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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 73 of 101 05 October 2012 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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French:
Watched La Double Vie de Veronique w/ English subs and OSS 117 Le Caire Nid d'espions with English subs. La double vie was quite easy to understand without subs, but OSS 117 was a little bit harder. It was a pretty funny movie though. I did learn a few new words and new ways to phrase things. That's one of the hardest parts of language learning in my opinion. Figuring out which word to use in such and such situation. In English, there are so many synonyms so I struggle figuring out which word to use in French. Also with French, I'm finding more and more words that have several more meanings than English does. I've been treating songs like Assimil lessons lately. I keep listening over and over until I can hear the lyrics after reading them. I never bothered to do that before because I liked listening to songs for enjoyment, but hey, it helps alot. My conversation is getting good now. At first it was really shaky and I could never find the right word, but it's becoming easier and easier. My listening and reading are still stronger. Still have not finished L'etranger. I've been watching movies and other tv shows instead lately. I'm hoping to knock it out tomorrow morning. I got myself hyped up for Un Coeur Simple. I'd like to read the other two of the Three Tales, but I couldn't find the audio for them so I'll save them for later. I'm also excited to read Les Chants de Maldoror. Let's see if I can handle 3-4 books at the same time. Italian: Finished Lesson 15 in Assimil Italian. Nothing is really sticking like it did with French in the beginning. I guess because when I started Assimil I was learning French for a month but I did nothing before I started Italian. Haven't bothered with Teach Yourself lately. I'm probably due for a lesson soon. German: Nothing much really. A few Assimil lessons. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 74 of 101 08 October 2012 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
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French:
Haven't done any reading at all. I've been keeping myself busy watching movies. I've been busy with school and watching some American TV, so I haven't done much of anything in regards to French. I did watch the rest of Polisse. Solid film. It's incredible how much easier I'm starting to understand dialogue. I've also been conversing more with people online. I hate how I can never find the right word or phrase things wrong. They do help me with corrections, but they are usually minor like a preposition incorrectly added. So I'm not sure if that means I express myself well, or they are just being nice. Works for me either way! Oh and, I can't believe I never heard of Serge Gainsbourg before. This guy was so ahead of his time it's astounding. Italian: Going to have to wait until I finish Assimil to get to the good stuff! I'm on the 18th lesson of Assimil. Three weeks already? Dang! German: Nothing, at all. :( I did find out David Bowie can speak German though, which is pretty cool. Edited by sillygoose1 on 08 October 2012 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 75 of 101 11 October 2012 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
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French:
Saw Paris Je t'aime with English subs. Great movie. Bunch of fabulous clips. I also saw Harry Potter 1 in French with French subs. I'm going to get through the whole Harry Potter movie series the same way. Movies/shows in my "on deck" list that I really want to see by next week: J'ai Tue Ma Mere Mesrine 1-2 Projet X Harry Potter 2 I was going to watch The Hunger Games, but it doesn't seem like a movie worth how long it is. Harry Potter and Paris Je T'aime were the movies that "clicked" for me, as in I understood about 70-80% of both without subs needed. I even understood sentences that the subs didn't fully cover or that the subs inaccurately portrayed. Why can't all French subs be perfect? I downloaded the Italian version of Saw with Italian subs just to see what it was like, and they were perfect from the one scene I saw(haha). And they have considerably less speakers! Now, if I could only get to 70-80% comprehension in Engrenages.... Italian: Finished lesson 22 in Assimil. German: I got back on the horse with German. I kept up with my daily Assimil lessons after a break. I finished lesson 17. I might do one more today. Thinking about doing Assimil for Spanish soon, then doing Assimil for Russian for the challenge. Why learn Italian and Spanish at the same time with the same book after only getting one foreign language to a decent level and doing two other Assimils also you ask? Because I'm nuts. We'll see what happens. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 76 of 101 14 October 2012 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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French:
-Finished L'etranger -Watched Harry Potter 2, J'ai Tue Ma Mere, & Le Premier Jour du Reste de ta vie French cinema has changed my entire outlook on everything. There is so much more to French/Quebecois movies than American. I felt as though I was able to get emotionally attached to every plot/character so far. Le Premier Jour, J'ai Tue, & La Haine were some of the best movies I've ever seen. Really. Even L'argent de poche was really good. Some of my new favorite movies are French. There would have been no reason for me to ever look for French films in depth had I not took on the task of learning the language. These movies have left me with a lot to think about in life and they changed my perspective on some things. I have yet to see some other French hits so I can only imagine that my opinion here will grow a lot more stronger. Anyway, enough of that. Some may notice that I changed my level to Basic Fluency. I