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My French Log [TAC 2015] | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 41 of 60 21 December 2014 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ça commence bien alors...bon courage et bonnes fêtes ! :-)
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| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4039 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 42 of 60 02 January 2015 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bonne chance avec ton français :)
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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 43 of 60 03 January 2015 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bienvenue à Team Français 2015. I've followed your log from the beginning, and it will be nice to see what progress you make in the coming year!
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| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3746 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 44 of 60 04 January 2015 at 7:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Merci beaucoup everyone! This amazing support is what will get me through to the end of 2015 being able to speak and read great literature in French, this incredibly beautiful language.
A little announcement. I am adding Spanish to my TAC 2015 challenge. However, you won't see anything about Spanish until the latter half of this year (I better not speak too soon, though). For now, everything is Français. I will change the name of this log to 'My French and Spanish Log [TAC 2015]' when the time comes to add Spanish. My Spanish is now at an A0/A1 level; it was the first foreign language I ever attempted to learn. Before I become interested in languages, I only had an interest in Spanish per se (I'm a classical guitarist, and I once had a crush on a South American girl). So, an update. And, voila! My first post of 2015! This is what I have achieved over my 2 week holiday: - Completed the first 37 lessons of Assimil NFWE. Love it. Because I did a bit of French before, I could fly through these first few dozen lessons. Once I reach lesson 50 (when the second wave starts, that is, translating the English dialogues of the previous lessons into French) I will review all of the lessons I have done. I plan to dedicate a solid two weeks to just reviewing. I must agree with what most language-learners say about Assimil: it is not meant for the absolute beginner, but rather for the 'false beginner', someone with a month or two of prior experience with the language. I plan to write a little 'French Guide' with everything in it which I think one needs to know before attempting Assimil NFWE. Once I write this, I'll try and find a way to allow people to access the guide. Maybe I'll have to make my own blog/website or something. - Read the whole of Dover's Essential French Grammar. Absolutely loved this book. Not only is it a brilliant reference book with some great bonuses (the list of 2500 English-French cognates), it is a nice read. Not many grammar books can be said to be 'nice reads', but this one is nice and concise. This book is particularly useful because it is aimed at the learner who wishes to incorporate the things learned in the book in a practical way. By this I mean there are lots of useful phrases which one can instantly incorporate into their lexicon. So in other words, this grammar guide encourages one to use French. One question I have: This book keeps on making reference to the 'Listen and Learn French' course. Intrigued, I looked up this course by Dover. Listening to the free audio sample, the thing which first stood out to me was this: how is one supposed to learn the phrases if it only says each phrase once and doesn't go back to any previously learnt? Also, the phrases are said at full speed, so it's difficult to make out what the man is saying, and there are no explanations; simply new phrase after new phrase. And no visuals. Has anyone used this course or a similar one before? - Reviewed all my flashcards. There were a few hundred of them, so it took ages to review them. I only did this at the very beginning of the trip. I found Assimil a lot more useful and fun. I meant to make some new flashcards, but I didn't get around to doing this. Doesn't matter. - On the final part of the trip, I finally got the chance to test out my Pimsleur CD's from the Conversational French course. This course contains the first 16 lessons of the 'full' French course (which I believe contains 90 lessons). It's actually really good! Just so fun, and no effort. My mum was very enthusiastic at joining in, and I can really see at least her and myself learning French (my other family members were being as stubborn as usual) and going on a trip to France! (or more likely New Caledonia. Also, my auntie who we stayed with for the last part of the trip wants to go to north-eastern America and Canada, so who knows, I may get to use my French in Quebec! This is very idealistic, though... although, they are going to the States this Easter, but my cousins don't get to