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Study plan for a month for false beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5381 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 1 of 9 09 December 2014 at 9:54am | IP Logged |
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A coworker of mine approached me asking if I knew of any intensive French classes. She
has a month off of school for the winter (the university does a short winter "semester" hence the extended break) and wants to devote it to French. I've been giving a thought to what sort of program I could design for her (and I'll dig through my resources to see what I have to share). I'll have her try Michel Thomas for a quick overview (though we'll see if she likes it) and I'll point her to French in Action. I'll try to find some media on the side and see if she likes Duolingo and/or Memrise for practice (I think for early stages and simple vocab Memrise is easier to get set up with than Anki). Any other advice for a quick French regimen? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3882 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 2 of 9 09 December 2014 at 10:06am | IP Logged |
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Learn French with Paul Noble is a course very similar to Michel Thomas, but (at least for German) it puts emphasis on very different things. If she enjoys MT, let her try it as well.
Being a total fan of all-audio courses, I'd also recommend all these new audio programs by Teach Yourself (Get Talking, Keep Talking, also almost the same program, older edition, TY Speak X with confidence). Living Language has a nice* 9 CD program (see here: LL French) With such audio courses it will be easier for her to fit these in her schedule even after the one month French time. Driving, exercising, cooking - all these activities can be done while listening to CDs. - - - - *nice: has a lot of audio; I have not tried the course so can not comment on it's niceness in other aspects 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 9 09 December 2014 at 1:39pm | IP Logged |
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Well, the new Living Language may not be worth the money, there was already discussion
about it and I wasn't the only one not convinced. The bottom line was that it can be of some use in languages where there are not that many resources but that there are many less expensive and very likely better resources for French. It looks like their resources are expansive on the list of all that is included but pretty thin on the real content. And to the 9 CDs: If I remember correctly comments from those who bought the course, the CDs don't have that much content, there is English etc. And I personally tried their interactive exercises online and for tablets and I found them badly made and possibly even harmful for the learner. What kind of learner is she? Audio only courses are not for everyone, I am one of those people who couldn't learn while relying on audio only, and I tried, but she could be more lucky in that aspect. Perhaps she would be happy with a good quality classical course with audio? CDs are part of most courses, not just the MT type. Pretty intensive would be this mix in my opinion: Assimil (with more than one lesson a day, basically more as an audio resource and graded reader)+Grammaire Progressive+more audio (from frenchpod101 or something like that) or FIA. Anki or Memrise are a fine supplement to anything. FSI is dryer but it is pretty intensive and while some courses are a little bit out of date (German includes the old ortograph, not sure how about French), the exercises are very intensive and efficient, even though a bit dry. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tomgosse Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3982 days ago 90 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 9 09 December 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged |
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Here is what I wish I used during my first month of learning French:
* Pimsleur French I - thirty lessons, one a day. Best way to learn pronunciation. In the United States you can borrow the CD's from the library and copy them to your computer. The lessons are plain mp3 files. * Memrise Learn Basic French - great vocabulary builder * French Demystified by Annie Hemminway - a good, simple introduction to French. * Duolingo French course - I love Duolingo but I think you need to have had some exposure to French before you start it. Also, Memrise has a course devoted to all the words in the Duolingo course. * Other resources on YouTube if you have more time: French From Beginners To Advanced by Imagiers, and French Pronunciation by LRC Michigan. Bon courage, Tom Edited by tomgosse on 09 December 2014 at 1:57pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5522 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 09 December 2014 at 4:02pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I fear my advice requires a bunch of tools, not all of which are publicly available, so it won't help your friend much. But if I needed to redo my subs2srs experiment as a month-long, immersive experience, here's what I'd try. This relies heavily on Anki, though mostly for providing me with native content in a convenient, reviewable format.
Maybe there's a good idea hiding somewhere here? If I have 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, I'd try to set aside 3 or 4 hours for mentally challenging activities, and spend the remaining hours engaged in less demanding activities. Study (1 to 2 hours/day) 1. Assimil (optional, if I need a graded introduction). 30 minutes/lesson, 2 lessons/day. 2. Any short, clear grammar book. 3. Writing on lang-8, starting a couple of sentences/day, based on trivial variations of my input. 4. Either the Wikipedia phonetics pages and an IPA tool, or a Mimic Method course for pronunciation. Anki (1 to 2 hours/day) 1. Subs2srs, maybe 50 new cards/day? 2. Susuru-style MCD cards created using a list of verb endings, prepositions, particles, etc., depending on language. Input/relaxation (all remaining available time) 1. "Reading" of Harry Potter on the Kindle, using SRS Collector. 2. Watching the TV series I'm studying with subs2srs. 3. Listening to music in the target language. Anyway, I'd personally probably try something along these lines. And maybe add a tutor later on, but I like having a silent period. Edited by emk on 09 December 2014 at 4:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 9 09 December 2014 at 5:06pm | IP Logged |
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Warn her that even if she seemingly has all time in the world, she's hardly going to study 8 hours a day. Even 2-3 will be a success.
Recommend her some music and find a couple of specific songs on lyricstraining that she might like. Tell her about Tadoku as well - this could help making it more than a New Year's resolution. (and even if she drops it when her holidays are over, it's okay - there will still be progress) Introduce her to timeboxing/pomodoro so that she could put in as much time as possible. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4899 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 9 09 December 2014 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
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Duolingo is good, but several of us have been really loving Lingvist, which might be better at giving her a foundation in frequent vocabulary. If she likes online learning, there's no reason she can't do both, of course!
If I only had a month, I'd still use Assimil once a day. Thirty days with Assimil will probably make her want to continue with it, and it will build the French habit into her life. EDIT: a good podcast series for beginner is L'avis de Marie. All the podcasts have texts, and the more recent ones automatically highlight the sentence she is speaking, so it's easy to follow. I wish I had discovered this series early in my studies. Edited by Jeffers on 09 December 2014 at 9:48pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4879 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 8 of 9 10 December 2014 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
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Another vote here for Lingvist - it's still in beta, but already it's shaping up to be a
fantastic program. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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