This is day 29, the second-to-last day of the French Revolution, my personal quest to learn some French in 30 days, and in the process, learn more about languages and language acquisition in general. Stay strong, Revolutionary Soldiers, Paris is in sight!
STUDYING TODAY
I did very little studying today, because I was busy all day long. But this goes along well with the trend of the final days of the Revolution, where I’m shifting the focus from intense in-your-face language study, to French language learning for-busy-people. This is bad for my French but good for my learning about language acquisition in general, which is the main thing I’m really interested in this French Revolution anyway.
AUDIO OF ME READING THE LORD’S PRAYER IN FRENCH
I didn’t have time today to go find a conversation partner to record. Yesterday I resolved to give my readers a sample of my French in conversation, despite how much I seem to be resisting this. I will stick to that resolution, whether I get around to it within the 30 Days, or whether I have to post a followup afterward. For now, I recorded myself reading the Lord’s Prayer in French. I chose the Lord’s Prayer as it’s my favorite of the Biblical prayers, and I wanted to make some use of the French Bible (La Sainte Bible) my mom sent me for Christmas.
I feel a little self-conscious publishing this audio file, but that just means it’s something I need to do. Certainly I would be providing my readers less value if I didn’t provide some gauge of my progress. Well, my sexy girlfriend likes my French, that’s good enough for me 
Glowing Face Man reads The Lord’s Prayer in French (MP3)
UNIVERSAL LETTER-WRITING WEEK
I read from Ron over at The TongueTrip, that Jan 8 to Jan 14 is Universal Letter-Writing Week, which means it’s a week for writing real, hand-written letters, not just e-mails. Hmmm, I need to write a letter in Japanese to a certain crazy Buddhism cult, as I finally got a newsletter from them. (In case you’re too busy to click that cult link, it leads to my description of my trip to the Fujitaisekiji cult, one of my craziest adventures when I was in Japan. Yep, I’m so crazy I joined a Japanese cult just for kicks)
One of the big differences between learning Japanese and learning French is the writing involved. In all these days, I haven’t actually hand-written anything in French at all. (Maybe I should have? A pen-pal would certainly not be a bad idea for language maintenance purposes…) With Japanese, there’s quite a lot of writing involved for learning the kanji. I’m even doing a streamlined, cutting edge system for learning the kanji, involving Heisig and spaced repetition. If I were learning the kanji the traditional way, I can’t even imagine how much writing there would be, since I’d have to write each kanji out many, many times.
THE RESOLUTION GYM CROWD
Here at OSU, the gym has been crazy this week. Basically, during the weeks following New Years, the gym is absolutely packed. This week it’s particularly packed since the quarter just started. Within a month, these crowds will die right down. It’s the New Years Resolution crowd– people who have resolved to hit the gym. It would make my heart very glad if all these people would stay in the gym, but the sad fact is, very few people keep their New Years Resolutions. There’s a general lack of understanding about the self-discipline needed to keep a difficult New Years Resolution. I wrote about this in my article, How To Keep A New Years Resolution.
Previous Day in the French Revolution: Day 28
Next Day in the French Revolution: Day 30
You can also go to the French Revolution Table Of Contents…
…or to the French Revolution Introduction.
Here are some other articles I’ve written.
A Modern Version Of The Lord’s Prayer
James Heisig’s Remembering The Kanji
Why The Gym Is Good Even If You Do Manual Labor
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Courage, Passion, And Freedom
Skills And Metaskills