Yet another study schedule, comments? (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Yet another study schedule, comments?
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PeterMollenburg
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Message 9 of 46

11 October 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged

Cavesa wrote:

Well, there are some textbooks that are useful at the advanced levels for some skills
(such as writing papers for exams or if you want to pursuit some kind of education in French). But the native
material (books, tv shows, people) should take most of your attention, in my opinion.

If the hours suit you, great. But as you mentioned the need for achievement feeling, you should probably
learn to set smaller short term goals. Mini achievements to keep you going. And you can start a log to get a
lot of encouragement on the way. :-)

If you enjoy textbook work, good for you. But in that case, and assuming from your posts you are a rusty
intermediate, I would follow this course of action if I were you:

Unlike Stelle, I would throw away French in Action. Get real tv shows instead. Some of the dubbed ones are
really not that hard, especially if you start with a transcript.

Review Hugo, because going through a previously known material could ring a lot of bells in your memory.

Keep Fluenz, it is probably a great thing for the real basics and speaking. And it probably cost you a lot.

Instead of FSI, get a real grammar only thing. Grammaire Progressive is great and the four volumes cover
the grammar up to C1. They is Vocabulaire as well, with three volumes up to B1+ or so. And if you need
grammar drills, you can as well make a lot of your own based on the example sentences you meet. And a
huge part of the fsi is just the substitution. But with audio.

Get real reading material. If it feels to you like too little study, use it for intensive reading (=slowly through and
picking every little piece that might come in handy with a dictionary and notebook instead of letting the
immersion work)

If you want intermediate/advanced courses because you are sure they will help you, than among the best are
Édito (new version does have a B1 level and a B2 level) and Alter Ego (up to level 5- C1). They can help but
they won't work by themselves, not even if you learnt them by heart. I'm afraid Hugo and Colloquial advanced
won't get you even as far as these I mentioned.

For active skills, there are sites like Italki or lang8 and so on. And of course, speak whenever an opportunity
arises. If it doesn't arise, use repeating after audio and self talk to the fullest.

This list means tossing out most of the beginner courses you have mentioned. But if you want to make as
much progress as possible before May comes, than I think you need to review things and continue. Not to
dwell on the same things over and over.

And a small question. Why had you abandonned French in first place? There may be a reason you might
want to avoid this time.

Okay so some good suggestions here. But honestly i'm not likely to take much of your advice. I won't throw
away/ not use FIA, I've invested too much in it. In fact it's almost like my 'native material' as it's the only
course i'm NOT entering new words into my flashcard decks with: i'm trying to use the time with FIA to learn
to infer from surrounding words the meanings of new words/phrases. Look i can prob justify my reasoning till
the cows come home, but fact is, i'm not going to abandon this flawed method of mine. I guess i was looking
for opinions and i certainly got them. This material obviously won't get me to a fantastic level by May but now
i'm coming to terms with this, i'll just persist, get through these courses and by May well i'll just have to
readjust to my new life and not let life get in the way this time. When i get through these courses i WILL most
definitely move onto native materials. Sorry if I disappoint, honestly your advice doesn't fall on deaf ears,
everyone here thus far has really indicated in a big way that NATIVE materials of all kinds are VERY
important. Psychologically I'm not ready for that yet, I can't move on (as a perfectionist) until I've completed
what I set out to do.

Most of these suggestions would also probably work very effectively for yourself were you where I am now,
however we all work differently and I can't subject myself to native materials (for the most part) until i've gone
step by step so to speak through the other stages. Maybe i'm dyslexic or maybe I love flirting with slow
progress, I'm not sure. But I know that I love to really feel i've totally mastered things before I move on.
Cutting out some of these programs such as FIA would make me feel helpless with a lot of 'gaps'. So I guess
i'm coming to the realisation here that i've got to forget about May and simply as emk said in another post
'stop stopping'. Your method although likely to be very very sound indeed would prob see me psychologically
distressed (perhaps I have OCD in terms of doing French courses?).

