Iâm a native French speaker and I didnât know that word 
much to learn from true crime it seems
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June update
French
Iâm currently at 119 hours for the year which means I added 36 hours in the month of June. You can see the hour break down below.
Month
Year
I missed two days of French, which for me is defined as not getting at least an hour. In both cases I was just so tired after getting home from the day that I couldnât focus in any meaningful way on French so while Iâm sure I could have put something on, it would have been in one ear and out the other, which isnât meaningful input in my book. Neither day I did zero French however, as I always try to get some in the morning and some in the evening.
Anki stuff
Iâm starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by the Refold deck, a lot of leeches building up. I have less than 150 new cards remaining though, and with 10 new cards a day I may just stick it out. Thereâs something psychologically nice about being done with new cards even if my reviews suck for awhile 
I have 128 young and 162 mature words in my custom deck mined from reading/watching. I have 376 in young and 494 in mature in the Refold deck.
I also have an ear training deck made from youtube videos mentioned before - itâs going fine. I also added gender decks and have added emojis along with the color to reinforce the gender of the word in my brain. I went with cowboys for masculine and ghosts for feminine.
Kwiziq
Iâve continued with Kwiziq after my late start on it, although not every day. Hereâs a pic of my âbrain mapâ as they call it:
The red one is conjugating âdevoirâ.
Things I stopped
I cancelled Clozemaster and havenât really been using Linguno much. I also stopped using Texâs French Grammar as much as it overlaps a lot with Kwiziq.
Things I started or switched up
I recently started pronunciation training and some of what Iâll call guided output (Pimsleur haha). I struggle with the French R despite looking at the diagrams and practicing, but it seems like something that Iâll just have to keep working on and eventually it will come. English speakers struggling with the French R is hardly a secret, but I do aim to not sound horrible to natives so Iâm trying.
Iâm currently on lesson 4 of level 1 in Pimsleur, so itâs a lot of known material and Iâm breaking from the program a bit by planning to do 2-3 lessons a day if my schedule allows.
Iâm nearly done with Alice Ayelâs courses. I skipped out on the Teen course halfway through because it was killing my motivation a bit to do so much dictation, but Iâm finding the graded readers incredibly helpful and the âadultâ course which was all about French history I enjoyed. Iâm taking a breather before starting her âseniorâ courses as I feel like Iâd benefit from reading more of the âadultâ graded readers.
Iâve added in a lot of InnerFrench podcasts which I follow along with the transcript. I initially thought they were too hard for me until I saw someone comment on Reddit that you should start from the beginning as they get harder over the series. Itâs true! Iâm currently 15 episodes in and able to follow along pretty easily with maybe ~5 word look ups per 30 min episode, and Iâve started speeding up the audio to 1.2x. Here is an extract from a transcript I recently listened to:
La septiĂšme Ă©tape de lâhistoire, câest justement lâĂ©preuve finale. AprĂšs toutes les difficultĂ©s quâa dĂ» affronter le hĂ©ros, il se retrouve face Ă la derniĂšre Ă©preuve, lâĂ©preuve finale, qui est gĂ©nĂ©ralement la plus difficile. Ăa peut ĂȘtre un combat contre le grand mĂ©chant, ou ça peut ĂȘtre de sauver une princesse face Ă un dragon. Bref, cette Ă©tape est extrĂȘmement difficile pour le hĂ©ros et, Ă ce moment-lĂ , il passe trĂšs prĂšs de la mort. Ăa câest la huitiĂšme Ă©tape, quand le hĂ©ros est proche de la mort. Vous savez quand on regarde un film, câest le moment le plus stressant parce quâon a trĂšs envie que le hĂ©ros rĂ©ussisse mais le combat est tellement difficile que le hĂ©ros est sur le point de perdre.
Mais heureusement, et ça câest lâĂ©tape 9, le hĂ©ros rĂ©ussit cette derniĂšre Ă©preuve. Il gagne ce dernier combat et il prouve quâil est bien un hĂ©ros.
(source)
I would say this is a comfortable level of French for me right now. Iâm not struggling but I look up a word here or there and I have no trouble at all following the gist of each podcast. Iâd say easily in the 90% comprehension range.
I definitely donât feel like my French has progressed at a very rapid clip compared to May, but I did a lot fewer hours and I no longer have the impressive A0 gains 
Iâd like to get closer to 50-60 hours a month going forward, but weâll see how that shakes out with my schedule and mental energy.
Japanese
For Japanese Iâm at 3941 pages out of my yearly 5k page minimum and 83 hours out of my 125 hour audiobook only goal.
I have 59 young and 395 mature in the names deck. 40 remain suspended.
I have been inconsistent in having tutoring sessions and kind of fell off my other forms of output and I feel how creaky I am talking now. I can still do it but ugh, the searching for words is rough. Itâs been a busy time for me, so balancing work, travel, Japanese maintenance, and fairly aggressive French study has been hard.
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if youâll forgive the unsolicited suggestion, you might be interested in Crime story : le podcast Faits divers du Parisien. Itâs aimed at native speakers, but the host, Clawdia Prolongeau, speaks very clearly and fairly slowly. this was the first native podcast I could understand well or at least well enough. My memory was that there was some subject overlap between Crime Story and HelloFrench.
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I love media suggestions! Thank you, Iâll check it out!
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This was a year ago, so I donât remember exactly, but I think I was able to start listening to it not too long after I ran out of innerfrench podcasts and while there were still a few easyfrench episodes remaining. It was a jump in difficulty from those two, but not impossible.
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I also added it, although I think Iâm still in the easier part of innerFrench (Iâve never had a problem following the episodes I listened to at least). I learned thatâs itâs always nice to have some media for a few levels above you because eventually you get there. 
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amen to that. Iâd rather have a list 15 things that are too hard now than go scrambling for something to listen to later.
Crime story is native, but if youâve gotten used to the vocabulary of true crime or murder mysteries youâll have a big leg up.
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Iâve started posting my updates on my WaniKani log since I like that those logs arenât search indexable. Unless someone wants all the details Iâm just going to cross-post the tl;dr recap here.
End of July French wrap up
At 183 hours of study Iâm able to read Harry Potter now with reasonable comprehension, leaning heavily on my knowledge of the story. I also can watch a lot more unsubbed content aimed at learners and follow along, although I struggle if I have no visual aid to anchor me. I can do it, but the content needs to be even easier.
I had a rough time keeping up my hour-a-day commitment mid-month, but since I started out strong I still got over 60 hours logged for July.
I should theoretically be approaching the number of hours where someone is âA2â using classroom study estimates (200 hours), but of course since I am not doing classroom study my own development is less even. I think my reading comfort is scratching at B1, my listening feels solidly A2, and my speaking and writing are both low A1.
July Hours
Year hours
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