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PMs TAC 2015 crazy? French course mission | ||
Tags: TellMeMore | Fluenz | Linguaphone | Flash cards | Michel Thomas | Self-Study | Spaced Repetition (SRS) | Diploma/Certificate | Study Plan | Fluency | Dutch | Pimsleur | FSI | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Assimil | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 281 of 451 05 February 2015 at 8:06am | IP Logged | ||
Merci beaucoup tastyonions pour le lien et pour tes paroles aussi ;) J'aime bien cet artiste en fait. Je n'ai pas avant entendu. Les paroles sont simples- faciles à comprendre la plupart des mots individuels, mais difficiles à comprendre toutes les allusions là-dessous. Mais si tu es moi... est-ce c'est le cas? Tu es moi? Alors, si tu es moi tu auras plus de peine à les comprendre... je dois les écouter et les étudier encore beaucoup de fois mais je n'ai pas le temps pour faire ça parc que je reste dans ma prison que j'ai construit moi-même, un prison de cours de français ;) Cependant il existe une solution... des chansons avec des paroles comme celui du lien ci-dessous du même artiste... et je l'aime bien aussi Avec des parols svp Je crois que la corruption est plus répandue de nos jours... ou au moins l'eau soit plus chaude ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 282 of 451 16 February 2015 at 4:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Pimsleur French IV completed!
okay by 'completed' I mean that i can respond to all prompts, immitate all audio and understand everything of all 30 audio lessons. I will not do the reading lessons yet as I feel they are a sit-down focus thing over multiple sittings. Over multiple sittings meaning so that I don't attempt to memorise a whole heap of idiomatic expressions in one sitting I would work through from Pismleur I to IV perhaps adding a word/phrase a day from the readings to my flashcard deck and not turning my brain to sawdust doing loads in one sitting. Pimsleur IV in really brief summary: Excellent for pronunciation practice and automation of A2-?B1? French phrases. It's really just that "Pimsleur French IV" ie a little tricker than Pimsleur French III. However it's poor for pushing the student who's already B1 or beyond in my opinion to go beyond that level, but it will certainly improve the strength of one's foundation. To a B2 level French speaker it would be deemed tedious imo and incredibly slow or easy. Still I believe this program is generally worthwhile for the above-mentioned reasons particularly for beginners and low intermediate level French learners. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is B1 or below and wants to work their pronunciation and automation. Now it's back to the Rocket French series for commutes, although I'll still be going over parts of Pimsleur from time to time to add example sentences to my flashcard deck. Rocket French Premium Plus and Rocket French Platinum are both more difficult than Pimsleur French IV. Rocket French does use a lot of English for explanations but for me it feels ok and not annoying. Rocket French Premium Plus and Platinum (levels 2 & 3) are worthwhile if you feel like you want something beyond Pimsleur IV that's still a French learning audio based program as opposed to a podcast or radio feed. MC Guy Fry McBird Fry Guy McPry, you know why? Why should I? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Straya Diglot Groupie Australia Joined 3561 days ago 57 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchA2 Studies: Polish | Message 283 of 451 16 February 2015 at 5:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Pete, just wanted to let you know how impressed i am with your hours in the 6wc
challenge! Ive got an average of just under 2 hours a day which is a lot for me, and at 4 hours i would be completely braindead. Dont take me for a cynic, but at the end of the day, someones going to pretend to do more, and log more than they justifiably should 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 284 of 451 16 February 2015 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks Straya, To me the best kind of language study is continuous consistent deliberate effort to improve. My long hours are only a number- a large-ish number that i feel I need in order to advance because unlike many ppl I get very caught up in details that wouldn't slow down most ppl, yet reduce my pace at times to a snail's pace. In other words your 2 hours a day could be allowing you to advance quicker than my four. So I sincerely believe all those in the 6wc who are studying every day or very near to every day deserve congratulations as that is the kind of thing that reaps rewards- as long as we remain consistent. I do feel that the some of the really large numbers are definitely possible, even those who have around double my hours with all their languages. I mean, I've really dropped off lately with my intensity but i'm still near the top. I'm not saying it's easy but given the right personality and circumstances and add more than my sole language and these numbers are achievable. One thing to take into account is experience- I can study a LOT more now with work, exercise, and a family than I could 15 years ago with none of those commitments. You'd be surprised how much more some ppl can do as they get older, used to studying, and more enthusiastic. However I agree it is very plausible that a person/some ppl could cheat/are cheating. Imo (I'm sure you agree) they're idiots if they are. I agree with s.mann I'm doing what I can do, what's it matter if they cheat (themselves really) or if they can study a lot more genuinely, great. Still I do really want a fair competition and hope no-one is cheating and thus at times may raise a concern or two. If they still cheat, then I'm blissfully ignorant as I don't want to waste more energy than necessary on speculation. I'm optimistic and I admire those who can study so much but I do know they generally have to sacrifice some other areas of their lives usually. Im doing as much or nearly as much as I can without impacting too much on other areas of my life (I recently decided exercise is far too important to ignore). Keep up the studying Straya, you are doing just as well as those with higher numbers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 285 of 451 20 February 2015 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Thought I'd ramble on a bit as we all have loads of time for my ramblings. Man is my
