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luke TAC15 Français - [TAC14] Deuxième | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 137 of 439 10 August 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, I also started this week bringing my phone, which currently has Business French on it to the gym. Rather than thinking of gym time as real study time per se, I'm thinking of it as listen and understand time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5368 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 138 of 439 10 August 2013 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yup, I use Assimil in the gym also... I review the Without Toil course. I used listen to the audio in the background on the way to work. I don't know if I'd be able to do as much Assimil as you do... I'd get Assimiled out. Eventually, I'll try a L2->L3 Assimil.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 139 of 439 18 September 2013 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had an interesting experience today. I was listening to French Without Toil lessons from 140 - 1 and the mp3 player looped back around to lesson 139. I was thinking the lessons were getting close to 1. I thought, "these lessons are so easy at the beginning". Turns out of course that I was listening to the most advanced lessons again. Completely comprehensible, which is good because I've heard them plenty of times. The neat part was just the feeling of "so easy".
In the last month or so, my French has been doing through Sur La Liberte by John Stuart Mill a few times listen/reading or reading/listening or just listening. I've listened to some other French audio as well. I'm feeling good about the branch out to native materials. I'm also doing Business French in the bathroom in the morning. Those lessons are a bit long for a bathroom experience. In looking down the road, I'm interested in mp3/texts available in both French and English that were originally written in French. Great Book candidates. Some on the horizon include Madame Bovary's Ovaries and either Democracy in America or The Social Contract. It seems sensible to switch back and forth between fiction and non-fiction, if one can find suitable material in both genres. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 140 of 439 30 October 2013 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been about 6 weeks since my last update. Lets see if I can remember a good bit of what I have done in French.
Listen/Read Introduction to Metaphysics by Henri Bergson. There is a good literal English translation and the audio is at http://litteratureaudio.com/. The author reviewed the English translation. Comprehension fairly good. The material doesn't grab me, but the writing/speaking is clear. I also listen to this one in the car after I've listen/read it. I've completed the listen/reading. Still have a few sections to listen to in the car. This is a fairly short piece, about 2 hours. Listened to Le Petit Prince in the car. This one is highly comprehensible, but the next time I go through it I'll probably do it with the book. There is a good inter-linear translation and the story continues to delight. Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy. Here I have primarily used audio. I listen to the Librivox.org recording in English, then I listen to the same chapter/meditation in French. The first 2 and last meditation are the most interesting to me. I'm on the 6th meditation in French. The Stranger by Albert Camus. I'm in part 2 chapter 4 now, which is about 3/4s of the way through. My understanding is better than any previous go. I have 2 bilingual texts. I just started using one that is actually 4 columns. English, French, and 2 different Spanish translations. The nice thing with this text as opposed to another one I have in word format is that the English and French line up much nicer, so it's easier to follow. I have the recording by the author as well as one by a professional speaker. I prefer the one by Camus, but he sometimes talks very quickly. I'll do this one again, but not right away. I just got to chapter 30 of 40 in Business French. This one gets the odd listen in the bathroom. I haven't been studying it per se. I'll probably move on to something else when I get to the end and return to Business French now and then. It's modern and colloquial and spoken at native speeds. Those are all good things. Next up though, I get torn between reviewing something I've already been through and moving on to new material. I think new material is better at this point, as it tends to be more interesting. If I let more time elapse, my French will have improved and reviewing a book or course I've been through before will have a newness that is helpful. When I work from home, I rotate background listening between the 4 Assimil French courses. Someday I imagine I'll do a more rigorous approach, but what I'm doing now is easy to keep doing, and that's one of the secrets to success. Edited by luke on 09 November 2013 at 10:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 141 of 439 29 November 2013 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Lately French has seemed to take a back seat to Don Quixote, the Brothers Karamazov, and the Descent of Man.
