I think my progress so far is not bad, but it could be better. I find it hard sometimes to keep myself on track outside of my weekly meetings with my language partner. I also think my learning plan did not encompass of all the things that I need to learn in order to communicate. After thinking about what I need to learn and looking at my learning plan, I feel like it only scratches the surface. I definitely need to make my tasks include more topics in order to increase my learning as I finish out the semester. The main activity that I do is speak with my language partner, so I need to start doing more of the activities that I put on my learning plan. I also think I need to find more online resources so that when I am not learning with my language partner, I can learn more on my own. I also think I could start asking my language partner to give me activities to complete between our meetings.
Overall, I think one big area of progress that I’ve made is practicing the sounds that don’t exist in English. The more words I learn, the more prevalent those sounds become so it’s impossible for me to be able to speak Amharic without reproducing those sounds. I do still find myself getting overwhelmed when learning new words and phrases since there is so much to learn. I will, however, finish the semester strong and keep learning as much as I can.
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Since writing this post in March, I have actually gotten way better at making the sounds that don't exist in English. Even when taking my final, my language partner told me that I sound good for a foreigner. This language learning process has not been easy with such a complex language but I'm definitely going to continue.
I experienced the same thing! At the beginning of the semester I was just so excited to learn a new language that I forgot how much work and time actually goes into acquiring a new language. When I started working on sounds I discovered that my language had nasal sounds (which do not exist in English) and are essential even for the most basic words. I still struggle with these sounds but at least I got to a point where people can tell what I am trying to say (or at least that's what I like to think).