The reason I stopped? Many. Initially I didn't realise how passionate I was about languages till I found myself
continually coming back to them despite other courses/education in life. I have done quite a few different jobs
a short course or 2, a diploma and a degree all in different things. I guess I didn't realise how MUCH TIME
would be really required to learn a language. I neglected time itself, thinking I could pick it up at any time. In
that process years passed. I did Spanish for a while also (at the same time as French usually), touched on
German and then Dutch fairly seriously. I struggled with maintaining languages and how many i could do at
once. Dutch became a focus on moving to the Netherlands for 5 months, French and Spanish disappeared
from my study régime. In the end I returned to Australia and decided (as French was always my favourite) I
would do ONE language properly and that's where I"m at now. I quietly promised myself to return to Spanish
and Dutch (perhaps German too) after getting to C2 in French. Wow, what a goal, I don't make life easy for
myself that's for sure. I'm trying to do French properly now and yet I am, as you can see, even struggling with
that. Why on Earth was I trying to study any more than one at a time was silly in some respects. Mind you I
see many ppl on here struggle with many of the same issues I do: How many languages, how much time,
motivation etc

Perhaps I will opt not to do so many courses if I ever get back to Spanish, since if I get to C1 or C2 in FR then
I would've had to have gone through much native materials of all kinds. Having done that may give me the
insight and confidence I need to drop the courses next time round and pick up more native material.
1 person has voted this message useful

PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5467 days ago
821 posts - 1273 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French^B1

Message 10 of 46

11 October 2013 at 2:26pm | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

5 hours a day of study would personally lead me to burn out in two weeks, unless it
would be a fulltime diplomatic job I would get paid for or something. I generally take
out half an hour to an hour a day to deal with any new language in the beginning. I use
it for practical purposes more later on though.

I don't have advice on the best set of French textbooks because I used French textbooks
years ago when I was in high school (I stopped when I was 14), and I didn't like what
we used at the Alliance Française. French is the language I am best at excluding
languages I grew up speaking, and I haven't used textbooks for French in ages - I am
between B2 and C1 here. Or at least I'm doing C1 level exercises. I would say that once
you hit B2 you just need to stop textbooks at all, only use a grammar and a dictionary
for reference and expose expose expose. Do lots of talking, lots of reading, lots of
listening.

To me the litmus test is not whether you can complete a coursebook. It's whether you
can talk to people and read their literature. I understand that the hurdle to move into
native materials is much bigger for more unfamiliar languages (I have trouble with
doing this for Hebrew or Korean, and I waited too long with Russian). I would combine a
healthy amount of grammar study (because you do have to do it eventually) with lots of
exposure. The ratio should be something like 30/70 over the course of your lifetime,
but I have managed with varying distributions. I tend to do more grammar when I'm
advanced beginner or intermediate, because then you have enough context. Although you
can't escape some at the beginning.

You know I thought courses were how most ppl on here got to high levels of proficiency in their chosen
languages. Dead wrong it appears. Mind you I can't put them down now, simply coz I don't want to. I need to
do my thing, then follow it with what everyone else is screaming for me to do- native material. I'm starting to
feel a little more normal that what I've been attempting to do isn't that easy. Perhaps I will use this area now
to let u guys know how I'm progressing.
1 person has voted this message useful

PeterMollenburg
Senior Member
AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5467 days ago
821 posts - 1273 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French^B1

Message 11 of 46

11 October 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

I'm not sure about your current level, so it's a little hard to give advice. But as Cavesa points
out, your courses mostly go up to B1, except for the FSI grammar which should get you to B2 without any
trouble, provided you pick up all the other necessary skills elsewhere.

So you'll need something more to get near C1. Since you like courses, you could look into Assimil's
Business French, which covers B2-level material, but only on a single subject. The Grammaire
Progressive series goes up to about C1, and I really like their Niveau perfectionnement. I also hear
good things about Alter Ego, and you can find some advanced listening exercises at
Fluent French Now. But even for French, good upper-level
courses are rare, and in any case, they won't be enough.

