One thing that I’ve found both exciting and challenging is sifting through all the primary source documents in French. I’m currently taking French 112, so I have some basic language skills, but I’m definitely not to the point where I can skim and get an accurate idea of a source’s contents. For each of the papers it has been really exhausting to work through information that I can’t fully comprehend without google translate or painfully-slow-but-more-rewarding “Jacob translate.” And I say rewarding because it really is rewarding.
Already rewarding is the synthesis or analysis of information, which often comes pretty easily to me. It’s not the information itself, but the discovery of it that I have the most trouble motivating myself to work through. Even in English I often find the research portion daunting, so although adding a foreign language to the mix definitely makes research harder, it also makes the payoff more exciting.
“when I find interesting gems of knowledge it feels worth it- fun, even!”
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It’s really like digging for buried treasure. It’s exhausting to keep digging in sand with no promise of reward, but when I find interesting gems of knowledge it feels worth it- fun, even! Even though it’s an added layer, I’ve really enjoyed researching in French because the increase in effort has also increased the payoff.. If all the sources were in English, then it would be more like sifting through piles of jewels to find the best ones.
The added French language component has also been fun as an exercise in bringing together information I’m learning in all my classes. This semester I’m taking French 112, Music 242, Vocal Solo Literature (where we studied French song for part of the term). I’ve been able to use historical and musical knowledge from 242 and Vocal Solo Lit to give context to what we learn, and use my French to keep gaining knowledge.