather than to memorize vocabulary.

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