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PMs TAC 2015 crazy? French course mission

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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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 201 of 451
01 October 2014 at 8:48am | IP Logged 
PeterMollenburg wrote:
September French summary:

Total amount of French learning time = 80hrs,18min
Average amount of French/day = 2hrs,40min

Word.
PM (Prime Minister Peter Mollenburg)


Awesome. You've really been digging in.

Lucky Luke.
1 person has voted this message useful



Mohave
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Mohave1
Joined 4010 days ago

291 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 202 of 451
01 October 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged 
PeterMollenburg wrote:
September French summary:

Total amount of French learning time = 80hrs,18min
Average amount of French/day = 2hrs,40min

Breakdown of those hours:
Course use: 23hrs,34min
Audio only via audio courses or podcasts: 21hrs,40min
Flashcard drills: 17hrs,7min
Watching (films,Yabla clips,news): 9hrs,56min
Reading time: 8hrs16min
Conversations/meetups = ZERO!

Super Challenge stats:
Minutes of films = 202
Pages of books = 120

Further notes: Out of the 9 serious months of study so far with French this month is
right in the middle in terms of hours studied. It's been my second best month in terms
of super challenge numbers.

Listening:
Rocket French Premium Plus
I'm nearing the later stages of this audio program and have found it very useful
indeed, since there has been a lot of new vocab. At the start of each 25 min lesson or
thereabouts there is a dialogue from the previous episode, then the new dialogue at
normal pace, then 20 minutes of mixed pace repitition and explanations (breakdown of
the dialogue) followed by a short quiz near the end the new dialogue repeated at normal
pace. Once I can speak every bit of the dialogue along with the dialogue while it plays
without pausing and comprehending everything (akin to shadowing I guess), then I'm
ready for the next lesson. Many lessons I've had to spend some time analyzing the PDFs
doc's at my desk to break down the dialogue further in terms of creating flashcards and
ensuring 100% comprehension of all vocab. All in all a very good audio program. I'm
using this program during any driving i'm doing, which is usually to and from work. I
think I'll try Pimsleur IV next, but first a complete rerun through these trickier
Rocket French Premium Plus lessons (after I complete it).

Word.
PM (Prime Minister Peter Mollenburg)


I always find your log so motivating, and helps to propel me to do more! I particularly like how you capture all
your hours in various categories that you spend on a language activities! You are doing a fantastic job! Keep
up the great work! :)

Queen Mohave
1 person has voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5479 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 203 of 451
04 October 2014 at 5:16am | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
I have a similar lack of conversation practice, but I've decided that it is okay, and it's
actually "all part of the plan". First of all, I don't like small talk even in English, and problems I have had in my
foreign languages have been that I have wanted to express things above my level. So my little plan is to start
writing regularly, probably posting things on lang-8 or something. I've been thinking of this as my 2015
French project. My writing topic will be things about my life, family, work, hobbies, etc., so that I can start
making language islands for speech purposes. When I have written a language island I'm happy with, I'll
memorize it, and practice speaking it out loud. Once I have a set of good islands, I'll be happy to seek out
conversation partners to try them out on, and see how the conversation develops.

King Jeffers


Thanks for the feedback King Jeffers,

Lang-8 is a wise idea I agree. That will certainly assist in developing one's preparedness for conversations.

For myself I really feel like conversations at this point will certainly ensure that a lot of the seemingly random
phrases, expressions, idioms, words in my flashcard deck (which is basically a record of all the French I've
'learned' through courses and some other means) will start to feel natural. Right now it's more like rote
reproduction with an interspersing of some French that feels natural. ie I might have learned however many
phrases, words etc (9000+) BUT reproducing them naturally in the right context at the moment would only
hapen for perhaps 10% of that 'learned' material. I still feel more comfortable having a Spanish or Dutch
conversation on the fly despite a seemingly much much smaller vocabularly in those languages. This is imo
due to the fact I have spent prolonged periods conversing in these languages in a natural setting. I have the
confidence to fumble around and try to converse with these languages, but know I"m very limited. Whereas in
French i'm not limited for vocab but am seriously lacking 'natural exposure' in terms of being involved in
conversations.

This is obviously a result of structured self guided lessons that focus predominantly on intensive study. I am
gradually developing a rising internal feeling that I need to introduce more conversation. All the while I want
to continue using all my current methods as it is 'working' to a degree, I mean I can read and write better than
I could some time ago, and I can speak with a higher proficiency, but it's all rather stilted and unnatural. Thing
is it's not as easy to find oportunities to converse as it is to continue using my courses etc. Having said that
it's not that difficult either, so I need to make some gradual change here, even if it's simply my 2015 resolution
to work towards using more and more French in natural contexts.
2 persons have voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5479 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 204 of 451
04 October 2014 at 5:35am | IP Logged 
luke wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
September French summary:

Total amount of French learning time = 80hrs,18min
Average amount of French/day = 2hrs,40min

Word.
PM (Prime Minister Peter Mollenburg)


Awesome. You've really been digging in.

