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Gary’s TAC 2013 - PAX | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5786 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes  Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 25 of 160 17 January 2013 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello garyb,
Glad to read about your progress! Concerning pronunciation, for me, all the factors are important: listening, trying, being corrected. Although for me a good pronunciation play a minor role in language study, being understandable is enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5200 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 160 23 January 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Français
My improvement seems to be continuing. I'm wondering if it's related to the fact that I've stuck to my New Year's resolution so far and I haven't been drunk since the First... maybe it's making my brain work more efficiently, especially since drinking too much just ruins my sleep quality. More seriously though, I think the daily grammar study and the frequent self-talk inspired by the exercises are helping considerably. Italiano Italian Super Challenge Films: 47 done, 53 to go. Conversation hours: 95 done, 5 to go. Not even halfway through the films, but almost done with the speaking. The main reason my hours have gone up so quickly is because for the last month or so I've been using the good old classic method of dating a native speaker. It certainly helps, as I've had no real shortage of speaking opportunities and there's more conversational variety than the usual small-talk of language exchanges, but at the same time it's not exactly magical and for my progress it's been much more "slight boost" than "explosion". Certainly no substitute for hard work and study, although it's certainly a pleasant addition ;). At the end of the day, intermediate level is just a long slog and there are no real shortcuts. I still feel like I'm not progressing a whole lot, still struggling to express many things, still making more basic mistakes than I'd like, but such is the Great Intermediate Plateau. Not sure whether I need more conversation or more input or more study; probably just more patience. I did the second last lesson of Perfectionnement this morning, and I read the first few pages of Fight Club in Italian last night. The latter wasn't too difficult; there were a fair few unfamiliar words but I was able to understand from the context and from already knowing the story, and there were a lot more words that I had encountered once or twice and so recognised from passive knowledge. Its style isn't too literary which at my level is good, and I imagine there'll be a lot of good conversational language in there. I'm not sure whether I want to read it intensively or extensively: on one hand I want to make the most of it and internalise all the useful language, but on the other it would be nice to just sit down and enjoy reading a book rather than constantly making notes and trying to learn from it. I suppose I could do both, since it's short enough for two readings, or compromise by reading "passively" but underlining certain parts in pencil and coming back later to study them in detail, although I've never liked writing in books. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5200 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 160 25 January 2013 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finally finished Perfectionnement Italien! I'm glad that one's out my way. The final lesson asks the reader to continue with the active wave, and all I can say is that anyone doing an active wave for that course, especially anything beyond the first half, must be pretty damn hardcore. My feelings about the course, and advanced Assimil courses in genera, are the same as before: the first half is great, the second half is interesting but far too advanced and specialised to be particularly helpful towards learning the language. The revision lessons are still useful though, and I suppose the aim of all the cultural and literary stuff is to familiarise the reader with various facets of the culture across the language, rather than to teach the language itself. I did make things hard for myself by using one aimed at French speakers though: towards the end, it was an exercise for my French as much as my Italian.
Next, my plan is to focus on input for a wee while (films, reading my book, radio) and then get a nice grammar book like I've said. And keep conversing a lot, but that goes without saying. Between this for Italian and Grammaire Progressive then Alter Ego for French, I think my next few months' studies are pretty much all planned out! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5388 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 160 25 January 2013 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Congratulations! I remembering finishing Using Spanish and Using French last year. It takes a lot of dedication to get through Assimil advanced books. The Italian looks even more hard-core than the two I did. Time to celebrate! :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5200 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 29 of 160 27 January 2013 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks! These books are indeed hard work. I'm not sure if I can see myself working through an entire one again, at least any time soon.
I just discovered that there's a language exchange event that takes place every Saturday afternoon at the University which is literally one minute's walk from my house! Apparently it's been going on for a while; I've no idea how that one escaped me for so long. It's mostly aimed at students but everybody's welcome, and it's the university that I graduated from a couple of years ago so I'm not exactly a stranger. I went yesterday, and I had mixed feelings about it. It was organised so that there was a table for each language, which meant that everybody at each table was a learner and there were no native speakers, unless one really wanted to go and help people out of the goodness of their heart. As I'd expect, there was a French table but no Italian one, although the level of French was intermediate at best and there was way too much immediate switching to English every time the slightest difficulty was encountered. A girl who spoke decent French did come later on. Overall I got the impression that even if the meeting wasn't particularly serious, people were friendly and having a great time and enjoying having the opportunity to try out their foreign languages, which was nice. There was definitely a certain enthusiasm and people were making some effort, even if they weren't pushing themselves as much as they perhaps could. It's so convenient for me, and any opportunity to speak French is a good thing, so I'm sure I'll go back. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4658 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 30 of 160 27 January 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, my French conversation group also tends to switch to English too easily for my taste, and I've found it hard not to give in to the pressure sometimes. I need to be stricter about staying in French next time. I have a feeling that it might push some others to do so, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5202 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 160 27 January 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congrats on the Italian accomplishment! And that's good news about the language exchange being so close by!
Yes, it's always a bit of a challenge sticking to the L2 when you know the other person speaks your L1 perfectly well. For myself, it's difficult finding that balance between wanting to actually just communicate (and having to switch to express things I can't say in French), and getting the language practice in. In the end, it depends on the context: I'll switch if I'm working (the library patrons aren't there to give me language practice, after all). But I need to work on staying in French longer in other situations, such as during my recent Couchsurfer's visit. -If you continue speaking in the target language, are the people at the table still able to understand you? Or do you have to repeat what you say, with an English translation? Updated to add: As for the "dating a native speaker" method: surely one of the more delightful ways of getting your language practice. Unfortunately, they don't offer this as one of the course options at the Alliance française, or the Instituto Italiano di Cultura... <smile> Edited by songlines on 27 January 2013 at 5:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5002 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 32 of 160 01 February 2013 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Gary, you're awesome! An inspiration! I nearly envy your teammates.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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