PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 81 of 88 11 January 2015 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
Hi Iolanthe,
Welcome to Team français! I hope 2015 proves a rewarding year for your French studies...
I'm somewhat envious of your position there in neat little Leiden. I love the architecture of older Dutch towns
and cities, particularly along the canals. I was in NL for 5 months with my wife in 2011. We were in Maastricht,
and the plan ws to stay much longer and reach a high level of Dutch language proficiency. Unfortunately the
plan proved unsuccessful as my wife found it difficult not being a language fanatic like myself. I believe I
made it to a high B1 level while my
wife was prob a low B1 and was quickly catching up. We had many fun times but also found the Dutch
weather miserable and the culture challenging at times. I will forever have a soft spot for the Dutch language,
culture and countryside (I
actually have a Dutch passport and my father was born in Limburg). My wife and travelled a bit inside of NL
but never got to see Haarlem nor Leiden- 2 places I am very keen to see upon a future return.
Anyway, all the best with your languages this year!
PM
Edited by PeterMollenburg on 11 January 2015 at 12:28am
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5644 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 82 of 88 15 January 2015 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
@PeterMollenburg The weather is extremely miserable at the moment so you are not missing
much now if that makes you feel any better :D Haarlem and Leiden are quite similar though
Leiden has more students and Haarlem has more tourists. But they are probably my
favourite places along with Den Haag.
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5644 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 83 of 88 15 January 2015 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
Français
I'm doing something radical. I've decided to stop counting my study time...Why?
Because I'm trying to be less crazy and less of a dictator with myself. I'm doing the
Super Challenge anyway so that stuff I will be tracking. But no more rigid goals, I'm
just going to do what feels good.
And, I'm wondering if I could move over to mostly native materials now. That's what I
did with Dutch, granted I did go back to university to study Dutch properly after 2
and a half years of learning, which allowed me to improve my grammar but actually why
can't I follow a similar path for French? Using lots of native materials now, reading,
vocab learning, listening and writing and then later on I can sign up for an Alliance
Française class and iron out the kinks. I just love using native materials and I think
I should follow that feeling and make them the bulk of my (no longer officially
recorded) study time.
Ahh that feels better.
So what have I been doing? I finished Le Petit Prince and it went quite well. I
certainly got far more of the story this time round. I think I'm going to start
reading Harry Potter next.
I also finished season 4 of Un Village Français and now I am waiting for season 5 to
arrive through the post. I have other things to watch but I am having withdrawal
symptoms. I tried watching Engrenages but I was quickly reminded of the fact that I
don't like detective shows.
Türkçe
I've been using Memrise and I'm quite impressed with it. The app is pretty amazing and
there is lots of choice for courses to take. I am enjoying this method so I will carry
on with my Memrise course (Hacking Turkish) until I complete the 30 lessons.
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PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 84 of 88 15 January 2015 at 1:18pm | IP Logged |
Iolanthe wrote:
@PeterMollenburg The weather is extremely miserable at the moment so you are not
missing
much now if that makes you feel any better :D Haarlem and Leiden are quite similar though
Leiden has more students and Haarlem has more tourists. But they are probably my
favourite places along with Den Haag.
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NL
Typisch Nederlands weer dan hoor. Van de steden dat wij bezocht hebben, vond ik Amsterdam, Maastricht
en Utrecht de interessanste en mooiste plaatsen. Hoewel waren er te veel drogen en toeristen in Amsterdam,
zijn de grachten en grachten huizen daar zo mooi! Ahhh ik mis Nederland :) Vond ik Groningen en
Leeuwarden ook een beetje mooi.
EN
Typical Dutch weather then. From the cities that we visited, I found Amsterdam, Maastricht and Utrecht the
most interesting and beautiful places. Although there were too many drugs and tourists in Amsterdam, the
canals and the canal houses there are so beautiful. Ahhh I miss the Netherlands. I also found Groningen and
Leeuwarden somewhat pretty.
FR
Le temps qui est typique aux Pays-Bas dis-donc. Entre les villes qu'on a visité, j'ai trouvé Amsterdam,
Maastricht et Utrecht les endroits les plus intéressants et les plus beaux. Bien qu'il y eût trop de drogues et
touristes à Amsterdam, les canaux et les maisons qui bordées les canaux sont si beaux. Ahhh Les Pays-Bas
me manquent. J'ai aussi trouvé Groningen et Leeuwarden assez jolis.
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fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5039 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French
| Message 85 of 88 15 January 2015 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
I think it's great that you stopped counting your study time. In my experience, if I counted the time that I
spent studying it would feel like a job. I timed one of my normal routines a while ago and now I just assume
my daily studies take around the same time.
I also think that if you feel ready for more native materials you should do it! That is part of why we study so
hard: to be able to enjoy native materials.
Good look with your studies!
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 86 of 88 15 January 2015 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
I agree counting time can be a real headache. I tried it for a week at the beginning of the last TAC, and gave it up because I was falling behind on recording my activities, let alone actually doing them! I still do record times when I do the 6 Week Challenges, but it feels more fun then because it's competitive.
It's funny, I don't like cop shows in English. But I really have gotten into them in French....
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Light Newbie Canada Joined 4428 days ago 30 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 87 of 88 21 January 2015 at 7:41am | IP Logged |
Iolanthe wrote:
Français
I'm doing something radical. I've decided to stop counting my study time...Why?
Because I'm trying to be less crazy and less of a dictator with myself. I'm doing the
Super Challenge anyway so that stuff I will be tracking. But no more rigid goals, I'm
just going to do what feels good. |
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How exactly were you counting your study time? Were you putting down that you spent, say, an hour doing x, 15 mins doing y, etc.? Were you going by the day, saying you spent z amount of time studying french?
I personally like how Lingvist.io tracks the total amount of time spent memorizing words on their site. You don't have to look at the blemishes on your record all the time. The number just keeps going up. They do tell you how much time you spent so far in a given day but the next day it's erased from your sight. You don't have to worry about it.
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PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 88 of 88 25 August 2015 at 4:29am | IP Logged |
Hi Iolanthe,
How's Leiden?
I'm just dropping by as with many other not so active French team members to see if
you're still out there learning languages, still learning French and if you would like
to join us on the new alternative website how-to-learn-any-language.org which was put
in place after htlal.com has had major technical problems.
Hope all is well.
Tot straks, hoop ik !
PM
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