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Slow Learning: FR, HI, ancGR TAC 2015 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 145 of 164 13 April 2015 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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well Jeffers aka 'Jeffatonium'...
It seems to me you're doing a most decent job of juggling your lang-gway-gz. I decree this aforementioned undertaken task as a most fine and noteworthly accomplishment indeed. Plenty of Hindi- a wise choice it seems given your curcumstances, influences and future voyage... Plenty of extensive French goings ons as well... ...and now Sanskrit. That came out of left field, and yet given the previously mentioned positive reasonings for acquiring le Hindi it seems fitting that you should undertake such a fine cultural and historical endeavour with le Sanskrit, une personne qui veut apprendre les racines de tant de langues voudrait le faire. Bonne chance monsieur et bonne chance aussi si je ne te le déjà pas avais dit. PM (qui doit presque toujours l'écrire au cas où quelqu'un ne le remarquerait pas) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4853 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 146 of 164 03 May 2015 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Time for another update I think....
French I'm really enjoying Détectives (mentioned last update), a series about a family private detective agency which merges with a more professional detective's agency. Each episode has its own case(s), but there is an interesting story arc about the main character's wife who ran away to Africa leaving him and their two children for reasons unknown. Hindi films are often described as "masala" (a mix of comedy, drama, tragedy, etc), and I suppose this is a bit of a French "melange", with touches of humour, drama, romance, family, and occasional boobs. One of the better French TV series in my opinion. 
On the other end of the spectrum was La source, a drama about a nanny forced to spy on the family she works for, since the father (played by Christophe Lambert) is vice president of a company thought to be hiding toxic waste in poor countries. It sounds like it should be good, with an interesting moral angle (are there any good guys really?), but it was just poorly made, with tension created in stupid ways (oh no, she's dropped the disguised camera! Quick find a screwdriver the father's coming home! Oh no, she can't find a screwdriver now!) Definitely missable, and no surprise they only made one series. I haven't really been reading in French, except for the lesson notes from my Assimil Hindi and Sanskrit courses. It's really gratifying to be able to understand 98% of the French in the notes. There are a few French words used as definitions in the Sanskrit course I never knew, e.g. "demeure" which seems to be a formal word for house (all Google images for the word tend to be mansions). I've gone back to my Anki cards most days. The backlog kept reading "1000 cards due" for at least 4 weeks running, so it was a genuinely happy moment when I saw it drop to 999 earlier in the week. I'll deal with my backlog in the next month, and then I'll start adding new words at least until I get to 2500 in my frequency dictionary. Hindi I'm still mainly reading, but I'm changing my strategy a bit. I've picked a book, two of my Tintin comics, and the Routledge Hindi Reader, and I'm rereading them while entering unknown words into Anki. I hope once I've mastered the vocabulary of these books I'll be able to reread them 2-3 times. I found with the Routledge Reader that it was a real joy to read a passage after studying the vocab. I've kind of ignored Assimil Hindi for the past couple of weeks, but I'm sure I'll get back into it soon. Sanskrit I'm only on chapter 2 of Assimil le Sanskrit. I'm reviewing the vocab on Anki most days, but currently not much else. As I mentioned before, I'm not in a big rush. On the other hand, I know that if I only touch it once a week or so I won't really retain what I learned the previous week. Edited by Jeffers on 03 May 2015 at 7:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3466 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 147 of 164 03 May 2015 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Like PeterMollenberg, I too am impressed by your choice of languages. I imagine that you have lots of fascinating insights into diverse cultures.
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 148 of 164 04 May 2015 at 7:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Good work Jeffers...
Nice start to the 6wc too btw. I'm aiming to make my way near to the top soon (slow start this time instead), so best keep up your studying! Maybe some time i'll chase down that Detectives series, we'll see, nice to know about for future reference tho, so thanks for sharing. Great too that your French comprehension is so high while learning your other languages via Assimil- great job! Fry on! PM 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4853 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 149 of 164 04 May 2015 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for the kind words, Mr PM. However, I don't think my French comprehension is that high. For most TV series I still need subtitles-- which I consider a learning tool. The real test for comprehension for me is audio, and I think my comprehension was really helped when I was listening to several each week. I would usually listen twice: during the first listen I would get a general sense of what was going on and during subsequent listens I would pick up more of the details. Unfortunately, you can't do that with a conversation! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 150 of 164 05 May 2015 at 2:25am | IP Logged | |||||
My French comprehension with TV is no better. I also still rely (heavily) on subtitles, we'll get there Jeffers, we'll get there... I don't take back any of the praise for your 'comprehension' as I meant it with regards to your reading of French explanations/translations in your Assimil courses for Hindi and Sanskrit. via French as L1 Great job Jeffenberg! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4953 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 151 of 164 07 May 2015 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, you'll both get there :-). It is just a matter of time.
