Friday, January 9, 2026

French and Ukelele Learning Update


Learning French again is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I am working in a workbook I bought from Amazon after Christmas. It is set up to help people learn in 30 days, but I have to do it a bit differently because of my schedule. I am working on French 2 days a week for now. Once I get into the swing of things with one of my commitments, I will hopefully be able to work on it at least 3 days a week. Right now, it is kicking my butt, though. It's a bit discouraging to know that I used to know this stuff and not be able to access that information in my brain any longer. I know that the lessons I am doing were spanned over about a week when I was in school, and now I am trying to cram it into one evening. I'm doing it, but I have to go back sometimes because I know I didn't learn everything I needed to the first time. Thankfully, I unlocked some bonus materials by finishing the first chapter and will be able to practice with some recordings and flash cards. I think this workbook is going to take me at least the first quarter of the year to get through. Then, I will decide where to go from there. My plan is to get to the point where I can read the Book of Mormon in French. 

I knew learning the Ukelele would be hard. I have learned a few songs a while back when I got my ukelele (when Sean was still in school), but that has been too long. I am starting all over on this subject, too. Chad gave me a book for Christmas to help with this goal. Most of it has been how to pick one out and how to tune it. I read it, but I already have one and have the app to help me tune it. I have also been reading a book about the history of the ukelele from the library that I have to finish this weekend so I can return it. I am working on this two nights a week as well and may need to add another day, too. A few nights ago, I finally got to the chapter about chords and learned the first one. Today, I veered off my plan a bit and found the YouTube videos I was learning from back in 2021 or 2022 and spent about an hour learning "You are My Sunshine" and "Riptide." I still need to get better at my strumming and the G cord to move on to the next lesson, but I know I can do this. My goal is to have at least 6 songs that I can play well and have memorized. 

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