go, not this time at least). So, my mum and I did the first 3 lessons. Then we arrived back home at 11:30. I have requested that my local library order the full Pimsleur French course. I'll let you know if they end up getting it. So there you go! I also think I may have planted a little seed in my cousins language-learning heart: she's learning Italian at school (Catholic school), but is interested in learning French. Her birthday is coming up in a few months... (I think) Also, that reminds me: my mate whom I went with to New Zealand is having his 18th in a few days. He wants (well, I'll just say 'wants') to learn French, or rather, start learning French again (as a child he was actually fluent, and he's studied French at school and Saturday school for years but still is useless at the language). So, I'm thinking that I may buy something French related. I'm thinking a French reader, since they are usually a reasonable price which won't blow my life savings (so far I've saved up about $50). I'm thinking something not too basic; however, if I buy native French material for him (no English) then it would have to be something basic. But then he'd probably think that I'm insulting his intelligence. So yeah, I know what to get him. However, I don't plan to go into the city any time soon, and I don't know how I'm going to get this French reader. Ah, I'll think of something... So, thank you again to Jeffers and PeterMollenburg especially. But I thank everyone on Team French, and I hope to check out all of your logs every now and then. Also, happy new year everyone! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3746 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 45 of 60 08 January 2015 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to start this post by taking a moment to remember the victims of Islamic terrorism in Paris. I dream of going to this beautiful city, and I hope that it will be just as beautiful of a place in a few centuries as it is today, despite this recent tragedy. My prayers are with the victims and their families.
Well, I sure do have a lot to talk about in this post. Expect a long one! First of all, I'll mention here that going to France soon appears to be a reality. I'll explain later on in this post. To make this post easier to read, I'll brake what I have to say into numbered dot points, with a summary of what I'm talking about as the first sentence. 1. My progress in French and my need to set myself a new target: On the whole, I have not done quite as much as I would have liked to have done in the last few days. Yesterday and today (more so yesterday) I did a bit, but averaging out my progress, it's not that great. Not enough to get me at a decent level in French in 3 months (as I originally planned to do). Speaking of which, I have not forgotten about my own little '3 month challenge' (which originally started this log before I signed up for the TAC). I have got another month to go; in fact, just under a month to go. I haven't done any Assimil since arriving back from holidays, and I should be a bit ashamed of myself for being able to say this. Assimil is fun and takes very little effort to use. There are a couple of slight 'imperfections' (I've noticed more than one spelling mistake -- in English!) but these won't put off the 'false beginner' learner. Despite the fact that I am only new to Assimil, I can already be quite sure for myself that what most language-learning enthusiasts say is correct: Assimil really is the best course out there. So I am currently up to Leçon 38 (hey, that's pretty good actually!) and my aim is to commence the active phase (i.e, complete lesson 50) by this time next week. Two days ago I spent a number of hours just writing out simple sentences in French. I got a list of verbs, and then wrote sentences with the chosen verbs, going with the present tense forms of the verb. For example, for 'avoir' (to have) I wrote the following sentences: J'ai une voiture. Vous avez un livre. Tu as un dictionnaire. Il a le temps. Elle a tout le temps. Nous avons juste le temps. Ils ont un gâteau brun. Elles ont un gâteau brune. There was almost three handwritten pages of this stuff. My overall verdict of this little exercise: too time consuming, not maximising effectiveness. In the amount of time I spent doing this, I could have achieved a lot more had I been doing what I am now doing. FSI FAST: J'ai (as of last night) picked up FSI again. I decided to keep on going in order of lessons, but now that I've completed Lesson 11 and will quickly do Lesson 12 tonight (even though it's midnight) je vais to skip à Leçon 22, où le passé composé (love the name!) est first explicitly taught. This is the most useful past tense to learn (the other being the 'imperfect'). It's also easy to learn. However, I'm still glossing over the other lessons on my way and taking note of a few important grammatical points, as well as reading through the vocab lists. My tactics have changed with FSI. I knew that I could not just dawdle along with the course if I wanted to 'learn' French in 3 months, but now I've decided to put