Guys, what is going on here with those names like Jeffenberg and Mr PM... I am getting nervous around here. :-D 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4853 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 152 of 164 16 May 2015 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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These last two weeks have been incredibly busy in school. I've been preparing my students for their final exams in ICT and RS, and marking and preparing their coursework to be sent off to the exam board. Stupid man that I am, I also made arrangements to deliver training to primary teachers Wednesday after school on how to approach the new computing curriculum with their students, before going to see comedian Michael Macintyre in the evening.
Now that's all done, things should be a lot easier at school for the next several weeks. After Monday my year 11 student will be on exam leave, so that means I will have 14 lessons a week to do "other things". Anyway, here's a little update of my language learning progress: French I watched the final two episodes of Détectives last night, and I am sorry to be done with it. It kept its charm right until the end, and definitely ranks as one of my top 5 French TV series. Here's hoping they make more episodes! The sadness of seeing it finish is made up for by the fact that TV5 is replacing its timeslot with Boulevard du Palais series 15, which I haven't seen yet. Vocabulary I've finally worked through my backlog on Anki, and soon I'll be down to under 100 reviews per day. When I get there, I'll begin to add new words, probably at a slow pace of 25 per week while my focus is still on Hindi. I definitely plan to get to 2500 in the Routledge frequency dictionary this year, and I'll probably make some headway towards 3000, but really my focus for French is on reading, watching and listening. Other than that, I've not been doing much with French other than listening to music. I've noticed that when I listen to an album I haven't heard for a month or two, I now understand a lot more of the lyrics so it seems to be working. Now that things are lightening up at school, I plan to get back to reading French again, probably starting by re-reading a Petit Nicholas book, and then reading a one I haven't read yet. Hindi My main focus right now has been on reading and learning vocab from the readings (briefly mentioned in my last update). I'm still slowly working through Tintin the Black Island, reading 2-3 pages while underlining unknown words, and then making Anki cards for those words. The trick is to reread the section after studying the vocab for a few days, so that the reading and vocabulary reinforce each other. I'm up to page 12. I'm doing the same with the Routledge Intermediate reader, doing about a chapter each week like this, so I'm up to chapter 3. Assimil Hindi I haven't done very much with this other than reviewing the audio while driving. In the textbook, I'm in lesson 18 (of 55) but I've only done a bit in the last few weeks. Assimil Hindi lessons are longer than the lessons in NFWE, and even if I was working hard at them, I would probably take 2-4 days to finish a lesson. Now in the two months I have before going to India I hope to start working hard on Assimil and finish it before I get there. Films I haven't watched a Hindi film in the last couple of weeks, but my DVD of PK arrived yesterday, so I'll be watching it as soon as I can get the TV to myself. Audio I'm still listening to नमस्कार भारत (Namaskar Bharat, Hello India) often. I normally listen to an episode twice. I've also subscribed to Hindipod101 for the month of May, and I'm currently working on the "Upper Beginner" lessons (since there are only a few intermediate lessons). I already know 95% of the vocabulary and grammar in these lessons, but it's been a pretty good review. I just have to remember to download all the lessons I want and unsubscribe before the end of the month so I don't get charged again. One thing that's really crap about Xpod101 is all of the advertising. The hindipod advanced lessons last about 3 minutes and are "all in Hindi". However each one begins with 60 seconds of advertising in English!! If they recorded the advertisements in the target language for the advanced podcasts it wouldn't be so bad. Sanskrit I'm on chapter 4 of Assimil le Sanskrit. Chapters 1-3 audio were just vocab, so this is the first chapter to give full sentences. I've been putting the vocab (for ch 1-3) and sentences (ch 4-) into Anki. I've also put the exercises for ch 4 in, using cloze cards for the fill in the blank exercises. I'll see how that goes. Now that life is calming down, I hope to do approximately 1 chapter per week before I go to India, so I should get up to somewhere around 12 to 15 by the time I go. So that's all the news that's fit to print. Feedback and comments are welcome. If you feel you must fling something, money and jewellery are acceptable. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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