And I know you've already heard this, but I want to reiterate the importance of native material. To reach a
solid C1, you'll need to get used to dealing with real French in the wild: books, TV, fast conversations
between natives, and expressing your own viewpoints in both social and professional contexts. Canalsat is
an excellent idea, as are lang-8 and going to Meetups (especially if you find a Meetup with lots of native
speakers or B2+ students). Also look into Verbling.

Also, there's no way I could do courses for 5 hours per day for more than just a few weeks without burning
out. I also need "lazy" ways to study French, that work even when my brain is fried or my motivation sucks.
Reading and TV fill this niche admirably for me, and at least some people seem to benefit quite a bit from
them. The real trick is turn French into one your default procrastination choices, which is especially easy if
you have an addictive TV series to follow. :-) Once French becomes your favorite means of procrastination,
reaching solid B2 comprehension is just a matter of time.

emk I've noticed a handful of your posts while reading different threads and have considered your advice
always appears to be very sound in nature. Mind you everyone else in this topic thread has said similar
things, so they too have given some great tips. Thanks for the heads up with the other options that may help
assist to take me beyond B2. I'm going to attempt to keep you guys posted on this thread. However I did say
in another post I was going to read every single topic in this forum. That's not going to happen. I think I'm
definitely a perfectionist who seriously struggles to meet his own (often ridiculous) expectations. I shall soldier
on with my ridiculous mind in tow ;)
1 person has voted this message useful

emk
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Message 12 of 46

11 October 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged

I agree that if your courses are working for you, then you should definitely stick with them. And I personally enjoy a good Assimil course, so who am I to advise you otherwise?

You certainly shouldn't give up on your goals! You could definitely reach a solid B2 by May, which would allow you to function independently in French in a wide variety of circumstances. And a B2 certificate is even enough to enroll in some French universities. Maybe C1 by May is a stretch, but who knows? It's been done before, most famously by FSI students.

PeterMollenburg wrote:

Sorry if I disappoint, honestly your advice doesn't fall on deaf ears, everyone here thus far has really indicated in a big way that NATIVE materials of all kinds are VERY important. Psychologically I'm not ready for that yet, I can't move on (as a perfectionist) until I've completed what I set out to do

I have one last suggestion for you. This will only work if you're a least a very solid A2, or maybe B1. So if you're not there yet, feel free to disregard it. But here goes:

- For the next two weeks, devote 4 of your 5 hours to whatever you want, course-wise. This should allow you to satisfy your perfectionist tendencies. :-)

- Set aside just 1 hour a day for the next two weeks. That's what? 10 or 14 hours?

- Get an ebook reader if you don't already have one, one which includes an actual French dictionary. This isn't necessary, but it's nice.

- Pick up one of the typical "intermediate" French books used in schools. Popular choices include L'Étranger and Le Petit Prince, though L'Homme qui plantait des arbres is also quite easy, and it's in the public domain. Even the most conservative French teacher is likely to assign these sorts of books to students who've reached B1. Alternatively, you could grab an interesting non-fiction book.

- During your hour per day, read as best you can. Use your pop-up dictionary, or just mark words to look up later. If something's too hard, skip it, or look it up in an English translation. You don't need perfect understanding, just make an honest effort at least part of the time. :-)

At first, if you've never done this before, it will be a nasty shock, and you'll probably think, "Wow, I can't deal with real French at all." But after 10 hours, you'll have made some pretty decent progress, and accumulated a large list of vocabulary to learn. If you choose to keep reading for a few hundred pages, you'll find it gets a lot easier. Of course, when you pick up your second book, it will feel hard again, and then it will get easier as you read.

