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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 46 16 June 2011 at 7:46am | IP Logged |
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Edit: I started learning Spanish on page 3.
-- I'm moving to Liege, Belgium next semester to finish up my degree. The only problem is that I don't know French! I started learning a few months ago, but I didn't get very far, because I got crazy busy with schoolwork. All I managed to do was a tiny tiny bit of FSI. Like, I'm pretty sure I didn't even finish unit one of the basic, and I did a few of the phonology ones. Man was FSI boring. I'm a man who trusts science. So the second time around, before I started I browsed these forums to see what other people thought were the most efficient methods to learn languages. What I kept seeing was the LR method. I read up on it some and I was sold. I started three or four days ago. I got a hold of the Harry Potter books. Maybe not the best choice, but I didn't find a whole lot of options. Though I've seen the first movie, I don't think I've ever read the book. So to start, I would read one chapter in L1 and then listen in L2 and read in L2. Tonight I finished the book this way, which is 8 hours of audio. At this point, I can pretty easily distinguish different words. I can translate some of the sentences, and other sentences I'm still thinking, "what?!" Still, I feel like I got through the hardest 8 hours of the adventure, and I'm feeling good and accomplished already. My next step is to go through the book again, listening to L2 and reading L1. This should go quicker than the last read-through, since I don't have to read the book separately in L1 (technically I guess I read the book twice in the past few days, phew). I'm leaving for Belgium in late August. I hope to practice French at the very least one hour per day, but hopefully many days I will spend much more than that practicing. But I don't want to skip any days, that way I never get the opportunity to quit. If I can log 150 hours or so before my trip, I think I'll be in a great position before I step off the plane! Edited by LeadZeppelin on 30 December 2014 at 8:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5001 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 46 16 June 2011 at 2:45pm | IP Logged |
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Hello,
good luck with your studies, I wish you to fully succeed. Are you planning to use other methods as well? As you disliked FSI and chose to learn by L-R, perhaps you might like the Assimil as another source for your learning. Btw I'd say Harry Potter is not a bad choice at all. It is easier than most litterature, it's not boring and it contains contemporary language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Paigems Newbie United States Joined 5092 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 46 16 June 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged |
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Have you read the article "How I learned French in One Year"? If you haven't, you definitely should. The author is in a similar situation to you, and reading his experiences may be helpful. Good luck with your French studies! :)
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| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 46 18 June 2011 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the comments!
Yes, I'll be using some other resources as well. If for nothing else just so that I don't get burned out on one method. Variety is the spice of life after all. :) Yes, I have read that article, Paigems. Although it's been a few months so thanks for reminding me about it! I re-read it again and it was quite interesting now that I've read some more about the various methods. I don't think I'll do it like he did, but there's definitely a lot of food for thought in that article for sure. -- Log since last update: I LRed four chapters of Harry Potter 1 reading L1 listening L2. I came to the conclusion that I kept seeing past tense verbs that I didn't understand how they were conjugated. And since I couldn't understand how they were conjugated, I couldn't figure out the stem, or the infinitive form. And since these past tenses were literary past tenses, I presumed, learning them as-is wouldn't be entirely beneficial. So I decided to take a short break from the LR and learn a touch of grammar to help me along. I grabbed Michel Thomas basic and completed this. That's about 8 hours worth of audio, though I was constantly pausing the audio to answer his questions. It was probably closer to 10 hours. Oh, and wow, I wanted to kick punch the woman in the face. By the final CD I just couldn't handle her anymore. If I had to listen to 8 more CDs of her stumbling, stuttering, and laughing I would go insane. I'm not saying I would've done much better in her situation, but I wouldn't want to listen to me doing that either. I get why MT wanted to record students, but I feel like she was a bad choice. The male didn't get on my nerves any. But aaaaanyway. I'm gonna go back to Harry Potter next, starting at chapter 5, reading L1 listening L2. I also got Michel Thomas advanced and Pimsleur. I'm going to wait to do either for now. I'm tired of Michel Thomas right now, but hopefully in a couple weeks I'll want to do that. Perhaps I'll do Pimsleur gradually while I'm LRing. Would love to hear any suggestions about this! Assimil sounds good as well, I may need to look into that more. And I'm up to about 20 hours of study since I started less than a week ago. Yes! Edited by LeadZeppelin on 19 June 2011 at 6:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Liface Triglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Lif Joined 5850 days ago 150 posts - 237 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Dutch, French | Message 5 of 46 19 June 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
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I'm on Unit III of Pimsleur French right now and it's helped me a great deal with my accent as well as learning the correct way to say certain common phrases.
