How goes the language learning these days?
Slowly! That’s how.
I gave a list of my top nine languages previously in a different post; they were German, French, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin. And they still are — that remains my list. I spend a bit of time on each of these on a regular basis, though I focus the great majority of my effort on German, Greek, and Latin.
I think that a major part of why my progress seems to have slowed is because I’ve been having so much success with Zettelkasten. My Zettelkasten (which I’ve discussed in the past; google the word if it’s unfamiliar) has been growing at a remarkable rate. I’ve been so excited about it, and as fast as it’s going, I find myself wishing it could progress even faster.
That project has taken a lot of time and energy out of my average day. As a result, my language learning efforts survive, but they are hanging on by a thread, it sometimes feels. Some of my other habits have dropped away entirely to make room for the Zettelkasten.
Still, I read some Greek every day, study German every day, and learn a bit of Latin every second day. My other languages make an appearance about once a week. I’ve been on my current schedule for a little over a year. My best guess is that at my current pace, it will probably be at least a couple years more before I even begin to develop anything resembling fluency. And as you can tell by my hedging, even two years is likely over-optimistic.
Still. It takes very little time or effort every day, and if I could begin to grow more fluent, then in a few years I’ll be very grateful that I stuck with it.
My language journey is certainly nothing impressive. If all goes as planned, though, it will eventually be a testament to the power of a little dogged patience.