log dry at the best of times! ;) So I came to a bit of a logical conclusion that I'm sure most of us are well aware of. That is intensive vs extensive study. Extensive gives you a lot of exposure to words, expressions and so on, whereas intensive doesn't. Thus if you study only intensively (think le premier ministre PM moi-même) you're going to need to do a LOT more of it to feel like you're progressing = idiot = me. This is why I feel I need to study so much. Solution= cut back on intensive study as much as possible if you already understand the structures for the most part. Sounds great, however I'm stubborn and have a LOT of material I want to get through, so for the time being it isn't going to happen, and I seem to be the dullest person around as I'm kind of enjoying punishing myself with courses ;) I think in an ideal scenario one would begin solely with courses and progressively introduce more and more native material until there are no courses left. This is the path i'm wishing to pursue but I have more courses than necessary and it's taking a LOT longer than originally anticipated. Straya: Just on a quick side note, I'm not sure if my last post came off a little too direct. My apologies if it did. I guess I was trying to say I understand both sides of the story regarding ppl attaining large hours during the 6wc. Cavesa: I'm not sure if you're following my log but I thought i'd not respond on the vaccine thing in too big of a way in your thread, but give a somewhat brief reply here. There are valid reasons on both sides imo and dirty tactics from both sides as well as they struggle in desperation to convince the public. I didn't arrive at my thoughts easily. Working as a nurse, my stance is not a conclusion I initially wanted to arrive at either, but I felt I had to be truthful with myself regardless of my work. I'm still willing to change opinion. In fact I never considered vaccines could be unsafe until only a couple years ago and always accepted what I was told up to that point. I've been very careful in considering all arguments on both sides. There are accusations of falsified statistics and data on both sides. The major thing that tips me into the 'anti' side is that there is far too much money at stake for the companies that sell them, HUGE $ sent the way of the gov't from Big pharma (hence large campaigns) and I no longer trust the media - as it a very powerful omnipresent persuasive machine. If you do the research and look into the corruption of Big Pharma (deliberately stopped cancer cures, corrupt FDA, codex alimentarus, pharmaceutical financed education, Doctors know extremely little about nutrition, how vaccines work etc and so on) one begins to see through the fog and discern hints of the truth. We are saturated with one side of the story due to the sheer massive amount of $ that pushes that viewpoint. Just because nearly everyone's parroting the same viewpoint does not make it true. I'm not reckless either, I feel I'm doing what's best for myself, my family and society. If you look hard there is a LOT of really decent scientific carefully considered information on why they are not good. PM 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5420 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 286 of 451 20 February 2015 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Should I dump my flashcards? But how do I retain new vocabularly?
Hi guys Again I'm arriving at a flashcard dilemma of sorts... I'm currently noticing that the words in my nearly 10,000 word deck are not becoming 'active'. I know these words but I often get answers wrong or can't think of them, but recognise them once I flip the card. It's probably a case of too much time having passed (due to a little procrastination lately, plus slow study methods). I think i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that flashcards are a waste of time, or at least not a great way to spend one's time. On a textbook morning I might do 3 hours of study. 15minutes of each hour is dedicated to reviewing cards. 45min of each hour to coursework. Thus I do 45 minutes total in the morning of flashcard work and 2hrs 15 min of courses. I"m considering changing this to 2 hours of courses and 1 hour of extensive reading. The 2 hours of coursework would see me advance quicker as I would stop entereing all new words and examples into my flashcard deck. I'm sure there is some usefulness in viewing old words and old example sentences over and over despite not 'activating' all words, so if I dump them, how will I retain words is my fear? Does anyone have any thoughts on how I will retain my words? (re-read pages/books mutliple times? go over course lessons? Should I use FC's in an extremely limited fashion? Finally my apologies for those that have read this or a version of this in my log before. I keep raising this topic as I'm just not so sure what the best method is to retain new vocab... PM Edited by PeterMollenburg on 20 February 2015 at 9:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7149 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 287 of 451 21 February 2015 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm with you Peter. I've been asking myself whether flashcards are not really worthwhile lately.
