Social distancing has caused me to study languages more

When I started this blog, it was very language-oriented, but as the years passed, I did posts about other topics and got involved in non-language pursuits elsewhere, so I didn't post much about language, if at all. Sadly, some important people removed me from their lists and I sort of went off in various non-language directions, though I've been copy editing and proofreading for years. 

Now that I've decided to socially distance through 2021 (though I didn't really have a robust social life anyway), I've really gotten back into language. I'm following German, French, and Japanese sources on Twitter, and really should be following Spanish and Portuguese as well, because Twitter is a great way to learn. If I don't know a word (which is often), I look it up. I think Japanese is my most-studied language because there are a lot of really cool accounts that I follow, and some of my retweets are retweeted and liked by Japanese sources, which is really cool. Trying to understand the kanji is very challenging, and is sort of stressful, but I keep trying and it's very fun. There are times when I'll take a work break to read Japanese tweets, then I'll go down a rabbit hole looking up a word, how it's used, etc. Even while writing this post, I took a break to look at some Japanese posts and wow, it is so interesting! 

I've even been reading a 1980s French textbook called "En Route" that I got when I was cleaning out a family member's room (I think...I don't remember how I acquired it, but it was in our previous house). I don't know if the textbook still exists, but it's good, even though I'm sure the readings are outdated. 

A great French textbook from the 1980s.

I recently used the book to study the difference between passé composé and l'imparfait because I'm trying to understand Bruno Crémer's memoir, which seems to be written in tenses I don't always recognize. Trying to get through that book is like trudging through wind and snow...i.e., very hard :( 

Amazingly, in my French-learning pursuit, a very generous person who I've never met but emailed about another obsolete French schoolbook sent me some helpful study materials (I'm being vague because they really did me a huge favor even though I didn't ask for the stuff...they were just very kind and helpful). I can't wait until I do the first lesson. Thus I've discovered a bright spot during this social distancing/lockdown situation!