luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 273 of 439 10 July 2014 at 3:07am | IP Logged |
I just got back from vacation. I'm reformulating my French study plans.
The "back to front" or "begin with the end in mind", i.e. starting at the end of French Without Toil and New French with Ease may be aborted. That wouldn't be a waste. The last parts of the courses are the most challenging. I did the last 30 or so lessons from FWT and the last 15 or so from NFWE. Business French was also around lesson 15, but that was a followup review wave. I'll see what I feel like tomorrow morning, which is the first real study slot after my return. It would be nice to find out if there was any "bow wave" effect or just rest and recuperation rekindling enthusiasm.
I started Madame Bovary about 36 hours ago as a Read/Listen Fr/En wave. I'm on chapter 8 of part 1, I believe. Most of those chapters aren't too long, so it wouldn't be too onerous just to add it as a track to the previous plan. High level plans for Madame Bovary study:
Wave 1. Read/Listen Fr/En.
Trailing listen in French wave.
Wave 2. Listen/Read Fr/En.
Trailing listen in French wave.
Wave 3. Listen/Read Fr/Fr.
Trailing listen in French wave.
The story is well written, so I may be able to sustain the plan above. Each wave is about 13 hours.
Other thoughts are plug in some short extensive reading stories for younger readers.
I may have 4 Assimils going for a while if I keep the old track going. I found the CDs again for Using French and was going to do it back to front dans la salle de bains.
Also want to make progress in one of Hugo courses. I'm on CD 3 of the advanced course in a preview wave.
And of course FSI. I'll be starting unit 8 in a post "tape 2 magic" wave that went up to tape 14.2.
Edited by luke on 10 July 2014 at 3:22am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 274 of 439 13 July 2014 at 2:56am | IP Logged |
I wanted to augment this post with some of the other ladictee.fr recommendations...
Quelques autres livres de
ladictee.fr...
Graphic of the French school
Levels
Le Petit Chose de Alphonse Daudet Donneuse de voix : Cocotte | Durée : 10h 50min
Livre de Merveilles de Nathaniel Hawthorne the chapters here are much longer, about 1 hour each. The book is 6 hours.
Maupassant Deux Amis is only 13 minutes :)
Maupassant - La Parure which is 19 minutes ...
Jules Renard Poil de Carotte "Carrot top" ... 3 hours 22 minutes.
Another version of Poil de Carotte. 3 hours 44 minutes
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. 67 hours
Les Trois Mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas 28 hours 30 minutes
DEFOE, Daniel – Robinson Crusoé 23 hours 40 minutes
BEECHER-STOWE, Harriet – La Case de l’oncle Tom 23 hours 10 minutes
LONDON, Jack – Croc-blanc Donneur de voix : René Depasse | Durée : 7h 50min
CONAN DOYLE, Arthur – Le Chien des Baskerville Donneur de voix : René Depasse | Durée : 8h 15min
STEVENSON, Robert Louis – L’Île au trésor Donneur de voix : René Depasse | Durée : 9h
MAUPASSANT, Guy (de) – Pierre et Jean Donneuse de voix : Romy Riaud | Durée : 5h 10min
Edited by luke on 20 July 2014 at 11:03pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 275 of 439 13 July 2014 at 4:53am | IP Logged |
And another interesting post:
guilon wrote:
-Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
-Honoré de Balzac - Le père Goriot
-Stendhal - Le rouge et le noir
-Victor Hugo - Les misérables
-Émile Zola - Germinal
-Marcel Proust - Du côté de chez Swann
-Jean Paul Sartre - La nausée
-Albert Camus - La peste
Here are some of my suggestions, ordered from harder to easier (although this may be an arbitrary way of ranking them of course).
In my opinion, if you manage to read only these eight books thoroughly ,you will end up mastering a big amount of cultivated vocabulary and sophisticated constructions. If you really are into Literature these are the “incontournables” you should browse through, otherwise Montecristo and the Mousquetaires are some pleasant readings but not exactly the highest standards of French Literature. |
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 276 of 439 19 July 2014 at 9:03am | IP Logged |
This week, FSI Basic French has been the center of my studies. I'm currently on tape 8.5. Tape 8.4 took several reviews. I've been reading through the grammar points for the current tape most days when I have to repeat a tape. I've also done the tape on the way to work and on the way home. I hadn't been doing FSI on the way home. I'm hoping it helps me make some forward progress in the course as well as my comprehension/speaking.