I listen to Business French sometimes in the bathroom, but I've been so busy lately, I never seem to have 5 minutes to give a lesson in a straight shot. I'm still around lesson 34. Business French seems like it will have to come out of the bathroom so I can give it's proper due attention. It's just that the other stuff I'm reading, as well as thinking a longer work by Plato or Flaubert or Stendahl will capture my attention next. That won't be bad for my French, but having all 4 of the Assimil French courses solidly under my belt gives a good 5000-6000 word base, and has the beauty of fairly quick resuscitation should some new obsession knock French out of my life for a few years. You never know when that can happen and it's nice to have a recovery plan should it be necessary. For me, it's often a struggle between revision and novelty. Business French is still new, and it seems like the modern business language and vocabulary will pay dividends in radio/tv listening, but the call of the wild and wandering out onto the thinner ice has its lure as well. If anyone has any feedback, I'm interested. Edited by luke on 29 November 2013 at 12:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 142 of 439 19 December 2013 at 12:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I wrapped up my first real pass through Business French yesterday. While on a plane trip, I listened and read the all the recorded material. One neat thing about that experience was my mind shifted pretty well into French. Even the later lessons, which had been somewhat neglected compared to the earlier ones were fairly comprehensible, even when the book was closed. Now, it's time to put Business French in the background rotation. That is, something to listen to while working from home. Still plenty to learn in that book, but it will be good to build up some desire for it before another headlong assault.
For the bathroom slot, which was Business French, I see going back to Using French. It's been a couple three months since I went through it. The lessons are shorter than Business French, so it's easier to do a lesson there. I believe Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary is next. There is a nice recording of Madame Bovary at litteratureaudio.com. I have a Parallel Text, and the chapters are mostly not too long, which is a big plus for doing a chapter most days. Madame Bovary is in a lot of Great Book lists, so that's a big plus. Edited by luke on 19 December 2013 at 12:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 143 of 439 02 January 2014 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||
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My study plans for French in 2014 have firmed up over the last week or so. I've started FSI Basic French. I'm on the 3rd tape of unit 1. I know it's early, but I am liking this course right now. I feel like I'm at a good level for starting it. I.E., I only have to do each tape once to get pretty much everything grammatically correct. I know FSI is more about practice and habit than knowledge. The nice thing about Basic French is there are a ton of drills.
I also started FSI French Phonology. I'm on Chapter 4 of 10. This is a programmed course and is meant to be easy, straight-forward, and completed before FSI Basic. Some lights about phonology are turning on, such as details on syllabification, and where to put press my tongue into the lower teeth for a sound like du. I put Using and Business French on my phone and memory stick for commuting. I also have Le Petit Prince on those. I read most of The Little Prince in English a few days ago. I want to finish it up in English and later listen and shadow it in French. In a nutshell, my 2014 plans for French are: 1) Get through FSI Basic French once. (can it possibly stay easy to the end :) 2) Complete FSI Introduction to French Phonology 3) Review Assimil NFWE, FWT, Using French, and Business French. 4) Get very comfortable with Le Petit Prince and Camus L'Étranger. 5) Bang through several Great Books in French. I was listening to John Stuart Mill's De l’assujettissement des femmes today and was pleased with what I understood just listening to the audio. Edited by luke on 02 January 2014 at 2:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 144 of 439 05 January 2014 at 12:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I wrapped up chapitre quatre de FSI French Phonology. I'm liking the course. It's a "programmed" approach, which I'm finding especially helpful since my normal approach is "seat of the pants". This way, I've got a better handle on what I have a handle on.
I looked at the DLI Basic French course. It has 85 lessons. The first 15 are phonological. It's crossed my mind to do those after I wrap up the FSI phonology course. It's not always easy to know how much one might expect from a course. I'm on Unit 1 tape 6 in FSI Basic French. The other tracks are Using French and Business French, which I'm reviewing at the rate of one lesson per day. I found a youtube series called Philosophie du vivant, which for me is fairly interesting and comprehensible. Of course there are a ton of videos. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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