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Bryan’s French with Assimil log
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13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

bryanpeabody
Groupie
United States
Joined 4977 days ago
48 posts - 79 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 9 of 13

25 September 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged

@emk Thanks for the music suggestions, I will check them out tonight. I'll definitely
take your advice on deleting Anki cards. When I first starting using Anki with Spanish,
the cards quickly became a nightmare. I'll use the delete button liberally this time
around :)

@iguanamon Thanks for pointing out the way to make bilingual texts, that will be very
useful. I wouldn't mind finding some easy comic books too, something fun and light.
1 person has voted this message useful

Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4901 days ago
2151 posts - 3960 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

Message 10 of 13

25 September 2014 at 7:06pm | IP Logged

Another French thread to follow! I definitely second emk's suggestion of listening to music while working out. However, our taste in music is quite different. There's a good thread on French pop music:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37274&PN=1

During your listening time, I'd also recommend trying to preview future Assimil lessons, as well as reviewing past ones. If you've listened to a lesson a bunch before you formally study it you come to the lesson with questions, which helps the lesson to stick.

And here's my list of artists from the French pop music thread:

Jeffers wrote:

I've been exploring French music since I started studying French 2 1/2 years ago, and have found a lot of music I like a lot and listen to all the time. I'll list my favourite artists, with a brief description, along with the albums I know listed after -. A * or ** means that I really love this album and listen to it a lot.

BB Brunes * (range from punk to pop rock, the singing is clear):
-Blonde Comme Moi *
-Nico Teen Love
-Long Courier **

Françoise Hardy (classic soft pop from the 60s... but she's still active I think):
-Comment Te Dire Adieu

Guillaume Grand (guitar oriented pop rock, along the lines of Jack Johnson or something):
-L'Amour est Laid
(There's a new one coming out soon... the single already out is Je Sais)

Jean-Louis Aubert * (was the co-founder of the rock group Téléphone, but I haven't heard them yet. Nice rock music, his voice sounds a bit like Bono).
-Premières Prises * (accoustic/piano versions of his songs)
-Stockholm * (solid rock)

Raphaël ** (or Raphaël Haroche) (varied and talented singer... varies from folk to rock to pop. I've liked him enough to buy all of his albums I could find)
-Caravane *
-Hotel de L'univers ** (more rock oriented than most of his albums)
-Je Sais Que La Terre Est Plate
-La Réalité *** (very interesting songs, interesting music... maybe my favourite French album?)
-Pacific 231 *
-Super-Welter (his most recent album... I haven't liked it as much as his other albums)

Tanger ** (a very interesting rock band which uses classical, jazz and African music in their mix... but it all feels very natural, not contrived. It is hard to find out much about them, and I think they don't exist anymore)
-Tanger
-La Memoire Insoluble *
-Le Detroit **
-Il Est Toujours 20 Heures Dans Le Monde Moderne **

I also listen to "Cafe De Paris- 50 Grands Succes Francais" a lot. It is a collection of all those old songs sung by Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Yves Montand, etc, etc. I'd probably heard at least half of them in films before I ever began to study French. (There are dozens of collections of this sort... they all probably overlap 90%).

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bryanpeabody
Groupie
United States
Joined 4977 days ago
48 posts - 79 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 11 of 13

28 September 2014 at 4:21pm | IP Logged

Finished the review lesson, 8, 9 and today I've started lesson 10. No big surprises in
the lessons. Although, there are still some words that I'm having trouble pronouncing.
One that is particularly rough is portefeuille. I can't quite get the ending to come
out right. It sort of sounds like Joey when Phoebe tries to teach him French :) OK,
maybe not that bad haha

Starting today, on lesson 10, I noticed that I'm reading faster. I was able to read
through the lesson once and get the gist of the passage. There was some unknown vocab
but I'm taking this as a positive sign. The dialogs seem to be getting longer and the
audio faster now too.

Yesterday I got a lot of listening in while I painted some rooms in my house. I think
I know the last 3 lessons by heart at this point. Friday, I found MC Solaar on
Spotify. I liked it, I think I will pick a song or two soon and read through the
lyrics.

As I go through my day, sometimes I try to think how I would say this or than in
French. My productions skills are definitely not there yet. I don't think I will worry
about this much right now, but I am curious when others started to speak and try to
make understandable sentences (either to themselves or to others).

I may start posting some audio clips on here. Maybe a sentence or 2 or 3 from the
Assimil dialogs, just to see how bad (or not so bad) my pronunciation is.

And on a side note, this guy on YouTube is doing an Assimil Greek in 30 Day project.
So far it's been an interesting experiment and I will probably keep following him to
see how he does:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd6I4rkJwrezpWG PwLUPrMq4niyYnCbt7

Edited by bryanpeabody on 28 September 2014 at 5:35pm
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bryanpeabody
Groupie
United States
Joined 4977 days ago
48 posts - 79 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 12 of 13

03 October 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged

Just realized I hadn't updated my log in several days due to a busy week. But, don't
fear, I haven't been a slacker in my French studies! :)

I've done lessons 10, 11, 12 and working on 13 today. It's interesting how one day I
will have a difficult time with a lesson and the next day it comes easily. Same for
pronunciation.

I'm debating on switching to Memrise (from Anki) for my SRS program of choice. I was
using Memrise to learn Spanish vocab and for whatever reason, things seem to stick
better for me with Memrise.

This week, I discovered that Amazon offers a product called Kindle Unlimited. I
started a 30 day trial of this ($9.99/mo after). They have a large selection of
Spanish books (maybe French too, I need to look). I've been reading the easy-
intermediate books with it. Generally around 70ish pages as a way to maintain and
improve my Spanish. So far, I like the service. Assuming they have a good French
selection, I will probably continue with it.

1 person has voted this message useful

bryanpeabody
Groupie
United States
Joined 4977 days ago
48 posts - 79 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 13 of 13

04 October 2014 at 6:12pm | IP Logged

Spent the morning reviewing lesson 13. I'm still having trouble with pronunciation. I
will re-visit the lesson a few times today and later I will do the review lesson that is
due for today.

Being that today is the review lesson, I flipped back through the previous lessons. I
found I could read them without many problems. Just a forgotten word, here and there.

Overall, I'm encouraged.

Edited by bryanpeabody on 04 October 2014 at 6:12pm

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