Salut! Comment ça va?
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and I have to admit that I’m super nervous. As the first post on this blog I want to talk about something major in my language learning journey – I am about to start reading Alice au Pays des Merveilles!
This is a huge step.
Although French has its many similarities with Portuguese, I don’t know French yet. If you see me speaking French on twitter, I just gathered the words, put them together and hoped the verb tenses weren’t too wrong. I’ve never even read a book in English (unless you’re counting fanfics, in which case… I have a lot to discuss about it.).
And yet, I am going to read a book in French.
I thought a lot about how I’m gonna approach this. I asked on twitter how people read in their target languages (more specifically, how they take notes while reading in their target langugages). I’ve got pretty interesting replies. For any of you who might be about to engage in a similar task, here are a few things you might wanna try (with a few modifications by me):
⇾ Keep a notebook by you whenever you’re reading. Write down key words, grammar patterns and go back to them after reading so you can expand on them and “properly” study.
⇾ Keep a sheet of paper by you instead of a notebook. It’s easier to carry around and you can do the exact same thing! Plus, if you decide to transfer your notes to a notebook, that’s already a review you’re doing!
⇾ Use post its! Lots of them! Your notes won’t get mixed up with each other (most likely) and they’ll be near the exact part where they come from, so you can refer to the book more easily.
⇾ Write on the book! This one is not for you if you want your books pretty and untouched after the reading, and it has the downside of getting messy more easily BUT this is one of my favorites because it’s inside of the book, you don’t have to leave the space of immersion to take notes, and what you write down feels like part of the process of reading.
(At least that’s how it works for me. But you’ll see throughout all of this whole thing that I am a tiny little bit biased).
One thing that most people seemed to agree on, though, is that
YOU SHOULD NOT LOOK UP EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU DON’T KNOW.
Duly noted. I might ignore that advice, but… duly noted.
(If you are about to start reading in a foreign language, though, you might want to follow that advice. Stopping at every single words breaks the flow of the reading and you don’t need to understand every single word to understand the story.)
Another thing that people might advise you against and that I’m about to ignore is: careful with your level. If you start with a book that’s too difficult, that might have disastrous consequences. In my case, I am aware that it might be hard and frustrating, so I know what I am most likely going to face. It is going to be a challenge.
(If you like challenges, then dive in!)
I am ready to try it!
Qu'est-ce que je vais faire?
I have a few ideas/things I wanna to apply while reading this book.
⇾ I will try not to look up every single word, or not to look up too many words, but I can’t promise anything because that’s stronger than me.
⇾ I am going to keep a sheet of paper with me throughout the reading and write down sentences I can use to study the verb tenses.
⇾ ALSO I am going to take notes on the book. Colored notes, because I always find that extremely pretty.
⇾ After every chapter, I am going to try to write (in French!) a small summary of that chapter.
And if my motivation allows me to do so, I might record myself reading it out loud sometimes, so I can have people judge me help me with my pronunciation.
There are twelve chapters. I might post an update every three chapters, or leave it for a huge review once I’m done. It depends on what you’d like to see (let me know! ^-^), but I am really positive about this whole thing.
I don’t think it’s going to be immensely difficult, especially because there are so many words that are similar to Portuguese, and because it’s such a classic story. I already know the gist of it.
The only thing that might be a struggle is that I have the tendency to start one thing and never finish it – it has happened a lot on those past four months in which I’ve been studying languages. But maybe having people knowing I’m doing it might be helpful to hold me accountable.
That's what I have planned, but lets see how it goes. I will make sure to keep you guys updated. I might start the book today, on June 26th (lets see how long it takes me!).
For your support and for reading all of this… Merci beaucoup! And I hope you have a lovely evening! (or whatever it is for you at the very moment you are reading this!)
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