Juggling languages

So much for getting any sleep as I have to get up in a couple hours anyway. I went to IHOP with my mother last night. I was surprised to see a plant based sausage on the menu and I don’t usually enjoy sausages too much but it was surprisingly good. She gave me this really amazing toy called a ZipString that feels like magic because it is physics! I read in Spanish, listened to a bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Spanish,m. I did lots of hiragana practice earlier in the day so I didn’t do much of that. I am most if the way through learning them, not that that will get me far with learning Japanese. Then I started reading a little but in German and found it surprisingly easy in a lot of ways I didn’t expect. I have forgotten most verbs but especially nouns, not even to mention what genders they are, but most of the grammar still feels pretty easy. The things that were hard before, adjective declensions and uses of prepositional phrases, in particular, I am sure will be easier, because I have had lots of relevant experience in language learning and how ro approach learning in general since then and for some reason certain things in German come more easily to me now than they did then, I think, ir they will, once I brush up. I am thinking if I do full immersion in Spanish l, which I will be able to do in Colombia, and then devote an hour a day to German, that is almost like having way more time on my hands!

Now, if I can find a way to balance Spanish and German study and slowly build up my kanji vocabulary that might actually work out really well at this point. It would not have last time I was in Mexico because my Spanish was not so good but now reading and picking up vocabulary in Spanish comes much more easily so maybe I will not get confused if I start reading a bit in German, too. I cannot recall 99% of the German I used to know and yet I can apparently read these stories and though I am not exactly sure what a lot of the words mean I often have an intuitive sense especially with verbs. Maybe I will start doing flashcards while I read to remind me, but I am not sure I need flashcards with Spanish anymore. It might still be helpful but it takes some time to make them and it is not really necessary if I am reading the way I do. Even less common words appear frequently enough when you read enough and re-encountering words like that is sort of like studying with flashcards… though if I had time I would definitely create flashcards for Spanish too.

There is so much to read in Spanish. I wonder if there is a genre of German literature I will fall in love with as I am in love with these darker themed books in Spanish. So, once I build my vocabulary in German a bit through short story collections for learners it probably won’t be long before I’m ready to read books by Cornelia Funke. I was doing fine reading the beginning if Kein Keks für Kobolde but I think it eould be more fun if I refsniliarize myself with German a bit first. At least as far as reading comprehension I don’t think it will take long. Speaking is another story but I think I can definitely he really happy with my Spanish and German and maybe have a bit of Japanese under my belt too by the end of next year. That feels good. Balancing how much to study each language might be kind of hard but ai think I’ll spend little bits of time with German and study as much Japanese as I need to to meet my goals (like learning five kanji a day or something). Then when I feel ready to leave Latin America I could go to either Germany (which I have been hiding from for too long because of my rusty German) or Japan (the country in Asia I maybe want to visit most but never think of visiting because… I could go to China without knowijg Chinese or Korea without knowing Korean but I just couldn’t get myself to set foot in Japan without knowing Japanese…)