I know it’s slightly early but being organised I’ve already decided on my language goals for 2017. As ever, these are subject to change.

Last time I wrote about my language goals, I wrote:-

I’m going to learn German and improve my French. Of course, I state this, look at my somewhat checkered past, and wonder why I bother.

The good news is that since writing that, I’ve found a French teacher on iTalki, and am now having weekly conversational French lessons, and these are going extremely well.

I’ve never actually spoken French before (apart from the occasional merci or bonjour), although I have read a lot and listened a lot to French over the years.

This is a massive step forward,  and I’m confident that by the end of 2017, my spoken French will be a high B1 or possibly B2.

I’ve also started on Assimil German and am now on lesson 18.

I’m enjoying it, and will complete the 100 lessons. This will take approximately another 132 days. (Although there are 100 lessons, due to the two phases used by Assimil it takes 150 days to finish the course).

But it is here, at day 150, that my plans will I suspect come unstuck. I know that to make progress with my German, and to activate the mainly passive knowledge that I will (hopefully) have acquired, I will need to start:-

reading, listening and having a weekly conversation exchange.

I don’t have time,  as I’m busy with French but I do have thirty minutes a day.

This is the time required by Assimil, or so the blurb says.

I’d say this was hopelessly optimistic in terms of retaining information, when learning a new language.

But what if someone (ahem me), was returning to a previously studied language, like say Polish?

And because my version of  the Assimil Polish  is only available in French, I’d also be reinforcing my French.

Win, win, win.

Baci,

MF