I've never tried Michel Thomas, and from what I've read here, I have no intention to. It sounds really annoying. I'd rather learn by myself instead of imagining I'm in a virtual classroom. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 46 20 June 2011 at 3:15am | IP Logged |
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Liface: Thanks for the comment! Glad to hear that you're liking Pimsleur. As for MT, honestly I would still recommend it. It's only 8 hours, and I can't believe how much I learned. He teaches you a decent vocabulary (partly by pointing out how to find cognates), and then teaches you how to conjugate in past, present, and future tenses. And he presents it pretty well. Considering how much you learn in 8 hours (that would be like two weeks in a high school class, and yet I feel like it probably teaches more than a high school semester's worth of info) I still highly recommend it. And regarding the annoying girl, her talking becomes much more rare after the fourth CD, so you don't have to listen to her as much. :)
-- I tried out Anki today for the first time. Did that for about 30 minutes. I think I'm going to make this a regular task. I rather enjoyed it and I think it already helped considerably. I finished Harry Potter 1 for the second time today, reading L1 listening L2. When I started this second read-through, I was getting discouraged because it felt much harder than L2L2. Even after doing Michel Thomas and starting again at chapter 5, it seemed tough. But by the end of the book, I could definitely feel an increase in comprehensible input. Good feeling! That's after 16 hours of LRing. Granted, I'm not saying I understood most of the text--far from it. But as for the character dialog, I'm getting rather good at conjugating the phrases fast enough when the character's are talking. Next I'm going to re-read the book again, this time L2-L2 (this is how I'm going to start abbreviating: Reading X Listening X from now on). After that, I'll LR L1-L2 again and if I feel like I made good progress, I'll probably move onto Harry Potter 2 (because that will be my fifth read-through in a short time, and I'm going to need something fresh haha). Exciting stuff! Hope my progress continues. :) Edited by LeadZeppelin on 20 June 2011 at 3:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 46 25 June 2011 at 8:59am | IP Logged |
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This took too long to update! But I finally finished Harry Potter L2-L2, which is another 8 hours, bringing my total LR up to 32. I also probably did 1.5 - 2 hours of anki this week. Gonna get started on Harry Potter L1-L2 tomorrow and then I plan on moving to Harry Potter 2. Oh boy! Because seriously that was the fifth time I've read the book in less than three weeks and I'm getting sick of it! Hah.
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| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5013 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 46 01 July 2011 at 7:13am | IP Logged |
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Tonight I finished the fifth LR of Harry Potter 1. That brings my LR total hours up to 40. I feel like I'm understanding more sentences, and I really feel like I'm distinguishing between the words much better now. Even if I don't know what some words mean, often times I can tell exactly where each word is beginning and ending. That may not sound like much for 40 hours, but to me it's feeling like a huge step in my understanding of FAST native speaking.
I've also been doing anki about every day. I feel like doing this has been a great supplement to my LR. If I wasn't doing anki I wouldn't understand nearly as much as I am. I'm constantly recognizing words in the book that I learned earlier that day with my anki vocab. That's a good feeling. Two days ago was the first time that I went a whole day without studying any French. :( Granted, it was my birthday, and I was really busy (work, school, grilling, drinking, climbing). I'm on vacation now, traveling to see my sister in Austin, TX and I plan to study quite a bit in my downtime there. I bought the Harry Potter books 2 - 4. I'm gonna start in on the second book tonight before I go to sleep. Looking forward to a new story! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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