Lucky Luke.


Thanks Lucky Luke :) I appreciate the support from everyone here :) We all need support. As per your log
Luke you are making good steady progress as well :)

Slow and steady wins the race... I used to behave a lot like the hare - spurts of massive amounts of
language study followed by massive amounts of nothing = very medicre progress over the years. Nowadays
I'm more like a tortoise- ensuring that I do a good amount each day (or just 'some' French on my slower
days). Not to mention I have taken to swimming vast lengths of the open ocean, sometimes to great depths.

Be wise, stay lucky ;)
That's what Prime Minister Peter Mollenburg would say to Lucky Luke,
According to PM, Lucky Luke would say,
"I am not so sure you're Prime Minister material, you're more suited to intensive language study".
PM then envisioned Lucky Luke saying,
"I remember the time peas were peas, crops were crops and trees were trees,
the bees were happy and there was no disease. Luck is largely created, and I create my own luck by leaving
most things be."
1 person has voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5479 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 205 of 451
04 October 2014 at 5:46am | IP Logged 
Mohave wrote:

I always find your log so motivating, and helps to propel me to do more! I particularly like how you capture all
your hours in various categories that you spend on a language activities! You are doing a fantastic job! Keep
up the great work! :)

Queen Mohave


Thanks Queen Mohave,

You crossed my mind last night as I watched a French/Belgian film called "Rien à déclarer - Nothing to
Declared. A silly comedy about the introduction of the EU and the cessation of border checks. I hope all is
well over there in Belgique.

PM
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4912 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 206 of 451
04 October 2014 at 10:12am | IP Logged 
When I tweeted my Hindi film of the week (Friday night is becoming Hindi film night) I saw that you had tweeted Rien à déclarer. That's one of my favourite French films! I think I saw it 4 times over the last super challenge, and so far once this super challenge. I actually bought it because it supposedly has accurate French subtitles, but I've watched it with my family, so we keep needing the English subs.
1 person has voted this message useful



Mohave
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Mohave1
Joined 4010 days ago

291 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 207 of 451
04 October 2014 at 1:35pm | IP Logged 
PeterMollenburg wrote:
Mohave wrote:

Thanks Queen Mohave,

You crossed my mind last night as I watched a French/Belgian film called "Rien à déclarer - Nothing to
Declared. A silly comedy about the introduction of the EU and the cessation of border checks. I hope all is
well over there in Belgique.

PM


[QUOTE=Jeffers] When I tweeted my Hindi film of the week (Friday night is becoming Hindi film night) I saw
that you had tweeted Rien à déclarer. That's one of my favourite French films! I think I saw it 4 times over
the last super challenge, and so far once this super challenge. I actually bought it because it supposedly has
accurate French subtitles, but I've watched it with my family, so we keep needing the English subs.


I think I am going to try to find this DVD while I am here! Thanks for the recommendation!!!
1 person has voted this message useful



PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5479 days ago

821 posts - 1273 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: FrenchB1

 
 Message 208 of 451
06 October 2014 at 6:53am | IP Logged 
I think I'm going to cut back on the amount of materials i'm using...

Here's a bit of dribble...

Due to me needing to come back to my desk and read over the pdf's for Rocket French and add the new
terms to my flashcards it's eating into my desk study time (usually audio courses that I listen to while
commuting require much less review time at my desk if any). Also, trying to review more cards rather than
have them build up, each hour of any kind of study including courses contains 30min of flashcard reviews.
This amounts to not much course exposure. So i'm considering dropping Tell me more French just for the
moment while focusing on Assimil's NFWE.

My current rotation involves an hour of coursework (NFWE)
an hour of Yabla
an hour of reading
an hour of another course (Tell me more).
(each hour only being 30 min as the other 30min is flashcard reviews)

My new method will involve:
an hour NFWE
an hour Yabla
an hour reading

in fact I might even cut Yabla for a little bit..

anyway like most of us i'm just chaning things up for a bit as i'm not happy with my slowish progress.
Obviously it's all learning but the sense of progressing through a course/study method of some sort, gives a
sense of achievement.

So perhaps i'll focus on just NFWE and reading for me.

PM


1 person has voted this message useful



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