thought the the decision was just given that I can read news articles without much problem, read books, and watch movies while getting at least a 60-70% comprehension rate. I've also been talking to my Algerian friend so some of my problems have been getting remedied. A part of me wants to start watching The Simpsons QC version, but another part wants me to get through everything else I have first. Italian: Finished 25th lesson. The absence of pronouns gets really confusing. I'm having a lot of trouble with conjugations. I also feel like sometimes French blocks out Italian. It hasn't even been a month yet and it takes 2-3 to get comfortable. German: Finished 20th lesson. Eh, what can I say about German. The way sentences are setup are tricky. When I do my listen-without-text part of Assimil, I sometimes think in my head that a statement is a question.The 19th lesson was the first lesson to pose problems for me. Spanish: I caved and decided to go with it. Finished lesson 4 in Spanish Without Toil. I figured, it's close to French and I get free TV channels for it, so why not? Not to mention job prospects. Spanish cinema is pretty cool too. I watched REC 1-3. The first two were great. Let's not talk about 3. If anything gets too hectic for me, I decided I'm going to drop German. Learning this language and hearing it brings back awful memories from middle school and uni. My German professor actually advised me to not study by myself at home and to finish all of his classes in order to speak it. Good thing I never listened to that guy! Also, does anyone know how to change the name of a thread? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Roman Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5444 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Italian, French | Message 77 of 101 15 October 2012 at 12:29pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil sometimes confuses me with its instruction, so I ask, how do you do?
First listen without reading text, then listen and read aloud (almost at the sametime as the native, I think) and then...? Or is it different? Please try to be more clearer than Assimil :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 78 of 101 15 October 2012 at 2:25pm | IP Logged |
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I listen along while reading the text to see how many words I recognize, then I read each sentence out-loud and look at the translation, read notes along the way, then once I think I have the text down I listen while reading again. After all of that, I listen without reading to see how much I understand. If I'm not satisfied (this happens the majority of the time) with how much I understand, I keep listening/reading/repeating out-loud until I feel comfortable. Once I am able to get to 90-100% comprehension, then I listen/read once more to "solidify" the lesson. Then off to the exercises.
I also pretend like I'm an actor reading the script. It gives me more of a reason to pronounce the words correctly/with a good accent or else I don't get the job. :P 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 79 of 101 23 October 2012 at 3:39am | IP Logged |
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French:
I've been listening to a lot of Quebecois radio. I logged about 2 hours in the past 3 days. I would listen to it while I was playing a game mainly. Just something in the background. I watched La Femme Nikita & Harry Potter 3.I feel like I watched something else but I forget. Learned some new phrases and vocab. I think I'm up to around 100+ episodes/movies which is about how many it took for me to be able to listen to a movie/song and even though I had not heard the word before, I could probably at least guess how its spelled about 80-90% of the time. I feel like French is a special exception because of the silent letters and weird orthography. In any case, I'm glad that everything worked out that I ended up learning French first because it is probably the hardest Romance language comprehension wise, or so I assume. I haven't done much speaking the last week, but I've done a good amount of writing. I've also learned 81 new sayings/vocab this last week due to movies and reading and I didn't even realize it. I want to start analyzing more songs and get new vocab there again. I'd like to get around to some movies tomorrow if I can. Italian: Finished the 35th lesson today. Assimil lessons are starting to become easier now. I also obtained Perfectionnement Italien (1987) so that got me excited for when I finish With Ease. This language is definitely really fun to speak. I think the lessons in the beginning are too long, though. If they had it where the length was in the middle of L'italien and With Ease, it would be so much better in my opinion. German: Dropped for now. Not because I couldn't handle it, but I just have more motivation for Italian and Spanish right now. :P I do feel like grammar would start becoming a problem though and like I said, I'd rather use my brainpower on languages I want to learn right now. Spanish: Coming along good so far. I stopped doing Without Toil but I'm using L'espagnol. I finished lesson 11 today. I haven't confused anything as of now. So far so good! That's it for now! Edited by sillygoose1 on 23 October 2012 at 3:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Roman Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5444 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Italian, French | Message 80 of 101 23 October 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged |
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How many lessons you do a day for each language (please compare that with Assimil
French)? I'm doing Italian (lesson 13) and have restarted German (lesson 14), with French I'm thinking about in participate in the Assimil experiment thread... Lets see, maybe not because I want to make it more intensive/fast. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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