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Learning French...again!

  Tags: Canada | Introduction | French
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The-teacher
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4460 days ago

17 posts - 21 votes
Studies: English*

 
 Message 1 of 4
29 August 2012 at 2:02pm | IP Logged 
Good morning fellow forumers,

I thought Id take a moment to introduce myself as Im an avid fan of this forum as well
as long time lurker. Im an elementary teacher and have decided to re-engage with the
french language. Living in southern Ontario in Canada we are exposed as students to
this wonderful language at the age of 9 in Grade 4 and take it at least to Grade 9.

While growing up I certainly did not appreciate the benefits of learning an additional
language. Now that Im older I see it opens up a whole other world of culture and
intrigue, and to be honest, future career opportunities.

So where am I now?

Well several months ago I decided to forge ahead picking up simple french grammar/intro
books to ignite those long dormant neurons and to begin my new adventure. Since then
Ive used and subsequently stopped using rosetta stone rather quickly. After reading
post after informitive poster on HTLAL I ordered assimil new french with ease, picked
up michel thomas beginner/advanced from the local library, work daily on my french anki
deck each day and am trying to dabble in tv shows and movies in french(this is still an
extremely tough feat, as it just sounds mumbly and subs don't actually match the audio
at all times.)

They say slow and steady wins the race, well this is what my learning so far has been!
But its been great, Im learning a lot, picking up vocab every day, slowly coming to
understand various grammar structures and truthfully enjoying the ride so far.

The great thing is each day brings challenges, but also successes. I realize the path
to learn a language is difficult, but I intend to continue this journey learning from
these forums, expanding my knowledge and enjoying the small wins from day to day!

The-teacher

Edited by Fasulye on 03 September 2012 at 8:37am

3 persons have voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5252 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 2 of 4
29 August 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged 
Bienvenue, @The-Teacher! Welcome to the forum! It looks you have a great attitude and a good outlook on learning the language. My advice is not to depend solely on Assimil alone to help you learn French. For me the multi-track approach works best. Use your course by all means but also don't ignore native material. Listening before you are ready and reading before you are ready- especially in a related language like French, are very important.

As you get further along in your learning, here are some other resources to help you. RFI French Language Page has Le journal en français facile or "the news in easy French" with a transcript daily for listening and reading. NHK World French News with transcript is also available.

You might also look into Deutsche Welle French "Learning By Ear" which is a series of "radionovela" radio plays intended for francophone Africa on a variety of subjects. The episodes are 10-12 minutes long with 10 in a series. They use African accented standard French in mp3 format with pdf transcript- all free to download. The language is not overly complicated. You might star with Contes africaines. The English translation is available here:
African Fables with free pdf download so you can make your own parallel bilingual text for listening/reading. These were quite helpful to me when learning Portuguese.

Bon courage!

Edited by iguanamon on 30 August 2012 at 1:21am

2 persons have voted this message useful



The-teacher
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4460 days ago

17 posts - 21 votes
Studies: English*

 
 Message 3 of 4
29 August 2012 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
Merci pour l'aide et les ressources Iguanamon!

One quick question, how did you get the link to the English and french? Just so I can go
about having both translations in future readings, thanks!

Edited by The-teacher on 29 August 2012 at 3:21pm

1 person has voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5252 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 4 of 4
29 August 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged 
You're welcome. I hope it helps. Here is the home page for Deutsche Welle Learning By Ear- English and Deutsche Welle Learning By Ear- French

To make your own parallel text follow these steps:

1) download pdf's
2) copy text in L2
3) open word/open office document and select a table with two colums and one row
4) paste L2 text into left column
5) copy L1 text from source pdf
6) paste L1 text into right column
7) spend time to align the text as best you can. This may mean you'll have to change fonts and/or size and eliminate extraneous and unneeded page descriptions.
8) save document and print to pdf to load onto a tablet or e-reader


1 person has voted this message useful



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