feeling bad < doing something about it (on refreshing language skills)

lately i've been feeling bad about my language skills, because as i learn more languages, i feel my abilities in all of them start to waver and i struggle with word recall in all of them, even my native language. which obviously feels bad! 

it feels a bit ridiculous to feel bad about it though, for two reasons. one: i should be proud of what i can do, not sad about what i still can't! having some degree of competency in four non-native languages is nothing to sneeze at, even if i'm not anywhere near native-level. two: why feel bad when i can do something about it instead?

so i'm officially dusting off my old languages and getting them back up to speed, while still working on my two new ones. and maybe adding a sprinkle of a fifth, just for kicks and giggles. (can anyone guess what it is?)

i've been really liking 8 sidor for swedish, so i tried to find something similar for chinese, korean, and german as well. i'm really liking du chinese, but haven't yet found a free one for korean—ttmik stories is nice but i don't really want to pay for anything if i don't have to, since i'm spread so thin with so many different languages, i'm not sure i'd get a decent value from it compared to if i was dedicating my time and energy to one single language. 

so far, it's much less demoralizing than i expected to get back into chinese and korean; i remember much more than i thought i would, and many more words i just need a refresher or two, even if i don't recognize it fully right away. this is especially satisfying for chinese, when i can remember the pronunciation of a word i haven't read in literal years, since chinese characters are not actually straightforwardly phonetic (which sounds insane, now that i'm returning to it after spending some time with germanic languages). 

i also broke out a "korean stories" book i have, one of the few books i kept when i cleared out my apartment last year to move to europe. if you can't tell, i'm all for reading right now! back in my language-learning heyday i would say i was much more listening-focused, but reading is my jam right now. 

oh and by the way, i have a master doc of all language learning resources i have used and would recommend. i just added several new ones! 

and on a related note, so much of successful language learning is about assessing and addressing your needs now, rather than using and sticking with resources that aren't what you need. so the resources i listed in the doc above are not "use these because they are perfect!!1!" it's "here is a list of resources that you can evaluate for yourself if they fit your specific immediate needs, which for me at some point or another they have."