Meyers Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 3601 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French
| Message 1 of 62 08 January 2015 at 1:27am | IP Logged |
This is where I will document my journey with the French language.
Goals
I'm currently in France until mid Feburary, therefore I really want to make the most out of my stay while I'm
here in France and then keep up with my French for the remaining part of the year when I'm back in New
Zealand. I don't want to set the bar too high, but I would be happy achieving at least B1, anything
higher being a bonus.
Resources
After a lot of thinking, I have decided to settle with a few courses, these are..
- Assimil NFWE / FWT / Using French. ( Working my way L-R)
- French in Action.
- Michel Thomas.
- Anki / Memrise
I will be posting on this log at least 1-2 times every week.
Thanks,
Meyers.
Edited by Meyers on 08 January 2015 at 1:48am
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redflag Senior Member Australia Joined 3834 days ago 123 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French
| Message 2 of 62 08 January 2015 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
Hi Meyers, welcome to TAC Team Francais. You're lucky to be in France, I just spent a
week in New Caledonia, my first time in a francophone country, and immersion like that
certainly makes a difference. I look forward to following your progress.
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 3 of 62 11 January 2015 at 10:15am | IP Logged |
Hey Meyers, welcome to Team Français. Your resource choices look great! The only thing I'd add would be to do some listening practice with something native or "nearly native" from time to time (e.g. once or twice a week). Examples would be Rfi's Journal en Français facile, L'avis de Marie, or the CD which comes with a reader.
Even in the early stages, this sort of reading will make a big difference later on. You might only understand the odd word or two, but what you need to be listening for are things like the rhythm of the language, word boundaries, etc. And you will be encouraged that words you've learnt from your courses will come up more and more in your listening.
Edited by Jeffers on 11 January 2015 at 10:17am
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PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 4 of 62 11 January 2015 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
Hey Meyers,
Good luck this year with your French and welcome to Team français ! Where in France are
you if you don't mind me asking?
PM
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plumbem! Groupie United States Joined 3625 days ago 44 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French
| Message 5 of 62 11 January 2015 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
Hey! Go team France and good luck!
It seems like Assimil is nearly unanimously recommended so I'm sure that will be a great help. I am also in France, in the Aude. I don't know how long you have been here or how you are fairing but I found that going back to Michel Thomas Advanced after not having used in a year or so was what helped me get to speaking in the first week. I think its a great choice for building early crutches for speaking purposes that then later hopefully dissapear without too much damage done. Is it going to give you automaticity, or naturalness in speach, not at all!!, but it helps get some skin in the game.
A few things that I wish I had known earlier
1. Throwing "Quoi" at the end of the sentence is kind of like saying, "know what I mean?". People in the South seem to do this ALOT.
2. Start using the pronoun "on" for "we" as soon as you can. It saves a lot of cognitive energy once it feels somewhat regular
3. Drop the "ne" in negative constructions also sooner rather than later, you don't need it, less to keep track of.
4. truc = thing, like "chose" but less formal, used a lot. Also "mec" = guy/dude and is used a lot (informally) to refer to people that are strangers.
Will be watching how your time here goes! May we both make the most while we can.
I would love to have a separate thread for collecting pejoratives/slang haha
Edited by plumbem! on 11 January 2015 at 5:06pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7197 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 6 of 62 11 January 2015 at 8:03pm | IP Logged |
It sounds like a great plan. Vive le France !
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Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 3999 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 7 of 62 12 January 2015 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
Bienvenue et Bonne Chance! I think you have a great plan and are on your way with some great resources!
I look forward to following your progress. Do you mind me asking where in France you are and what you are
doing there? I was able to visit France and Belgium this past summer and would love to be there again - so I
would love to hear your experiences! Also, I was able to find used books (livres d'occasion) very reasonably
priced (1€-2€) to bring home. If you have some extra weight in your suitcase, you may want to consider
stocking up!
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Meyers Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 3601 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French
| Message 8 of 62 12 January 2015 at 2:24pm | IP Logged |
Well firstly, I would like to thank you all for the nice words and suggestions.
redflag - Thanks a lot!
Jeffers - Thanks for your suggestion, the Rfi website certainly looks like a good resource. I usually
watch the news here in the evening, it's difficult.. But I manage to get the gist of what they're saying and pick
out various words that I've learned so far.
PeterMollenburg - Thanks, I'm in Aix-en-Provence.
Plumbem - Thanks for the advice, good to see someone else living in the south :). I've definitely noticed
a few of the things you mentioned, in particular the use of 'on' and the dropping of 'ne'.
Mohave - Thanks, well I've been here in Aix-en-Provence for a week now, but before that I was living
near a small village just outside of Toulouse, then I spent Christmas with my girlfriend's family in Valençay,
afterwards to Paris and now to Aix-en-Provence. I'm living with my girlfriend and 2 of her friends, they all
study here in Aix.
I've been spending some time browsing the bookshop under my apartment and there are a few cheap books
that have caught my eye. By now I've come to terms that I'm most likely going to exceed my baggage
allowance :S
Edited by Meyers on 12 January 2015 at 2:26pm
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