Current language situation
I'm not much active on tumblr these days but since this langblr has always been my outlet for languages related content, lemme stop here and think about the current state of my linguistic journeys.
I'm not actively learning it anymore (as in, with vocab lists or textbooks) but I'm using it every day. At work, while studying, during free time. My relationship with English right now is a bit funny because even though I would consider myself bilingual at this point, I mostly use this language with other people for whom English is not the first language. And I've started making their mistakes too lol. And since I'm not studying anymore, it feels like my fluency is not of the same...quality, if that makes sense? It's become more colloquial, more natural perhaps, but less informed at the same time. I still like pretentious vocab and being able to navigate challenging texts so I think continuing to read in English is the best I can do to bring a sense of balance here.
My French IS getting rusty, no denying here. I got to a quite advanced level but there were some obstacles that I was never quite able to get through so I might have got discouraged. Reading and writing are still pretty okay, it's listening and speaking that are real challenges. And also lack of practice in general. I'm probably not going back to active learning any time soon but I don't want to let go of the work I did over the years. Watching a video or reading a piece of news every now and then would be a good refresh, I think. And I do know some native French speakers so I should definitely try to be more confident and attempt speaking French to them every once in a while.
That's my main focus. I'm quietly thinking of taking JLPT N2 to really seal it at an advanced level but before I do that, I must study. New kanji are going pretty well, grammar is not bad either but I need more reading practice to really connect the dots into sentences.
Another aspiration for my Japanese is to be able to talk about more complex topics in a coherent way, not just having a vague understanding of them. I'm considering taking italki classes to talk about news, society, economics, etc. If I ever want to conduct ethnographic research in Japan, I need to communicate better.
At one point I somehow breezed through to B1 level (massive thanks to French here) but only in passive understanding, never in active communication. I still can understand quite a bit, but I've never been able to carry on in a real-life conversation. I think my actual level right now is a broken A1/A2 lol. I started studying because of music anyway, I just wanted to understand the lyrics. It would be nice to go back to it and refresh/build upon that knowledge but it's not really a priority for now.
There was a short moment when I did basics in Russian but I wouldn't say I understand much, even though it's so close to Polish. I can read the cyrillic alphabet though.
I've had a long-standing infatuation with the Balkans, resulting in a lot of musical (again) discoveries and attempts at learning Serbian (I just figured it might be the best starting point for eventually understanding Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin. Plus I liked the Serbian cyrillic a lot, was somehow more user-friendly than Russian) but I didn't get very far with it. I might be back to those attempts because I have a trip to Montenegro coming later this year aaaand I'm excited for it!
Last year's trip to Romania resulted in brief dabbling into Romanian on Duolingo. It's such a fun language that has a lot in common with French and Italian so I wanted to know more on how it works. It was never meant to be regular learning though so it will stay as it is, I'm afraid.
I've had a similar fascination with Vietnamese more recently and while I think it would be incredibly cool to keep it up, I'm not sure if I'll manage to keep that flame going. For now, I'm just enjoying some videos and Duolingo but I don't dare speak - these tones are still wayyyy too intimidating haha
