Month: February 2020

New French books

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I bought two new French books. They are both published in Japan, so all the explanations etc. are in Japanese.

The first one is all about numbers. What a great idea for a textbook. It has lots of listening exercises to get used to numbers. If I start using it now, I should be used to numbers by the time the test comes around.

The other one is a “read aloud” book. It has sentences and words which you read aloud along with the CD. I’m looking forward to starting it. I already use a reader for shadowing, but that one has long(ish) passages. This one has short sentences.

I have two more books on the way too. I won’t be short of study materials for a while!

28th February 2020 – French

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I studied the partitive article today. I think I’ve got it, but I’m still making basic mistakes in the exercises, like not contracting le/la or de before a vowel.

My idea to do 10 pages a day from the dictionary of words for the French exam didn’t really work. I’m forgetting the words. So, I’ve decided to write out each word and the example sentence. I read the sentence aloud as I write it. I did five pages today. If I keep that pace up, I will almost have finished it by the time my exam comes around. We’ll see.

Total study time: 1 hour – Grammar: 35 minutes, vocabulary: 25 minutes

28th February 2020 – Chinese

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I did unit 21 from my Chinese workbook. I think I’ll be doing a unit a day for the next month or so. There are 50 units. As I said yesterday, the content is simple, but I’ve forgotten a lot. It’s a good review of what I assume is on HSK levels 1 and 2.

I like the drills in the book – they help to reinforce each grammatical topic covered in the corresponding textbook unit. It takes me about an hour to get through a unit, so must be careful that this doesn’t take up all my study time. I need to do some listening too.

Total study time: Workbook: 1 hour

27th February 2020 – French

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I just did a bit of French, as I’m still feeling under the weather and wanted an early night. I did the verbs prendre and boire, and two exercises using those or similar verbs. I got quite a few wrong. I’m making basic mistakes, like not contracting “a” and “le” or “q” and “il”.

I’ve ordered two more books – one is all about numbers, and the other is for reading aloud. They are both published in Japan and are aimed at Japanese speakers. They should help with my listening and speaking.

Total study time: Grammar: 30 minutes

27th February 2020 – Chinese

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I have finished my conversation books and HSK practice books, so I dug out an old textbook which I bought in Beijing in 2002. I found the accompanying workbook on Amazon last year, but only did the first 19 units. I did unit 20 last night.

It’s beginner level, but it’s a good review for me. I’ve forgotten some of the vocabulary, and I’m not used to making sentences with some of the grammar points. So, I’ll carry on with this for a while!

I thought I needed to do some listening as I haven’t done any for a while (except for when I’m driving), so I did the first 8 units of Mimi ga yorokobu, a Japan-published listening book.

Total study time: 1 hour – Workbook: 45 minutes, listening: 15 minutes