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luke TAC15 Français - [TAC14] Deuxième | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 49 of 439 22 September 2012 at 11:55am | IP Logged |
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Using French On lesson 67 of 70. This is my "comprehension" wave, and I certainly understand the audio much better than a few weeks ago when I started this course.
New French I continue reading and re-reading a few lessons per day. I'm around lesson 64 of 113. Listening to Assimil in the background continues at work, in the car, and in the kitchen. I think I may Listen/Read Le Petit Prince tonight. Edited by luke on 22 September 2012 at 11:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 50 of 439 22 September 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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I completed the read and understand (comprehension) wave of Using French. Woo Hoo!
I found French Without Toil and the recordings which looks to be great fun and a nice consolidator and change of pace. Interestingly, Without Toil has 140 lessons, but about the same number of pages as New French. I've only listened to the first few lessons, which were understandably pretty easy. I can see burning through this course as well with a quick read and listen to the dialogues wave. So tonight's fun will probably be the new Assimil course, rather than Petit Prince. The Assimil dialogs are handier for background listening because they are only a minute or two long, whereas Le Petit Prince is a story lasting about 2 hours. Much easier to do the short material in a pinch. It's also new, which makes it more fun and interesting. Edited by luke on 23 September 2012 at 4:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 51 of 439 23 September 2012 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
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Je pense que French Without Toil me va très bien. The audio is even. I.E., each of the 15 speakers is equally loud on the recordings. That's different from New French, where one speaker in particular is always very quiet, and some speakers are loud. I need to try to compress that audio with Audacity again. I did it once with a chain, but the compress used the default values and there is a checkbox when one manually compresses that I haven't seen how to add to a command line yet. That will help me keep the volume at one setting when I listen to the New French recordings. Edit: I found the final command line argument for compress under Edit Chain in Audacity allows you to compress based on peaks, so I'm re-compressing New French with Ease.
Without Toil provides some new basic vocabulary, which is always helpful to have in a well designed course supported by audio. I haven't looked at the teaching language much, but it looks like a great supplemental course for me. The lessons are short, so they will fit well in a quick mental break at work. Also, since it is a full course, there is the broad benefit that a diverse coverage of the language brings, which is great in the foundational stage. As far as comprehensible input, it has that as well. The early lessons were fairly easy to understand. At the moment I'm listening to lessons from the middle of the course, and the speakers, although clear, speak quickly, which is also good traning. This is really a great thing to find just a few weeks before my trip to France. Anyone who has been reading this thread can probably already guess that I plan to listen through the whole course in a day or so, and then start to dip into the teaching language and try to get more out of the lessons. My basic philosophy with Assimil has been the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule says you get 80% of the benefit from 20% of the course. That 20% is understanding the audio and being able to read dialogues. The exercises and teaching language provide a great deal of extra value, but since I've been in a rush to learn French, I'm focusing on the skills I'll use most, listening and reading. Later on, I plan to continue with these courses and let them take deeper root. Assimil French is great! Edited by luke on 23 September 2012 at 3:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 52 of 439 23 September 2012 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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As I continue racing through French Without Toil I'm at lesson 99. The lessons have definitely progressed. I'm reading mostly the translation so I can get the lesson in one listen. It's still clear that at this point, the course is easier than Using French.
Later that evening... Lesson 113. The dialogues are still fairly short. Just over a minute per lesson. Generally I can understand the recent lessons with 2 listens while looking at the translation. That's just another sign the course is progressing or I'm getting tired or both. Bonne nuit! Edited by luke on 23 September 2012 at 4:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 53 of 439 23 September 2012 at 1:13pm | IP Logged |
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J'ai terminé mon premier voyage à travers les enregistrements de French Without Toil, et je suis sûr que le cours et le vocabulaire supplémentaire et de politesse seront utiles.
Over 2 hours of additional audio and professional recordings make this 140 lesson course a real winner. Another aspect of the course that I'm enjoying is the step back in time when life was less rushed, people were politer, et la vie était plus simple. On the New French track, I'm on lesson 66. Edited by luke on 23 September 2012 at 1:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 54 of 439 25 September 2012 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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I put my Assimil mp3's through an Audacity truncate silence chain and saved them off to another directory. That saves about 30 minutes or more per course when listening in the background. Definitely worth it. Today I listened to Using and Without Toil.
I've read through French Without Toil lessons 1-14 since yesterday. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 55 of 439 27 September 2012 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday and this morning I read Le Petit Prince from Frank Ilya's Reading Method. The story is delightful and I gave more attention to detail this time through. I plan to listen again to it in the car today.
I'd also like to take a quick trip through the three Assimil courses again using a Listen/Read approach before le bon voyage. It really does feel like peeling layers from an onion. Even with another trip through the three courses and Le Petit Prince, I know there will be more to come back to. I'd like to get the best base I can in the few days that remain. Perhaps the same amount of time spent with Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne would be more fun. What is good about the courses is that one can take a few lessons at a time. The good part about a novel is getting drawn into the story and finishing it for pure pleasure. What to do? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 56 of 439 29 September 2012 at 12:19pm | IP Logged |
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I listened to Le Petit Prince again in the car over the last couple days. That was helpful as it made me remember things as well as wonder, "how is that spelled?", etc.
Yeterday, I started going through the Frank Ilya Petit Prince pdf again and this time I'm slowing down the audio by 20-30%. This gives more time to read the additional explainations in the teaching text, such as the verb infinitive, gender, and more. Also, at full speed, there are still some passages that I miss the meaning of at times. There are a few passages in the book that aren't in the recording. That, along with getting used to the structure of the Ilya layout also lets some passages slip away. Anyway, I'm drilling in a little deeper into Le Petit Prince, since I enjoy the story and recording so much. In a small way, the Ilya method is like an Assimil course. Some grammatical notes, bilingual text, audio support. Overall, very enjoyable, and I think helpful too. I.E., I can see spending several hours with the recordings and book, rather than just a quick once through. I'm again using my layered approach. I have burned through the book more than once to get the big picture. I've listened away from the book. Now I'm slowing down and getting more details. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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