my ideas into action. I am mostly leaving out the audio and fill-in-the-blanks exercises, just for now. I'll come back to them later, or save them for a day where I feel like a bit of a change. I used to listen to the audio for each lesson a couple of times (the first without having looked at the script) and then look at the vocab and then listen to it again, but now I want to just get a move on. I've found that just by doing this I'm saving heaps of time. Two days ago I flew through two lessons in just around 3 or so hours. That was doing all the exercises, and boy were there are lot of translation exercises. Now I'm doing a lot of the translation exercises in my head, hence saving time. The one's which are dealing with new or difficult concepts to me I'll do, if they're important. Reflexive verbs aren't all that important to me at the moment, so I just glossed over that part in Lesson 11. In fact, lessons 11 and 12 I didn't write anything for: I just did the exercises in my head. My target for FSI is to get up to Lesson 30 (doing what I am currently doing) by the end of next week. 2. My penpal and my future trip to France: My penpal replied to my a couple of weeks ago. She's still alive, and I will send her a short reply tonight (I haven't replied in a little while). She is not coming to Australia in Feb (as I assumed, she does have her final half a year or school after all) but she says that she wants to come when she finishes school. So that should be fun. Also, I have had my heart set on doing a student exchange to Europe for a long time, but now I know that I can have this opportunity. Talking to a uni student at the Sydney Uni open day, I learnt about their exchange program. She said that I, being a future Arts student studying philosophy and French (or Spanish, or hopefully both), am the perfect candidate. So France here I come! (In 1 and a half years) Students can study overseas for up to a year I was told. Also, I was told to keep in mind whether I want to put academia or tourism as my priority. Choosing a prestigious uni means less time for leisure... I think I know what my 'priority' is! 3. The Sydney Uni day: I currently plan to study at Sydney University, where my old man went to uni (but that's not the reason that I plan to go there though haha). The open day for students planning to start uni there this March was pretty good. I know now that I definitely want to study a language at uni (although I'd prefer if the professor just said "right, learn the language yourself and just come to me for any questions, advice, or resources"). Currently I'm thinking of majoring in 2 subjects -- Philosophy and French -- and then just doing a few units in Spanish (because I'd be heartbroken if I couldn't study Spanish at uni). From overhearing peoples conversations, so many learnt dead languages in high school (Latin mostly, but even Ancient Greek, or even Modern Greek which is dead enough of a language anyway). I think it's an elitist thing. 4. Un jour français à la grande ville. After the Sydney uni open day I spent a day in the city. First I went to the Alliance Français. Wow, it is a beautiful building. I had a little look around, it's lovely. I could definitely see myself taking lessons there one time, even just so as to plunge myself into the French community of Sydney, to immerse myself in French culture and be with French learners and French speakers. On a side note, I remind myself of a goal: to attend a French meetup.com gathering sometime before the end of March. After visiting the Alliance Français I went to Maccas to get a Frozen Coke (hey, it was a hot day as usual), and then went to Abbey's Bookstore. Man, I simply love this place. I was in the French section for about an hour (time flies) looking for what to buy my friend for his upcoming birthday party (this Sunday evening). I also looked at some stuff which I may get for myself later on down the track. I was looking at the French bilingual/parallel readers, but the ones which they had were either too easy or a little too advanced for my friend. I wanted to get him the Teach Yourself Perfect Your French, but it was too expensive ($65). But then my mate and his friends came along (I agreed to meet up) and my mate suggested we go 50/50. So we did. It worked out well. My friend (the one having his 18th) will no doubt need to do a bit of work before he can fully utilise Perfect Your French, but nevertheless, he now has a goal to work towards. (I secretly hope that he'll let me borrow this book one day haha). Then we all went to Tumbalong Park. 5. Classical Guitar Summer School: I am a classical guitarist (although I haven't touched my guitar in a number of weeks) and I am attending the summer school which starts this Saturday morning and finishes Wednesday night. I'm not going to get heaps of time to study, and judging by last year, I'm going to be stuffed after each day (it's 9:30 till 4:00). So that's why my goals have been set to a 'reasonable' level (I think). Well, at least I'll get to practise my Spanish haha (that's why I'm interested in Spain, Latin America and its language. At first I wasn't interested in languages per se, only Spanish). 