luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 289 of 439 24 August 2014 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
PeterMollenburg wrote:
Again, excellent work Luke! Keep it up! |
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Ah, bon! Merci monsieur!
I just finished listen/reading Petit Nicholas and Petit Nicholas et ses Copains. My comprehension on the first book is very good, about 99%. The second book is not quite that high, maybe 95%.
I like the reader of the first audiobook more than the way they produced the second. The second has different voices for each character. It has a little more music and that music seems a bit more intrusive than the first recording. Nonetheless, it's an enjoyable book.
Anki is on word 661 of 5000.
I kicked up some Assimil French Without Toil over the last few days. The new thing I added today was a "look away and repeat" exercise. That gets the words and thoughts fluent in my head, at least for the duration of the exercise.
Business French is on lesson 23 in the current "cleanup" wave.
Using French has been bumping along a lesson per day. I've taken to shadowing the lessons with the book at times. This feels good.
FSI Basic French is on tape 9.8 or 9.9. I've not given normal attention to the last half of the drills on pronoun order. Grammar points 4 and 5 are easier than the pronoun order (grammar point 3) in lesson 9.
I also read Asterix le Gaulois a few days ago.
Edited by luke on 25 August 2014 at 12:26am
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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 290 of 439 25 August 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
This morning I tried something a little new doing FSI tape 9.8. I rewound the exercises one at a time until I
could do them pretty well. E.G., rather than going through the whole tape doing my best, I went through a
single drill. One drill may have 10-20 "tests". I started by pausing the recording long enough to think up the
answer. Then I would verify it with the answer on the tape. Then I'd move on to the next "test", trying to get it
right and if not, making a mental note. Once I could get through the 10-20 "tests", I repeated the drill. The
second and third time through I may have had to pause the recording as well. Once I got to the point of being
able to produce the answer correctly most of the time without pausing, I moved on to the next drill.
I think is is a good strategy for the harder drills. On the way home from work this afternoon, I'll rewind the
tape to the beginning and try to do the exercises from this morning again. Hopefully it will require less
repeats :)
In the big picture, I spent the usual 30 minutes or so on FSI. In this particular case, I only got into minute 10.
So, on average, I was repeating each drill three times.
Tomorrow again I'll do the same thing. Hopefully I'll get beyond the 10 minute mark before I run out of mental
gas, which happens after about 30 minutes of drilling.
What I like about this method is I'm not skipping the entire set of drills or tapes as "to hard for my current
level". As they say in Spanish, poco a poco, se va lejos.
The thinking behind this is FSI tends to build upon itself, so if I don't get some particular pattern down fairly
well, it will continue to haunt as the units roll on.
Another side benefit was that I was "thinking in French" a bit today and found myself using the "I give it to
him", or "you tell it to me" patterns with some facility.
To quote our ancestors, I"m a Believer in FSI.
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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 291 of 439 28 August 2014 at 8:44am | IP Logged |
luke wrote:
This morning I tried something a little new doing FSI tape 9.8. I rewound the exercises one at a time until I
could do them pretty well. E.G., rather than going through the whole tape doing my best, I went through a
single drill. One drill may have 10-20 "tests". I started by pausing the recording long enough to think up the
answer. Then I would verify it with the answer on the tape. Then I'd move on to the next "test", trying to get it
right and if not, making a mental note. Once I could get through the 10-20 "tests", I repeated the drill. The
second and third time through I may have had to pause the recording as well. Once I got to the point of being
able to produce the answer correctly most of the time without pausing, I moved on to the next drill.
I think is is a good strategy for the harder drills. On the way home from work this afternoon, I'll rewind the
tape to the beginning and try to do the exercises from this morning again. Hopefully it will require less
repeats :) |
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I often do the same thing with the more difficult drills. It certainly makes a good workout for your tongue and brain!
luke wrote:
Anki - I'm up to word 630 in the French Frequency Dictionary. I've downshifted to adding 10 words per day. That seems like a sustainable pace. |
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How are you liking the frequency dictionary? I like it, but I find it annoying that it doesn't give feminine forms of adjectives, and some of the definitions are odd (or just wrong). I find I have to verify the meaning of almost every word, but I use the online Collins French dictionary so it's not too difficult. As a plus, I copy the French words with accents from the online dictionary so I don't have to type them on Anki.
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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 292 of 439 28 August 2014 at 10:32am | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
luke wrote:
Anki - I'm up to word 630 in the French Frequency Dictionary. I've downshifted to adding 10 words per day. That seems like a sustainable pace. |
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How are you liking the frequency dictionary? I like it, but I find it annoying that it doesn't give feminine forms of adjectives, and some of the definitions are odd (or just wrong). I find I have to verify the meaning of almost every word, but I use the online Collins French dictionary so it's not too difficult. As a plus, I copy the French words with accents from the online dictionary so I don't have to type them on Anki. |
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I like that the words I'm putting in Anki show up on the regular in my reading and listening. Some of the definitions are wrong or incomplete. ignorer it had as simply "to ignore" although I'd learned it often means "to not know". Of course I caught that one.
I haven't taken to verifying each word. Is the dictionary that bad?
I use copy/paste as well to get the accents correct. It's also a good idea for the spelling, just in case.
Words that I have difficulty with I've been adding a sentence, which generally helps. I don't do that out of the gate.
I did three definitions with sound and pictures as per Gabe Wyner. It's a small sample size, but those definitions have stuck very well. Finding pictures and adding the sound clip takes more time per word. Since I'm only on word 690, it hasn't seemed worth the pain.
I try to do a fair bit of extensive listening or listen/reading (30 minutes or so) each day in an effort to keep most of the words I add each day in the "easy" category.
Adding every word like I'm doing is probably not necessary, but it is systematic.
Me talk pretty one day.
Edited by luke on 28 August 2014 at 10:34am
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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 293 of 439 01 September 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
I wanted to capture an idea for my next trip through Using French. An idea I've had for a while is using the topics in the lessons as a basis for further exploration for the day. E.G. When the lesson is "Le Cinéma", watch some French film on youtube.
Today's idea was to write out the words or phrases from the notes. I have the dialogues down pretty well. The notes often seem to have fresh information. By writing them notes out, they should sink in a bit more. Also look at google maps and google images on things in the lesson. I'll do that trip through the book downstairs by the computer which will be a new locale.
Where are my studies today?
French Frequency Dictionary - I added word 740 to Anki today.
French Without Toil - Just finished lesson 19 in the "look away and repeat" wave.
Using French - Lesson 25.
FSI Basic French - tape 9.10 is next.
Audio Livres - I'm listen/reading an old favorite in French/French.
Edited by luke on 01 September 2014 at 8:36pm
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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 294 of 439 02 September 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
I got 55%, B1 from a brief test at test.html">http://www.france-langue.com/online-french-test.h tml. I think B1 is about right for my current
level, but as online tests can sometimes inflate your grade, I'd hoped for something better.
Edited by luke on 03 September 2014 at 11:42am
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Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4010 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 295 of 439 02 September 2014 at 5:30am | IP Logged |
This test is a GREAT find! Thanks for sharing!
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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 296 of 439 02 September 2014 at 11:36am | IP Logged |
Mohave wrote:
This test is a GREAT find! Thanks for sharing! |
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Sure. I hope you do better. It is a short, 20 question test, so that's nice for the curious.
On another, happier note, I found another site and listened to one of the C2 mp3s and felt I understood most
of it pretty well.
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