Autumn’s fully upon us and since it’s so rainy outside here, it’s time to get to studying! I’ve decided to spend every month focusing particularly on one skill out of the four main ones we use for language learning: listening, reading, writing, or speaking. Listening’s up first!
Yay, October! It’s my favourite month—and not just because my birthday’s in it. The weather’s turning a little bit colder, leaves are starting to fall, so it’s the perfect season to hole up and just study for a while.
I’ve also got a whole list of things I’d like to get done before the end of the year, which includes getting as many things read and watched for the Super Challenge as possible. So, I thought I’d set myself some challenges—that is, some areas to focus on—to keep myself nice and busy for the rest of the year.
Throughout October, I’m going to put a lot more work into listening. More specifically, I’d like to get 10% of my Super Challenge requirements done: 900 minutes of German, 900 minutes of Mandarin, 900 minutes of Spanish, and 450 minutes of Korean. It’d be nice to get about 450 minutes in French too but honestly, anything would be good there.
This is all more-or-less going to be done through watching TV and films, but I’ve also got a few podcasts lined up to listen to, especially for German.
I’m also really hoping that, if I manage this, I’ll see a marked improvement in my listening skills. I did Dialang tests for German and Spanish on Sunday (the only two languages I’m learning that they support) and got the following scores:
German: C1
Spanish: A1 (or lower 😂)
It’s going to be difficult to push that German score up (and I’m really surprised at it—I know that I always underestimate my listening skills, but I still kind of expected to be borderline B2/C1 at best!) but I’ll see what I manage; it’d be nice to get Spanish up to A2. I didn’t bother testing French because it’d be the same as Spanish, so I’ve got the same goal in mind there, too.
My Korean listening is also currently non-existent, so understanding anything would be nice. For Mandarin, I’d say I’m currently at HSK 3/4 level with listening, so if I could get it up to HSK 4/5 by the end of the month, that’d be nice.
I’ll take some tests within the first couple of weeks in November (because I’m in the US until the 5th and I’m not doing tests on holiday!) and report back on the increase then. Just a heads up, too: November’s skill is going to be writing (because: NaNoWriMo), which I’ll go into in more detail later in the month, but I’m already excited for it.
Do you have any particular goals for October or the final quarter of the year? Let me know! You’ll probably inspire me to try and study even more!