6. Three links: Voila. The thread for Team Français (thought that I'd put it up here for your convenience): Team Français TAC 2015 I believe that one of the FSI sites is down. I needed to download more of the French FAST audio files I found that I couldn't find the site. This one is (I believe) pretty much exactly the same as the other one, so here you go: FSI Language Courses Because I was then worried that all the FSI sites might get taken down, I downloaded all the French and Spanish stuff I knew I'd need in the future (other than most of the audio 'cause it'd take me hours to download all of the audio). Finally, a link to a brilliant site with the FSI courses, the DLI courses, and the Peace Corps Language Archive (the latter I'd never heard of it before, but it has heaps of languages which I've never heard of. In fact, most of the languages I've never heard of before. However, it's missing quite a few 'mainstream' languages such as German, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese. I also found it was missing the audio for the French Phonology Course, and the audio for the last few French FAST course lessons). Also, the Skype lessons look awesome. Maybe they'll be a good alternative to classes (I told myself once I reach B2 I'll take a session of classes before going for a B2 exam). I just discovered this website whilst looking for the FSI sites today: Live Lingua One last thing (something you may find funny). My uncle whom I saw recently (the one who doesn't think too highly of the French... I think he's had to deal with a few Frenchmen before) responded to my remark that French is the most beautiful language in the world as thus: French is only beautiful when it is spoken by a beautiful French woman. So are you just learning French so you can pick up French girls?" ... I replied, "well of course not haha... but now that you mention it..." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 46 of 60 11 January 2015 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Liam,
It's nice to see a fresh and keen fellow Aussie French learner on HTLAL. Your enthusiasm is almost infectious. It's great to see a number of other language buffs helping you out too. I just wanted to say good luck in 2015 with your French endeavours and welcome to Team français ! Bonne chance ! PM 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3746 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 47 of 60 22 January 2015 at 2:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello all,
Cheers PM for the kind remarks and the welcome message :) Indeed, it is a good thing to know that I am not the only Aussie wanting to speak more than just English! (now there's two of us haha) Well, I must admit, I've done pretty much nothing for the past three days. On Sunday and Monday I was working on a classical guitar song for an upcoming composition competition on a website called Free-scores.com. Yesterday I had an 11 out of 10 day with my family and our good friends who live in a beautiful part of Australia. They had just bought their new house along with shores of Lake Macquarie, simply beautiful. So I did one lesson of Assimil on the way up there. So, what am I up to now? I'm up to lesson 36 of FSI French FAST. I have been going through the lessons as 'fast' as I can (get it?!), just going through the concepts and drills. This means that I have plenty of stuff to go back to whenever. I plan to finish the rest of the lessons by today (or early tomorrow morning hehe). Then again, I have been saying that I'll finish for the last few days when I was doing the course. Some lessons have had nothing I've needed, others have had tonnes of stuff I've needed. Just depends. Then I will pretty much 100% use Assimil. I wanted to have got up to the Active phase ages ago, but I'm still up to Lesson 39. My plan is to do an average of 3 lessons a day, at least up until my little '3 month challenge' is done. I only have (let's just say) 10 days left. If I can do thirty lessons in this time then that'd be great. But by '3 lessons' I mean '3 new lessons'; in other words, once I hit the Active Phase then I will want to be doing 4 new lessons (three passive lessons, 1 active lesson). I hope that I will be able to do this. Actually, there is no 'try', only 'do' or 'do not' :P So that's pretty much all I have to say. Once my little challenge is up, I'll write a summary of how I went, along with all the recommendations I have for anyone wishing to attempt such a challenge. Then I'll work out what I need to do before uni starts in March... One question: am I able to put up a link to a dropbox here with my Pimsleur Conversational French lessons? Or is that illegal? Cheers 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 48 of 60 22 January 2015 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||
That would violate forum rules, since you would be sharing copyrighted materials. You have more freedom in PMs. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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