This past month I have been more consistently spending time with te reo, and achieved the goals I set last month. Statistics wise, I watched 5 ½ hours of TV and movies, read a total of 21281 words and added 310 kupu to my flashcard SRS.
Vocab Study (Anki)
In my previous post I set a goal to complete the top 750 most frequent words, and I have done the top 800. It sounds like a lot but there have been a lot of repeated words in their passive and nominal forms, or words I already learnt from other sources, which I didn’t create duplicate cards for.
All other words I’ve been learning have come from my reading. It’s good, but some of the sentences those were contained in were too difficult which makes it harder to remember them when reviewing. I should leave those words to become familiar through repeatedly seeing them in texts and add them to Anki when their sentence becomes 1T - i.e. when the only unknown thing is the new word.
Immersion
Darwin & Newts has become boring for me, and the language it is made up of too basic. The only thing I miss when I watch a new episode is a handful of new vocabulary, so it’s no longer a challenge nor advancing my understanding of te reo Māori.
I had this realisation in the first week and a half of March as I continued to reflect on what was effective. So I pulled up the Tamariki section of Māori+ and found Molly of Denali was at a good level. I can follow it’s story (which is much more interesting), and there is a lot more complicated language in there for me and my brain to learn from. I’ve watched 10 (actually 20) episodes so far.
Moana 2 was released on Disney+, so I was able to finally watch it in te reo. Also, I’ve compiled a list of TV shows & movies for beginners to intermediates to watch in te reo Māori here.
Reading (Lute)
My goals for reading were to read for 10-15 minutes on “most days” (ones where I’m not busy) and to add the definitions to the new words in 3 texts so I can read different things.
I read on 24 out of 31 days, so about 3/4. This makes sense because I have long, busy days 1/4 of the time, where I don’t have much time for anything. This is good and means I have achieved this goal, and I want to keep it up next month as well.
The new texts I added are Māui me te rā, the Māori Wikipedia page on Matariki, and 16 short pieces from Waatea News, all bringing a total of 4600 words.
Tracking Time Spent
I successfully completed the goals I set last month, including one to spend more than 25 hours learning te reo. I’ve spent 27, and track it using the Refold App which I’ve been using ever since it had a beta release in early January. The app is very useful and has kept me in check with myself and motivated to learn. It also comes with some cool statistics. My favourite is the donut chart comparing what types of activities I do the most:
As for goals, I will repeat the same for April but with a total of 30 hours instead of 25, and to get to 950 on the frequency list. This also means I will reach 100 hours spent sometime next month, which is exciting.