I did Audacity "truncate silence" on a set of the FSI files. I've been listening to the unit 8 tapes in the background or while working out this week. Tapes with truncated silence are typically about 15 minutes long. The nice thing about "in the background" is that even a few moments of attention shifted to the recording gives a quick review or reinforcement.
I've also been listening to Les Quatre Accords, which is much easier than real literature. I oscillate between slogging through hard material, such as Madame Bovary and easier stuff like The 4 Agreements, La Puissance de Votre Subconscience, Le Sens du Bonheur de Krishnamurthy. My current thinking is that this easier material is good for learning and keeping burnout at bay. I also started Petit Nicholas et ses Copains. This one has a different speaker, or set of speakers, but it is enjoyable and more manageable than Madame Bovary.
The Assimil courses were in light review mode this week.
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 277 of 439 21 July 2014 at 8:44am | IP Logged |
I'm falling behind you on FSI; I still haven't finished with unit 7. I want to do justice to the scenarios on the final tape, by listening to them while reading them, but I haven't gotten around to it. I think I've realized that, for me, FSI is a dip in dip out course.
By the way, that link didn't work for me. It says, "Video unavailable". It might be a regional issue. :/
Edited by Jeffers on 21 July 2014 at 8:45am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 278 of 439 21 July 2014 at 10:30am | IP Logged |
FSI is a dip in dip out course for me too, or rather it has it's focus and defocus. Right now it's a focus so I'd like to make some real forward progress.
I see the link now says "unavailable" as well.If I do a search for "quatre accords toltèques" there are still some hits.
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 279 of 439 23 July 2014 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
One of those stories ladictee mentioned is La Parure/The Necklace by Guy Maupassant. The French recording is 19 minutes.
C'est pas mal, mais ce n'est pas facile non plus.
La Parure French text.
The Necklace English text.
La Parure recording in French.
English recording from Librivox.
Edited by luke on 24 July 2014 at 12:07pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 280 of 439 31 July 2014 at 12:08pm | IP Logged |
I listen/read
Pierre et Jean de Guy Maupassant over the last couple days. I listened to the audio in the previous link, then switched to the recording from http://www.audiocite.net/. That is, I listen/read the story once. That felt good. The story pushed me along chapter after chapter.
That experience made me think that a "once through" approach may be good for momentum and making French study exciting. I've thought of various ways it could be done. This is very similar to a post above. The difference is that weeks or months could lapse between the steps. Also, different works could be cycling through different waves.
Here's an example:
1) Listen/Read Pierre et Jean in French/English.
2) Listen/Read Les Quatre Accords Tolteques in French/French.
3) Listen to Le Sens du Bonheur in French. (This is a fairly easy book).
4) Listen/Read Plato in French/English.
5) Listen/Read John Stuart Mill in French/French
6) Listen to something easy in French.
7) Listen to something hard in English.
Now comes repeats.
8) Listen/Read Pierre et Jean in French/French.
9) Listen to Les Quatre Accords Tolteques.
10)Read Le Sens du Bonheur in French.
11) Listen/Read Plato in French/English again if it was opaque the first time.
12) Listen/Read the hard thing from #7 in French/English.
That's the idea. I.E., instead of grinding through a single book over and over in different ways until enthusiasm wains, keep enthusiasm up by always doing something interesting. Cycle challenge.
In addition to Pierre et Jean, which is a 5 hour novel, I'm on FSI Basic French tape 8.8.
I've ramped up the Anki/French Frequency Dictionary track for a couple of days. I'm up to word 400. I've been adding words at the rate of 25 per day (50 with backs) for a few days. Reviews are generally still under 10 minutes. I'm going to lower the "add" rate to 20 words per day to keep the Anki sessions manageable. When I get to word 501, I'll probably drop the add rate to 10.
Edited by luke on 31 July 2014 at 12:10pm
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