Of course, this may not work for everybody. We have very successful polyglots here on HTLAL who learn something like 90% of their vocab by rote memorization, because they just don't pick up words from context. But I've also seen a good half-dozen HTLALers, just in the last 18 months, who've quickly bounded up to B2 passive skills in French thanks to native materials and the Super Challenge. For a lot of lower-intermediate students, it only takes perhaps 500 pages feel like they're more-or-less "reading" French, and another 3000 pages to feel pretty comfortable. And this is absolutely the sort of goal you can measure, check off, and all that, if you're so inclined.

But again, only you know your strengths, weaknesses and goals, so nobody can chart your path for you. But if you're goal is anywhere above B2, you're going to be expected to have excellent and near-effortless comprehension of native material, and one of these easiest ways to develop that skill is to start adding native material to your study schedule, even if it's only a little bit at first.

Two more thoughts:

Assessing your level. It might also be very useful to go through the CEFRL self-assessment checklist and let us know your approximate level. (The checklist is pretty conservative, so don't grade yourself brutally.) A lot of the advice you're receiving in this thread is aimed at students between a level of strong A2 and strong B1. If you're already at B1 on that checklist, then it's unlikely you'll make rapid progress with your current course mix, much of which only goes up to B1. Even if you want to avoid native materials for now, you may still want to be sure your courses are pushing you hard enough.

Perfectionism and procrastination. Do be careful with your perfectionism. I've read (and experienced first-hand) how closely perfectionism is linked to procrastination. It's all too easy to let perfectionism become an excuse for giving up. So what I personally need is a way to temporally give up on "studying" without actually giving up on French, and in fact I need a way to actually use French as a form of procrastination. Native materials are great for this once you reach B1 or B2. Because who ever said, "Drat, I'm just too tired and lazy to watch a good TV show?" Or, "I'm too lazy to waste time browsing stupid Internet sites and watching videos?"

Good luck!
4 persons have voted this message useful

lingoleng
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Germany
Joined 5289 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 13 of 46

11 October 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged

PeterMollenburg wrote:

Mind you I can't put them down now, simply coz I don't want to. I need to do my thing,

Why did you start such a thread at all? You do it all wrong and will stay with it. Fine. No need to tell anybody about it. Why should anybody care?

Edited by lingoleng on 11 October 2013 at 5:28pm
3 persons have voted this message useful

tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
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Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
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Message 14 of 46

11 October 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

I agree that if your courses are working for you, then you should
definitely stick with them. And I personally enjoy a good Assimil course, so who am I
to advise you otherwise?

You certainly shouldn't give up on your goals! You could definitely reach a solid B2 by
May, which would allow you to function independently in French in a wide variety of
circumstances. And a B2 certificate is even enough to enroll in some French
universities. Maybe C1 by May is a stretch, but who knows? It's been done before, most
famously by FSI students.

PeterMollenburg wrote:

Sorry if I disappoint, honestly your advice doesn't fall on deaf
ears, everyone here thus far has really indicated in a big way that NATIVE materials of
all kinds are VERY important. Psychologically I'm not ready for that yet, I can't move
on (as a perfectionist) until I've completed what I set out to do

I have one last suggestion for you. This will only work if you're a least a very solid
A2, or maybe B1. So if you're not there yet, feel free to disregard it. But here goes:

- For the next two weeks, devote 4 of your 5 hours to whatever you want, course-wise.
This should allow you to satisfy your perfectionist tendencies. :-)

- Set aside just 1 hour a day for the next two weeks. That's what? 10 or 14 hours?

- Get an ebook reader if you don't already have one, one which includes an actual
French dictionary. This isn't necessary, but it's nice.

- Pick up one of the typical "intermediate" French books used in schools. Popular
choices include L'Étranger and Le Petit Prince, though L'Homme qui
plantait des arbres is also quite easy, and it's in the public domain. Even the
most conservative French teacher is likely to assign these sorts of books to students
who've reached B1. Alternatively, you could grab an interesting non-fiction book.

