Trying Something New

Joining a French Self-Study Group

📅 Week 28/53 | Study Log 2026

When I started the 75 Fluent Challenge, I planned to focus exclusively on French, and I think that will remain my main focus. This week, though, I decided to add one small activity in both Japanese and Mandarin.

For Japanese, I completed one lesson in my textbook, and for Mandarin, I worked through two exercises in my new 50 Chinese Coffee Breaks book.

Keeping things simple by focusing on just one resource for each language allows me to continue learning (and maintaining them) without spending too much time deciding what to study.

In total, I spent 9 hours studying my target languages this week. My goal is to study for at least one hour each day, following the 75 Fluent Challenge, and anything beyond that is a bonus. Saturday ended up being my biggest study day, with 2 hours and 26 minutes, mainly because I played a video game in French on top of my usual study activities.

🥐 French

This was a heavier study week overall. I made a lot of progress in the French pronunciation course I've been putting off for months, and I'm determined to finish it this week.

I'm also happy with the amount of time I spent writing. Last week, writing made up only 5% of my study time; this week, it increased to nearly 12%. Most of that came from a back-translation exercise where I translated a passage into English and then back into French. I really enjoyed the activity, and I think it will help me develop more natural-sounding French.

One of the highlights of the week was attending the introduction meeting for Christina’s Self-Study School. The project involves choosing a topic to research in French, preparing a 10-minute presentation, and completing a self-evaluation afterward.

I was a little nervous beforehand since it was my first time meeting everyone, and I wasn't sure what to expect. In the end, there were four of us, and the entire meeting was in French. It allowed me to have meaningful conversations in French, which I find much more enjoyable than simply speaking to myself.

At the moment, I'm leaning toward researching French Immersion programs in Canada. It's a topic that could easily become very broad, so my goal isn't to cover everything. Instead, I want to use this project as an opportunity to learn something new and deepen my understanding.

Because I was spending more time on other activities, I didn't use Migaku quite as much this week, but I still made some progress.

Migaku Stats

• French Total Words Known: 3275 → 3349 words

• L’Étranger Part 1 Deck: 109 → 119/446 cards reviewed

✨Language Wins of The Week

• 💬 Spoke French with new people.

• 🎮 Visited a bookstore and bought a new French novel, Tout le monde aime Clara. I know nothing about it, and I’ve been trying to go into books without reading too many reviews. One review said “J’ai aimé ce livre car je suis narcissique.¹” I laughed and decided that was enough for me to get it.

• ⭐ My 50 Chinese Coffee Breaks book arrived! It was nice to write hanzi again.

📅 Next Week’s Plans

• 🥐 French: Start researching my Self-Study School presentation & complete Dylane’s French pronunciation course.

• 🧧 Mandarin: Complete Exercise 3 in 50 Chinese Coffee Breaks.

• 🍜 Japanese: Complete Lesson 3 in my Japanese textbook.

Thanks for being here! See you next week.

1. Translation: I like this book because I’m a narcissist.