Welcome to May’s #ClearTheList! This month, it’s all about casual travel language.

Hosted by myself and Shannon of Eurolinguiste, Clear The List is your chance to set monthly language learning goals + achieve them as part of the community. We share our monthly goals and encourage you to do the same. Check the bottom of this post for more info on how to join in.Learning Review for April

Guarani

I have honestly fallen head over heels in love with Paraguay.

I mean…this country. These people. This language combo. Sigh.

It was genuinely sad to leave Paraguay and even before we left I was already planning when and how to get back there asap!

Now I’m kitted out with my resources, there’s plenty to learn in the meantime though once I get home. Hooray!

Duolingo + Clozemaster – I wanted to keep my streak while I was still in Paraguay. Easy!

Sentence writing – I did well at this with the exception of our little break down in Encarnación when I didn’t carry my notebook because we left our stuff in Asunción.

Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, Malay!

Had fun playing with the basics. Sometimes, it’s such a nice break not to be learning a language with any serious goal.

Language Reading Challenge

The topic for Shannon’s Language Reading Challenge over at Eurolinguiste last month was “A book written by a language blogger”.

I chose to read Kerstin’s book Fluency Made Achievable.

It kept me awake early morning at Heathrow half way through our ridiculously long journey to Asia. So thank you, Kerstin!

I really enjoyed reading Fluency Made Achievable and would recommend it if you’re in the early stages of self-study language learning.

Language Learning Goals for May

I don’t really have strict goals with my languages for the next few months until we get home. It’s just about having fun getting the basics as we travel through South East Asia.

Vietnamese

We’ll be heading to Vietnam and spending most of May here, so this’ll be my main focus for May, although I’m using the term “focus” pretty loosely compared to how I normally learn a language. It’s all casual.

I’ve got my phrasebook, my Memrise, and Survival Phrases podcast audio. That should be enough to give me the basics to get by.

Language Reading Challenge

The topic for Shannon’s Language Reading Challenge over at Eurolinguiste this month is “A tutorial, recipe, or lesson in your target language”.

Seeing as I don’t really have a target language right now, I’m going to skip this month for now and maybe catch up when I’m back home.

Trip Update

We left Latin America in early April after almost 8 months there. It was an absolute dream of mine to do an extended period of travel in the region for many years and I’m so grateful we were able to take this trip.

On top of that, to have been able to make and share series one of Language Stories with you along the way has been a real treat. After releasing the penultimate episode (Nicaraguan Sign Language) there’s just one final episode left to round out the series: Guaraní (the big one!) so look out for that as the first series is due to wrap up in May.

We’ve spent most of April in Myanmar after a quick stop in Singapore and will be heading to Vietnam early May (after another stop in Singapore because there was no way Ashley was missing the Star Wars Run!).