- During your hour per day, read as best you can. Use your pop-up dictionary, or just
mark words to look up later. If something's too hard, skip it, or look it up in
an English translation. You don't need perfect understanding, just make an honest
effort at least part of the time. :-)

At first, if you've never done this before, it will be a nasty shock, and you'll
probably think, "Wow, I can't deal with real French at all." But after 10 hours, you'll
have made some pretty decent progress, and accumulated a large list of vocabulary to
learn. If you choose to keep reading for a few hundred pages, you'll find it gets a
lot easier. Of course, when you pick up your second book, it will feel hard
again, and then it will get easier as you read.

Of course, this may not work for everybody. We have very successful polyglots here on
HTLAL who learn something like 90% of their vocab by rote memorization, because they
just don't pick up words from context. But I've also seen a good half-dozen HTLALers,
just in the last 18 months, who've quickly bounded up to B2 passive skills in French
thanks to native materials and the Super Challenge. For a lot of lower-intermediate
students, it only takes perhaps 500 pages feel like they're more-or-less "reading"
French, and another 3000 pages to feel pretty comfortable. And this is absolutely the
sort of goal you can measure, check off, and all that, if you're so inclined.

But again, only you know your strengths, weaknesses and goals, so nobody can chart your
path for you. But if you're goal is anywhere above B2, you're going to be expected to
have excellent and near-effortless comprehension of native material, and one of these
easiest ways to develop that skill is to start adding native material to your study
schedule, even if it's only a little bit at first.

Two more thoughts:

Assessing your level. It might also be very useful to go through the
reg/Source/Key_reference/checklist_EN.pdf">CEFRL self-assessment checklist and let
us know your approximate level. (The checklist is pretty conservative, so don't grade
yourself brutally.) A lot of the advice you're receiving in this thread is aimed at
students between a level of strong A2 and strong B1. If you're already at B1 on that
checklist, then it's unlikely you'll make rapid progress with your current course mix,
much of which only goes up to B1. Even if you want to avoid native materials for now,
you may still want to be sure your courses are pushing you hard enough.

Perfectionism and procrastination. Do be careful with your perfectionism. I've
read (and experienced first-hand) how closely perfectionism is linked to
procrastination. It's all too easy to let perfectionism become an excuse for giving up.
So what I personally need is a way to temporally give up on "studying" without actually
giving up on French, and in fact I need a way to actually use French as a form of
procrastination. Native materials are great for this once you reach B1 or B2.
Because who ever said, "Drat, I'm just too tired and lazy to watch a good TV show?" Or,
"I'm too lazy to waste
time browsing
stupid
Internet
sites and list=PL5B0A3C5D2FC48EA0">watching [URL=http://www.saisin.biz/youtube/youtube.cgi?
page=1&xxx=0&orderby=relevance&route=word2&sp=word&word=dess in%20anim%C3%A9]videos[/URL
]?"

Good luck!

Thanks for the links, emk....
1 person has voted this message useful

emk
Diglot
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United States
Joined 5523 days ago
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Speaks: English*, French^B2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
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Message 15 of 46

11 October 2013 at 7:39pm | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

Thanks for the links, emk....

Do not follow those links unless you have lots of free time to spend goofing off in French. Some of them are almost as bad as TV Tropes.

Topito is basically the French equivalent of Cracked.com, and we have sctroyenne to thank for that particular time sink. :-) Izneo offers cheap, legal BDs online, and I think geoffw found it. VDM is my favorite source of short, colloquial French. Legorafi is a low-budget Onion knockoff in French. Non-Stop Tube was discovered by somebody in the AJATT community, and it basically allows you to run a YouTube search and auto-play the results. SensCritique is my favorite way to find more native materials. And so on… It's basically all evil, addicting time wasters. Consider yourself warned!
2 persons have voted this message useful

tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4698 days ago
5310 posts - 9399 votes

Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

Message 16 of 46

11 October 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged

I like girlsandgeeks.com. The entries on porn are cracking me up. And something about the
French language use brings back nostalgia.

1 person has voted this message useful

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