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Improving my French - TAC2014: Deuxième | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 9 of 17 14 January 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi BonneVivante,
I'll be following your log, as you are mine. Welcome to the 2nd French team. I find your way of learning is less formal than mine, although that would be the case for most language learners. It seems I keep being reminded of that. Anyway that series you found on Netflix, maybe i'll look into it because i was about to cancel a subscription to an online video streaming site similar to Netflix which may in fact have some French offerings (I haven't checked it out yet). Good luck with your French, you have my 100% support. We all need support in attaining our goals. I look fwd to getting to know you and swapping notes, PM 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7197 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 10 of 17 14 January 2014 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I've related to a lot of your comments, particularly with regard to FSI. Above is good news for me. It means the easiness should hold out for a few more units. I'm in 3 now. I find FSI in the car very useful. Not very hard. As long as I think about what I'm saying, I know I'm learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4331 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 11 of 17 15 January 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the mention of Engrenages. I don't watch a lot of series in French unfortunately. I mostly read, listen to podcasts and watch documentaries, but I feel like I should relax and take up a series other than a dub of Breaking Bad once in a while. I'll definitely be checking it out.
I've only rally watched 3 other series in French, and one only partially: Wakfu (a cartoon. a little childish, but easy enough and enjoyable if you just go with the flow, I guess), Tu m'aimes-tu? (A Quebecois show that was unfortunately cancelled. I really liked this series, so it was quite the disappointment for me!) and Les Parent (which is just about the day to day goings of a regular Quebecois family). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4850 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 17 18 January 2014 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update for the last couple of days:
1. In addition to simply listening to the RFI Journal en Français Facile, I am now looking at the transcripts and mining them for new vocab. My method is to listen to the broadcast and understand as much as I can, then read the transcript and note down any words I don't know or any new expressions I encounter, and then listen a second time. I've been finding it helpful and since the broadcast is only 10 minutes it doesn't take much time. If you want to try listening to real French news, I think it's a good way to start: Journal en Français Facile The link to the transcript ("lire le script") is right next to the "ecouter" button. 2. I started listening to a French audiobook (with transcript). I'm slightly embarrassed because it's a bit of a trashy novel (about an investigative journalist who works for a tabloid magazine) but the language is informal, which is what I am weakest on, and it's very short and pretty easy. Alex Leroc, journaliste: L'ange gardien You can download the transcript (on that page I linked) before even buying the book. Checking out the transcript was what convinced me to get it. 3. I ordered a couple of books: - In the grammar department, a friend of mine recommended The Ultimate French Review and Practice which is a grammar review reference/workbook. I am definitely weak on some grammar so I thought it'd be nice to have a review workbook to go through. - For reading practice, I ordered Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. The story is a sentimental favourite of mine (I read it several times in English as a kid) so I thought it'd be fun to try reading in French. It's an adaptation specifically targeted to language learners, so it should be accessible. 4. I do about 20 Anki flash cards every day from a deck I downloaded called 1001 most useful French words. I've never been a big fan of flash cards, but this only takes 10 minutes so I'm going to try it for a couple weeks and see what I think. My main problem, as always, is lack of people to talk to in French. My partner is a native Russian speaker (who is also fluent in English) and when I was working on Russian I think I took for granted how much of my progress came from being able to practice with him every day. Unless he suddenly morphs into a Francophone, I'm going to have to find another way. Edited by BonneVivante on 18 January 2014 at 7:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| enrdbrow Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4564 days ago 19 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 13 of 17 19 January 2014 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi BonneVivante, I'm really enjoying your log so far and as a fellow team mate will be following it throughout the year.
Don't be embaressed about Alex Leroc. Any reading in the language will bring you one step closer to improving your knowledge of the language. I'd be interested to hear your review of it as I plan on reading quite a few in the series this year as I have access to the audio for the majority of them. Are you completing the chapter activities at the end of the book? I plan on picking back up with Engrenages this year. I watched season 1 last year, and despite not understanding much of the French in the show, I really enjoyed it. Wishing you luck and success. DB 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4850 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 17 24 January 2014 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Aujourd'hui je vais essayer de faire écrire en français...mais seulement un peu! SVP, n'hésitez-pas à me corriger.
Ce soir j'ai regardé la première section de l’épisode de 'l’Oeil sur la Planète' sur Canada, principalement pour m'amuser (je suis canadienne), mais aussi pour les raisons utiles. Naturellement, l’épisode commence avec un scène avec beaucoup de la neige, et j'ai ri. Mais actuellement, malgré quelques petits stéréotypes, l'épisode est très intéressant. Par exemple, il a bien représenté un débat public que je m'en souviens bien: en 2004/2005 à l'Ontario, ma province, on a discuté l'adoption de la loi charia dans le tribunal provincial (pour les personnes qui choisir d’utiliser). Il y avait un débat très féroce...on a discuté la multiculturalisme, les droits de les femmes islamiques, etc. J'ai hâte de regarder plus. Ah, et par les personnes qui sont curieux, cette loi n'a pas été promulguée. Phew. It's amazing how much concrentration (and looking up spellings!) it takes for me to write even a short passage in French. If I am being kind to myself, I'll say that at least I do have an idea of what I want to say in French and how I might want to phrase it...and although I am sure it has many errors and sounds very anglo, I feel good at least being at the point where I can form some simple thoughts in French. In my view it's better to jump in and make mistakes than wait to try until you're sure it'll be perfect. The books that I ordered arrived and I have dug into them with zeal. I'm finding the grammar review book particularly helpful. The easy readers I got are more fun, but also useful of course. Recently I have had a lot of happy moments of "vocab serendipity" (as I call it) where I stumble completely by chance across a word that I just learned the day before, and I get to enjoy the rush of satisfaction from knowing that I understood something extra precisely because of my hard work. I hope everyone else is having success and fun with their language learning efforts, too. And a special thanks to Sizen for leading me to l’Oeil sur la Planète. I plan to watch many more episodes in future. @enrdbrow, thanks for the reassurance re M. Leroc! I have only read the first third of the book thus far but I'll report in with a review at the end. I am doing the chapter exercises though they're pretty brief and not particularly challenging...they are mostly comprehension exercises, and I am usually good about figuring out stuff from context even if I didn't understand all the words. So the exercises tell me I am doing well, even though the thing I actually want is to understand all the words, and they don't measure that very well! Edited by BonneVivante on 24 January 2014 at 2:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 15 of 17 24 January 2014 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Formidable! You're really coming along well! I know how hard it is to write in a second language, so kudos to
you. One small note about a false cognate: "actuellement" doesn't mean actually. It actually means "currently". ;)
Ah, I love synergy! It may very well be one of my favourite things about language learning: look up a word in an article, and then within a week you've read it in a novel, heard it on a podcast and noticed your language partner using it. So cool! Edited by Stelle on 24 January 2014 at 2:26am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4850 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 17 24 January 2014 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks Stelle! I should have known that because of the relation to les actualités. These faux amis definitely fool me more often than I would like. I always appreciate people pointing these things out because then I usually don't make that same mistake again. I'd like to add a note about a website I just discovered which may be helpful to others. It's forvo.com and its goal is to provide recordings of the pronunciation of all words, in many different languages, available free online for everyone. The french section of the website has over 90,000 words and I have already used it a couple of times tonight. Very cool! Edited by BonneVivante on 24 January 2014 at 4:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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