Salut, today is the last day of my free week. From now on, I will not be able to spend as much time learning languages, though I am still going to try to spend at least an hour every day on this activity. Anyways, this is a good moment to summarize this week: the methods I've used, my progress in both Swedish and French, and my plans for the future.
I'll start with the methods. At first, I did the standard thing - created a profile on Duolingo. I had heard a few times before that it is not as good as most people believe, but I wanted to try that popular platform. Now, I know this was a pretty good decision. Duolingo is not extremely effective, but it can be quite helpful in becoming familiar with the basic structures in the language when you are starting learning. Next, I found two great lists of 1000 and 500 most common words in French (created using different methods, so they maybe weren't very reliable, but at least different). I am the kind of person who remembers things best when I can see them, so this has been very helpful throughout the whole process of learning.
Here you can see my wordlists in French and Swedish:
I tried many apps and webpages dedicated to learning languages in general or specifically French or Swedish, among others Busuu, Memrise, and Inner French for the French language. The last webpage was very helpful because it has a podcast for intermediate French learners, La Cottongue. Its author has also a YouTube channel (innerfrench) where he speaks in slow French and explains many words and idioms. This was not the only YouTube channel I used, however. This platform has been very useful for me, because I've been able to listen to spoken French and Swedish (e.g. EasyFrench, EasySwedish) there and get inspiration, motivation, and tips from polyglots (e.g. Steve Kaufmann, Luca Lampariello, Lindie Botes). I've also read many articles in Le Monde and Euronews in French. For Swedish, I've used similar apps, a list of the 1000 most common words, and YouTube (e.g. EasySwedish). The last important method for both languages was listening to songs in the target language (e.g. by Stromae, Håkan Hellström, Maître Gims), either simply to immerse myself in this language or with subtitles to practice comprehension.
What about my progress? I've definitely achieved a lot. After just over a week of practice, I can communicate in basic French, understand most ideas in spoken French (though I often need subtitles because people in France speak really fast and unclearly) and read articles without using automatic translators to understand their general ideas. Today I watched a French movie from 1998, Taxi, to check my skills. At first, I hardly understood anything, but at the end of the movie, I was able to understand whole sentences without even looking at the subtitles.
What are my plans for the nearest future? I decided to buy 2 books for learning languages: the original version of "The Little Prince" (Le Petit Prince) with a glossary of more difficult words, and a book about Swedish grammar. I will continue to read and listen to content in the languages I'm learning and learn vocab and grammar.
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