day trips & discouragement 🫠 language learning vlog

[@xojaci]

such a cozy vlog!! 🥰 i really love the glimpses of the other languages youre learning as well. i hear you fr, i feel like i've been a bit more demotivated to make vlogs for the past few months bc most of my feelings surrounding my spanish are very melodramatic. it just feels HARD and it isnt getting easier. 😅when they say living in a spanish speaking country makes learning easier, they lied! (lol) the pressure is ON and i usually just wanna hide! hahah we'll get through it tho!! 💓

[@joreneelanguages]

@@xojaci lol so real. I was blissfully hanging out in the intermediate plateau before moving and now I have DEF regressed under the pressure lol. Even tho like, everything was fine?? I moved, got an apartment, did everything in Spanish and then my brain was like - you actually have never spoken Spanish before in your life. Welcome. But we will overcome 🥲😭

[@JasmineReynolds-ep1jv]

I really relate to what you were saying about speaking skills, especially the bit about "kicking the can down the road". I focus entirely on listening and reading skills because thats what I enjoy, and don't enjoy speaking. In the past I had to practice speaking because I was in a university language course but ever since I finished that I have felt my speaking skills deteriorate, and now theyre beginner level again. I feel like the "grammar" speaking levels are also really frustrating when your other skills are more advanced. For me, I have found that taking a more "micro-fluency" approach to speaking helps me stay engaged while also improving my reaction times when in a conversation. Its basically when instead of dividing your learning into grammar levels, you divide it by topic. You memorise a lot of paragraphs and sentences that you would like to be be able to say about one particular topic until you can talk about that topic confidently and for an extended period of time, and would be able to have a "fluent" conversation about that topic. And then you move to the next topic. I hate the memorising bit (its so boring) but my mandarin chinese tutor used to make us memorise entire speeches about topics (and I hated it) but then if I was ever in a conversation struggling and one of my "fluent" topics came up, it became so easy to just talk and say what I wanted to say. Thanks for the video!

[@joreneelanguages]

that’s a good idea, I should try some focused practice on specific knowledge areas. it is so frustrating because when I practice on my own, talk to myself, etc, my level is so much better. but again then I can stop and think etc. But memorizing some stuff to reinforce it definitely might help.

[@SomedayKorean]

Laundry machines take FOREVER here too 😭 I have a combo washer/dryer machine, and the wash cycle isn't too bad, but the dyer only has one heat setting and is SO ineffective -- I usually have to dry the same load multiple times to actually get the items to dry. I hang dry everything I can, but some items just don't hang dry well - they're so much softer if dried. And yeah, it's so frustrating to make dumb mistakes when you are intermediate/advanced. The other day I made a mistake saying the number 5 -- Korean has two number systems and I used the wrong one. It didn't even hit me in that moment, but like an hour later, I realized what I had said and felt so dumb. It's literally been popping into my head and bothering me for the past week. 🥲 Like, really? 14 years of Korean, the highest TOPIK level, and I'm still mixing these numbers up?? I feel like the more advanced I get, the more frustrated I get with my mistakes/weak spots 😅

[@joreneelanguages]

I’ve always wondered how those combo machines work :0 ha how fitting, I just made a mistake telling the time the other day… numbers are hard forever apparently 😆

[@tbenavente]

I'm having a similar problem with Italian. Last week, I had two classes with two different tutors, one of them suggested I speed-run an A1 textbook, the other thought we should jump straight into a B1 book😅 I feel like teachers at this point don't really know what to do with me (and neither do I to be honest). Italian is the first language where I skipped almost all grammar study as a beginner, and I’m starting to think this might be the last one I learn exclusively through input because the gap between comprehension and production is getting a bit too frustrating for me.

[@joreneelanguages]

yes! I am feeling the same. i do not think i will learn a language this way again. I’ve absolutely loved the input journey but it is absolutely awful to be this advanced and this much of a little baby at the same time 🫠

[@paulwalther5237]

I was really hard on myself when I was living in Japan too. You’ve barely arrived in Spain. You need to live there for several years to really and truly adapt.

[@joreneelanguages]

@@paulwalther5237 true, thanks for the reminder :)