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Tiy’s Language Log (French/German)(TAC15)

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
plumbem!
Groupie
United States
Joined 3626 days ago

44 posts - 72 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 9 of 20
04 January 2015 at 8:18am | IP Logged 
Hello! I am also on the French team and will be following your log.


Tiy wrote:


Today (actually it was yesterday, but I was too tired to write about it) I read 50
pages of "L'Aventure des Langues en Occident" by Henriette Walker for the Super
Challenge.


I saw you posted about this in the team thread and thought it was a great coincidence because
I had just found a copy of it in the attic and set it aside to take a look at.
I am thinking about doing the super challenge too, probably for reading.

Anyways,best of luck, look forward to reading your updates.
1 person has voted this message useful



Elenia
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
lilyonlife.blog
Joined 3849 days ago

239 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto

 
 Message 10 of 20
04 January 2015 at 4:03pm | IP Logged 
I'll be following your log, it seems we have taken similar trajectories with French (I am
a final year uni student, studying French), and we're both interested in German. Good
luck for the coming year!
1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3673 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 11 of 20
04 January 2015 at 10:29pm | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
Hello Tiy, and Bienvenue à Team Français 2015!

To develop your listening skills, work on a lot of audio which has transcripts. "7 jours
sur la planète" is a video news program for students of French, with almost perfectly
matching French subtitles. 2">L'avis de Marie is a podcast with clearly spoken language, and a matching
transcript. The more recent episodes have active highlights which follow the audio
sentence by sentence.


Thanks for that Jeffers! I've been looking for audio resources with transcripts but they
have been quite hard to find. I'd heard of "7 jours sur la planète" but I will definitely
look into it now.
1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3673 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 12 of 20
05 January 2015 at 6:39pm | IP Logged 
plumbem! wrote:
Hello! I am also on the French team and will be following
your log.


Tiy wrote:


Today (actually it was yesterday, but I was too tired to write about it) I read
50
pages of "L'Aventure des Langue en Occident" by Henriette Walker for the Super
Challenge.


I saw you posted about this in the team thread and thought it was a great
coincidence
because
I had just found a copy of it in the attic and set it aside to take a look at.
I am thinking about doing the super challenge too, probably for reading.

Anyways,best of luck, look forward to reading your updates.


Hello plumbem! I definitely recommend the Super Challenge. I know it was a bit
ambitious for me to start the Full Challenge so late in the game, but since it
would
help and not hinder my school studies, I thought it was worth a shot.

I am really enjoying "L'Aventure des Langues en Occident." At first, there was a
lot
of vocabulary that I hadn't encountered before - when I first opened the book I
collected 100 or so new words - but my reading skills have definitely improved
since
starting it. Plus, I just love the subject topic - it's really interesting to
find out
about the differences between European languages. It's given me so many ideas
for
languages to study - but I think I should improve the ones I'm already studying
first!

Elenia wrote:
I'll be following your log, it seems we have taken similar
trajectories with French (I am
a final year uni student, studying French), and we're both interested in German.
Good
luck for the coming year!


I'll be following your log as well! How have you found your degree? I imagine
the year
abroad would have been extremely helpful. Anyway, I have been looking for some
books
that help with English to French translation (because we have to do translate a
passage from English to French) and I reckoned that you probably know of some
good
books on the subject. Are you aware of any books which would help me?

Edited by Tiy on 18 January 2015 at 7:20pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Elenia
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
lilyonlife.blog
Joined 3849 days ago

239 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto

 
 Message 13 of 20
05 January 2015 at 8:56pm | IP Logged 
Tiy wrote:
I'll be following your log as well! How have you found your degree? I imagine the year
abroad would have been extremely helpful. Anyway, I have been looking for some books
that help with English to French translation (because we have to do translate a
passage from English to French) and I reckoned that you probably know of some good
books on the subject. Are you aware of any books which would help me?


I really enjoyed my degree, but had less luck on my year abroad, partially because of the town I was staying in. It's still early for
you to be thinking about it, but the people I have spoken to who chose to work rather than study during their year abroad enjoyed their
time much more. However, studying in France has improved my listening comprehension amazingly.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend any books that treat translation specifically. The best course of action would be to find out whether
you will be translating a literary or journalistic/factual text. Once you know, practice translating that kind of text into French, and
also try to do a lot more reading of whichever type you will be translating. There are a few tips that I've picked up, mostly to do with
translating from French into English, sadly, but the best thing for translation is reading a wide variety of texts, because you can
never predict what will come up. So the Super Challenge will really help you with that :)
1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3673 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 14 of 20
07 January 2015 at 11:20pm | IP Logged 
Elenia wrote:


I really enjoyed my degree, but had less luck on my year abroad, partially
because of the town I was staying in. It's still early for
you to be thinking about it, but the people I have spoken to who chose to work
rather than study during their year abroad enjoyed their
time much more. However, studying in France has improved my listening
comprehension amazingly.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend any books that treat translation specifically.
The best course of action would be to find out whether
you will be translating a literary or journalistic/factual text. Once you know,
practice translating that kind of text into French, and
also try to do a lot more reading of whichever type you will be translating.
There are a few tips that I've picked up, mostly to do with
translating from French into English, sadly, but the best thing for translation
is reading a wide variety of texts, because you can
never predict what will come up. So the Super Challenge will really help you
with that :)


I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed your degree and sorry to hear about your year
abroad. I know I will be studying during my year abroad because it is a law
degree which requires me to study French law at a French university. However, I
have been told that the workload will not be as heavy as it will be at my actual
university, so I may be able to get some type of part-time job.

Don't worry about the English-to-French translation books. I'm aware that they
are quite hard to come by, at least in the UK. I'm sure my A Level translation
will involve factual rather than literary texts, but I'm not entirely sure about
the actual topics. I think the Super Challenge will help, if I can choose the
right books/films!

Are there any other books that you found useful during your degree? I'm trying
to stock up on books now so that I have enough to read for the Super Challenge/
A Level French.


1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3673 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 15 of 20
07 January 2015 at 11:42pm | IP Logged 
Language Log Update (7th January 2015)

Engrenages - C'est magnifique!

I've just finished watching the first series of "Engrenages" - a TV series which
has been recommended by many of the team members in Team Français. I am totally
hooked - it's a bit sanglant (gory) but it's TV gold. I am also deeply in
love with Pierre Clement (Gregory Fitoussi).

Unfortunately I couldn't find any episodes with French subtitles so I did miss
important bits, especially when the characters got heated and began to shout
(i.e. exactly when the revelations are revealed!). The series is thoroughly
enjoyable though - I've been through 8 episodes in just under 3 days which has
boosted my stats in the Super Challenge.

La lecture de Moliere


I have also been reading/studying Moliere's "Tartuffe" for school. Compared to
Camus' "L'Etranger", which I read at the start of the Christmas holidays, this
is proving more difficult because of the antiquated language. Consequently my
progress has been quite slow but I can definitely see how well crafted the play
is.

Le collège recommence

Speaking of school, the school term starts tomorrow so I may not progress with
the reading side of the Super Challenge in the next few weeks. However, I am
looking forward to French lessons and seeing if I have actually improved at all
this Christmas!
1 person has voted this message useful



Elenia
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
lilyonlife.blog
Joined 3849 days ago

239 posts - 327 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto

 
 Message 16 of 20
08 January 2015 at 11:42am | IP Logged 
Tiy wrote:
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed your degree and sorry to hear about your year abroad. I know I will be studying during my year abroad because it is
a law degree which requires me to study French law at a French university. However, I have been told that the workload will not be as heavy as it will be at my
actual
university, so I may be able to get some type of part-time job.

Don't worry about the English-to-French translation books. I'm aware that they are quite hard to come by, at least in the UK. I'm sure my A Level translation will
involve factual rather than literary texts, but I'm not entirely sure about the actual topics. I think the Super Challenge will help, if I can choose the right
books/films!

Are there any other books that you found useful during your degree? I'm trying to stock up on books now so that I have enough to read for the Super Challenge/A
Level French.



I don't really have many recommendations. I think probably the best purchases I have made for French have been The Collins-Robert French-English dictionary, and
it's pocket sized equivalent. A lot of people I know didn't bother to buy it, as it is true that . Other than that, I have bought a few grammar books that I've
just barely cracked open: Glanville Price's A Comprehensive French Grammar, which has good explanations and lots of example sentences, but no exercises.
Schaum's French Grammar, which was recommended by a teacher, but which I have never opened. From a quick flick-through, it appears to have quite brief,
clear explanations, and a good amount of examples and exercises. Finally, I have The Ultimate French Review and Practice, which has clear explanations, lots
of example sentences and exercises and little 'Notes culturelles' which provide nice little nuggets of information and some reading practice. Other forum members
have found the Grammar progressive series useful, and it was recommended highly to me by a teacher in France.

Other than that, I can't stress enough the importance of native materials. Aside from my oral classes, and a brief flirt with linguistics, all of my other classes
have focused on French culture and artistic output. As we're studying French formally, the need for coursebooks and the like is pretty much eliminated, and since
leaving college I have not needed a single French coursebook. I focus on grammar books, because my grammar is atrocious, but other than that the best thing is
getting out and using the language. So, films and books are all very useful, necessary tools, but also try to get in speaking practice wherever possible. I've had
to learn the hard way that, no matter how much I study, if I am too shy or too nervous in any situation, speaking is the thing that fails first, and the reason why
I get shy or nervous is because I have not spoken enough, and so doubt my own abilities.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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