What have been the sources for the 10000 FCs? I was driving in my car listening and shadowing some today and it dawned on me how many more words per minute this exposes me to, and they are all in context. When I've spent time listen/reading, I usually feel my French takes a leap after a few days. I never feel that from FCs. To your general question about reviewing old words, that circles back to my question about where the FCs came from. I find it easiest to use denser sources and repeat them multiple times, rather than sparse sources (like flashcards). My current thinking is that if I write down defintions or translations for the few words on a page that seem new or difficult, I get some benefit from that finite act. I also have the notes in my book when I come back to it. I think this approach is really useful with books and also with an Assimil course if you have any of those in your collection. High level, I think about being able to listen to, read, repeat (shadow) the stuff in my corpus (the stuff I've spent some time with). Reviewing something in the corpus generally takes less time when I come back to it. The first time through Petit Nicholas, I probably listened to it all about 5 times, read along a few times, made a google bilingual translation and tweaked that. Lets say I spent 50 hours on the 2 hour audio, book, putting the google translation into a spreadsheet, and repeating the audio in various contexts. I remember a while back when that book was challenging. I haven't read or listened to it in a few months. Sometime I will come back to it. I think I'll be able to revise the whole thing in 2-4 hours (depending on whether I just listen to it, or listen to it and later read it (or vice versa). There is a feeling of accomplishment when the 50 hours to get to a certain point shows it's value when it becomes just an exhilarating 2 hour review a year or two later. Then the milestones of progress are the things that are added to the personal corpus. That doesn't preclude doing things for fun, like watching a youtube video on an interesting topic and not really having plans to circle back later. P.S. thanks for the question. It's led me to my own answer. You know how compelling the answers we give ourself are. Edited by luke on 21 February 2015 at 12:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 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 288 of 451 21 February 2015 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your nice PM, PM :) I'll reply here.
I'm on the opposite end right now. I ditched flashcards in 2012 to focus on the first Super Challenge and I've never got back into them. I only use sentences and every card is special for me. I still try to save most things I like/fave on facebook and twitter as flashcards (if they are short text posts, that is). My main problem is that I can't let go of the old Portuguese and Spanish cards I'm attached to (and many Italian ones as well). I think right now it would be most of all beneficial for my Swedish and Croatian (Dutch, Catalan, Romanian, Czech are a lower priority). I generally think it's best to use flashcards early if you are impatient to read or speak (writing and listening is where you can't skip the actual input), and then later on for any words that you need despite not coming across them often, or for any rare words that you don't need but still want to know. Over the years on HTLAL, I've seen only one learner who genuinely seems to get more out of single word flashcards (than sentence cards), and that's Evita. She's especially motivated by sharing her decks on the Anki site. Most others either use only sentences, or work on a deck for a few months and abandon it. And that's perfectly okay. So yeah I'd recommend using flashcards in a limited fashion. They shouldn't steal your reading time or other kinds of quality time. Use them when you have a few spare moments, but not enough time to get into the flow of reading (or when you only have your smartphone/tablet/whatever but no books within reach). I think you need to delete a lot of cards from your current deck. Both the ones that are too easy and some of those above your level. Use your best judgement. Do you need the word? Do you like the word? (some words just feel strange or awkward or unpleasant) Do you really understand how it's used or do you need more examples? (get them) Are you going to read more on this topic? (helps not only with the specific words you come across again but also with those that have some connection to them in your mind, especially if you think or write in L2 about what you read) Speaking of example sentences, they're often dry and boring. And they come without a larger context. For me sentences from textbooks would be the first thing to drop. Also, imo cloze deletion is useful and enjoyable but not a must. I use it mostly for grammar really. Edited by Serpent on 21 February 2015 at 4:01am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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