Spanish - 18 April

I squat whenever I do some Spanish. (I've just learned that there's such a thing as a Spanish squat - you learn something new every day.)

Anyway, I've been going quite nicely with Spanish since the end of January, clocking up between 700 and 800 sentences. They have all come from the Harry Potter y la piedra a filosofal. These days I don't have to use the English original, so that saves me time. My Kindle has the book on its last page in the contents (p18) so it's always easy to locate.

I've no complaints

Spanish via German

I few weeks into the programme, I'm finding that Spanish is not so manageable as I thought. I feel the need to prepare by reminding myself of the story (Harry Potter #1). But instead of pre-reading the English text, why not do it in German? That, after all, is how a German following my system would go about acquiring Spanish.

My German is at the level where this works. In fact, as I improve in them and reach a certain level of familiarity, I ought to be able to use any language to leapfrog up to the next. That way I practice double the number.

[By March, I'm able to dispense with the 'leapfrog' as far as Spanish is concerned.]

Send in the Spanish cavalry!

Spanish is completely new for me. I've never studied it in any shape or form. It looks as if I could get to grips with it quite soon as its alphabet is familiar. Nevertheless, to pick up Spanish I'm going to call in the cavalry!

It's time, methinks, to put Harry Potter back in the saddle. By now, I know the first book of the series so well that I don't need to refer back to the English to remember the story. That means I ought to be able to use the Spanish version as my starting point. I can dive - or charge - right in. Even though my level of understanding is at the 15% mark.

I'll leaf through the book, skipping over most of it, in search of sentences that I recognize. Just that. No trying to memorize, analyse or copy them down. I'll gallop through a book that I already know well and enjoy. Other than that, it's just rinse and repeat.

The ABCs of multi-lingual-ism

It happens to be the start of 2020 as I put pen to paper (well, it was). The time feels right to start a new blog. It's time for a New Year's resolution. It's time for a challenge. A language acquisition challenge.

Initially, I thought of setting a 365-day goal. But I feel that would be too gimmicky - it doesn't feel authentic. Plus, I have life that I'd like to live alongside of this project. Life-work balance and all that.

So I'll take it fairly easy. I've no problem with that - I've already opted to work only part time (0.6). And in a couple of years I'll be eligible to retire. All in all, I'm not going to turn this into a big deal. I wish to spend no more than a couple of hours per day on this exercise. In terms of language-learning, therefore, I'll see how I fare with just a few languages, not too many. I'll settle for an even dozen.

I've selected them according to the alphabet. They each start with a different letter, so that'll make it easier to name and keep track of them.

• A is for Arabic
• C is for Chinese
• D is for Dutch
• E is for English (which I don't count as one of the 12)
• F is for French
• G is for German
• H is for Hindi
• J is for Japanese
• M is for Maori
• N is for Norwegian
• P is for Polish
• R is for Russian
• and S will be for Spanish

I think that's a fair swag.