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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5633 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 9 of 164 17 January 2014 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
Bonjour, fellow Second French Team member! Your first post is brilliant! Your reviews will
come in handy for me as I accumulate more resources.
Bonne chance this year!
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| BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4850 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 10 of 164 19 January 2014 at 4:39am | IP Logged |
Another team member checking in! I found your list of resources very helpful, especially the novels. I have been exploring simple French novels too and it's nice to have some recommendations for future reading.
I have a very similar problem re: speaking French. I am not a shy person in my native language, but speaking French with any stranger I become very nervous and hesitant. I know there's no cure for it other than practice and, like you, I will probably try a Skype language exchange this year.
Since several of us seem to have this same challenge, perhaps we will be able to offer each other advice if we find something that helps us.
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| enrdbrow Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4564 days ago 19 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 11 of 164 19 January 2014 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
Hi Jeffers,
Yet again another team member checking in! I really enjoyed your very detailed first post. It has given me a few ideas for the year.
Thanks for the mention of La Sorcière de la rue Mouffetard on my log. I read a 5 page extract of the title story online this morning. That's been added to my list for the Super Challenge. I may also add some more of Grimpari's work.
Like you have done, I plan on reading several graded reader (CLE, Hachette Lire en Français Facile series, Alex Leroc series, Didier Atelier de Lecture series) this year. I want to try and get my knowledge and reading speed up in time for the Super Challenge. I'm sure you'll smash the goal of 50 books for the next challenge.
I do like the band BB Brunes, so I'll have to check out the other artists you menttioned in your first post at some point.
Bonne chance with your language learning Jeffers and keep up the good work!
DB
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 12 of 164 24 January 2014 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
- Frenchpod 101. I started with this, but got to about the 10th beginner lesson before getting tired of it. It has its use, but there's just too much banter and chat (which I felt was a misguided attempt to make it seem approachable and fun).
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Which series were you listening to exactly? I wrote the Lower Beginner series that starts with Love At First Sight in France -- of course, I have no say on the format, though.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 13 of 164 28 January 2014 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Jeffers wrote:
- Frenchpod 101. I started with this, but got to about the 10th beginner lesson before getting tired of it. It has its use, but there's just too much banter and chat (which I felt was a misguided attempt to make it seem approachable and fun).
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Which series were you listening to exactly? I wrote the Lower Beginner series that starts with Love At First Sight in France -- of course, I have no say on the format, though. |
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If I remember right, it was indeed the Lower Beginner series that I listened to. However, I had no complaints about the course content, just the banter. A little bit of padding was fine, to allow some of the content to sink in, but the feeling I had was that the lessons were about twice as long as they needed to be, and all of the chat and banter between the hosts was just irritating rather than interesting.
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| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4221 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch
| Message 14 of 164 29 January 2014 at 7:54am | IP Logged |
Hi Jeffers, I like your choice of resources! I will be curious to get your review on "L'Étranger", as I now remember that my classmates read this during French lessons at school. So I guess it is not that difficult to access, and made for not-so-advanced learners like us.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 15 of 164 01 February 2014 at 2:22pm | IP Logged |
So it's about time I posted an update of how I've done so far. This is for the entire month of January.
Total time: 52 hours
Reading:
Read the first volume of Aldebaran (BD). I was surprised at how much I understood!
Read Pas d'oscar pour l'assassin by Vincent Remède (while listening to the audio). I have listened to this 3 times before I read it, and I was happy with how it went. I mostly skipped over unknown words, but checked the kindle dictionary for words I thought I should know or for words which seemed crucial for understanding. I quite enjoyed the story, and plan to buy the other book by the same author (Jus de chaussettes). They are both supposed to be A2 level.
Read 5 Petit Nicolas stories.
Music
When I am not listening to stories or lessons, I almost constantly have French music playing when I can. I have listened mostly to the music of Jean-Louis Aubert, plus a bit of Calogero and BB Brunes.
Audio courses
I reviewed units 1 and 2 of Pimsleur III.
I reviewed FSI unit 6, and started working on unit 7.
Miscellaneous
I spent an hour or two listening to Vocabulearn discs 1 and 2. I tried doing this while dozing on a plane. I have no idea if it would be effective, but I am sure it would be better if the music played throughout the audio.
I briefly went on Duolingo twice this month. I either do too much of Duolingo or too little.
I went over ch 1 of Hugo French in 3 Months.
I played Lego City Undercover in French with French subtitles, and completed the game (every single unlock). Really, only the story has significant amounts of French, so while it took me about 73 hours to complete the game, I logged about 10 hours of learning time.
And that's it. This month I'm doing the 6wc, and will focus on:
1. Finishing Assimil NFWE (passive wave only). I am on lesson 89, so that should be easy.
2. Michel Thomas Total French.
3. Pimsleur IIIa (units 1-15). I don't really know if I'll finish this, considering MT will take a lot of my commute time.
4. Dabble in Hugo French in 3 Months. I'd like to complete this textbook as a review, but only after finishing MT and Pimsleur.
I'll definitely be reading more Petit Nicolas this month, as well as a couple of my BDs.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 16 of 164 21 April 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
Hello Team Deuxième members, and anyone else who happens to have been following me. I haven't posted for a while because of some bad things in my life, and it's been difficult to get back into certain things. I'll try to get back into keeping this language log by explaining what's been going on. I mentioned this vaguely on the thread for the Learning Based Challenge, because I didn't want to let that slide.
On Christmas day my older brother, aged 50, went into the hospital with severe stomach cramps, and was diagnosed with stomach cancer a few days later. To give you an idea of how fit he was, he did a 6 mile run the day before, "to run out the cramps". As I live in the UK and he lived in Texas, I flew out to visit him for two 1-week stays, during which I spent most nights with him in his hospital room. He fought hard, and was making pretty good progress, but then on the 12th of March he succumbed to a sudden infection and died quietly. That very morning he was feeling well, and emailed me to ask when my next visit would be.
It has affected me in ways I just couldn't have imagined. In most ways life carries on as normal. We lived in separate countries, and only saw each other about once a year. But then I see something and think, "Karl would love this," only to remember that I won't be able to show him.
One thing that has kept me going has been just grinding away at some of my language study, so that hasn't stopped. I'll post again soon with a summary of what I've done since my last post.
And if anyone is curious, here's a slideshow my sister made for the memorial service. My brother-in-law actually got legal permission to include the song Sweet Home Alabama (one of his favourites):
Karl Lehman memorial slideshow
(Don't worry, I won't be offended or bothered if nobody watches it. I do realize you don't know Karl from Cain).
Edited by Jeffers on 21 April 2014 at 10:27pm
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