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Fiyero TAC 2015 - French, Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Fiyero Newbie United States Joined 3595 days ago 14 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, French | Message 1 of 15 15 January 2015 at 2:35am | IP Logged |
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Salut & привет!
This is my first journal entry for TAC 2015. I've had a passion for languages for many years and have studied several over that time period. Unfortunately, despite all my dabbling in languages I've never achieved a proficient level in them. Technically my first non-native language was Hebrew which I studied some as a child, but I didn't study it for long and have since forgotten everything but the alphabet. I had a Cuban teacher in elementary school who began teaching us Spanish which is really where my language path began. I studied Spanish technically for about 6-7 years, but that was in Middle School/High School classes which were not too effective at making the language useful. In college, i took a few semesters of Italian, a semester of Latin, and a year of French. In hindsight, I wish I had majored or at least minored in languages in college. But since I didn't, I'm now trying to develop competency on my own. My ultimate goal is proficiency in at least 5 languages (French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and German). While Italian is my favorite living language (Latin is my favorite overall I think), I've opted to begin my self- studies on French and Russian due to perhaps being more useful. While Spanish would obviously be the most useful as an American, my interest in Spanish is less than French, Italian, and Russian so I will likely revisit that after my French is more solid. My goals for this year are to achieve a fairly strong command of French (hopefully B1-B2), including being able to read newspapers, easy books, watch my favorite shows/movies, and carry on a normal conversation. Russian will clearly take me a long time to get a grasp on. I'm just hoping to expand my vocabulary, conquer basic grammar, and maybe read some very simple books. French: Today I finished chapter 68 passive and 19 active in Assimil New French with Ease. I also did 100 words in Lingvist, which has been a decent way of picking up some vocabulary, even though I tend to forget a bunch of words when I see them in real texts. According to Lingvist, I'm up to about 1300 words learned. I'm also using French in Action (currently on lesson 14) and have just started Le Petit Prince. I also just received my first 2 Harry Potter books from amazon.fr today! I actually haven't read the originals, so I'm debating whether to read English first or just do them side by side. Russian: Currently on Assimil Russian (the new edition) chapter 25. The chapters are definitely getting harder, with some phrases not sinking in. I'm also reading New Penguin Russian to work on the Grammar. Definitely a challenge for me. I must have re-read the Prepositional, Accusative, Genitive, and Adjective chapters at least 5 times. While I get the basics, trying to memorize all the different endings and their exceptions/rules is headache inducing. I do have to say, despite how difficult it is, I do seem to be able to understand very basic Russian better than I thought. While my vocabulary is still very small, I can at least make sense of simple sentences. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4327 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes  Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 15 15 January 2015 at 4:58am | IP Logged |
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Bienvenue dans tout: l'equipe, TAC et HTLAL, Fiyero!
It's good that you have clear goals in both your languages, and that you know where your strenghts and weaknesses lie. No matter what people say, no language is piece of cake to learn, so knowing how to adapt our learning to them makes the trip much more enjoyable. Make sure to keep us updated! In view of your language combo, here's a piece of friendly (and absolutely unasked for, I know) advice: when your brain asks for rest, listen to it. While French is not particularly hard, nor prone to confusion or mix up with Russian, nobody I know has been able to study Russian simultaneously with another language. I would know--I tried while I was doing Italian, and it was exhausting; it was pretty much the reason why I dropped out of my first TAC. Russian's a demanding language, so don't exert yourself too hard or you'll be staring at burn-out in the face somewhat quickly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 3 of 15 15 January 2015 at 6:18am | IP Logged |
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Hi Fiyero,
Your comments on studying various languages on and off over the years and not progressing much resonates with many of us. Until just over a year ago I felt a similar sense of frustration and lack of accomplishment despite many hundreds of hours of study. To be fair I did get something out of it but I resolved to become proficient at an advanced level starting with French with an aim to return to other languages previously studied later on. I guess I'm sharing this to demonstrate that all you need to do is simply recognize and aim to resolve the issue, which you have, make a plan, which you have and then follow through with committed regular study without letting anything else in life get in the way (within reason). Sorry if im a little preachy, I'm just trying to give you a pat on the back and say you can absolutely do this. The hardest thing for many ppl is simply sticking at it continuously (not procrastinating or swapping languages too soon) which will again halt your progress. That's where specific goals can really help, and reaching a level that enables you to use enjoyable native materials that keep you exposure to the language sufficient enough not to diminish your language skill level. Welcome to Team français and good luck with your language learning! PM 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4902 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 15 15 January 2015 at 8:51am | IP Logged |
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Welcome to Team français, Fiyero. You look like you have a good plan. What do you do with FIA? Just the videos, or do you have the audio + workbooks?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4632 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 5 of 15 15 January 2015 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum! We will be team mates on Team Pushkin, so I look forward to following your progress in Russian. How do you find the Assimil course? I used the French-based version "Le russe sans peine", and I thought it was one of the better written Assimil courses, with quite entertaining dialogues. I used other material as well, e.g. Colloquial Russian (which has a very different approach compared to Assimil) and an old Linguaphone course from the 1970's.
Good luck with your studies and progress in your languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Fiyero Newbie United States Joined 3595 days ago 14 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, French | Message 6 of 15 15 January 2015 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you Ogrim. I really like Assimil. I haven't tried the older Russian versions so I can't compare, but the
new one seems nice. Although I do find it strange that they call the prepositional case the locative in the new Russian book. Didn't think it was called locative much anymore. It's definitely gotten harder though. Lots of bigger, harder to pronounce words in the chapters I'm at now. For example the days of the week chapter. I had a lot of trouble with that one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Straya Diglot Groupie Australia Joined 3610 days ago 57 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchA2 Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 15 16 January 2015 at 1:34am | IP Logged |
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How are you enjoying assimil? im upto lesson 40-42 but they've been inconsistant from
about 37, and before i was doing a lesson daily. I've traded assimil for L-R and ive finally had the breakthrough where i can read the french almost always with a glance at the English. Edit: French assimil i was referring to :) Edited by Straya on 16 January 2015 at 1:35am 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 8 of 15 16 January 2015 at 3:01am | IP Logged |
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Wow! It sounds like you're doing great.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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