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TAC09 French-Goal Listening fluency (LR) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 81 of 98 16 November 2009 at 10:38pm | IP Logged |
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I'm quite excited to be writing this post. I have more motivation then ever to study study study. I would like to share with you all why this is.
I have at the moment three strong goals which add that extra incentive for study. The first and most immediate goal and least important is that I will be going to Paris to spend 4 days at the end of this month. It is hard to say whether I will be using the language a lot or not, I guess it depends on what happens. But I would like to be prepared as much as possible for this short trip. It is my third trip this year to France this year. The second goal I have is giving me a little grief and will make me have a nervous breakdown soon. In early January I will be sitting the B1 Delf test. This is a worldwide gage or standard of your ability of French. About French test. OK the test as far as I know is broken down into a 2 hour test with multiple choice listening exercises, a reading exercise and a written essay of about 200 words. The following days is an oral exam where I think there is 15 minutes prep time and a 10 minute test with several examiners. I do think I have the ability to pass the test even now at the moment without any specific study. However when I do sit this exam in January I would like to get 100%. I think I will need to work on my writing and spelling first of all and my speaking skills. My last goal and my biggest goal is to be in France in April (I don't know where). I plan to spend a month or two in an intensive study school and hopefully at the end of this study I will have the B2 certificate. If all goes well I'll find some employment and perhaps spend a little time in France. These are my goals or dreams if you will. Its such a boost to know that my active study will be moving me foward to these goals. It makes it much more easier to study then before because if I don't well.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 82 of 98 29 November 2009 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
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Just returned from a four day sejour to Paris. Highlights for me were the Christmas markets on the Champs Elysee, a walk from Parc de Belleville to Parc des Buttes Chaumont, cafe from Amelie in Monmarte, having a coffee on the 56th floor of Tour Montparnasse (it's cheaper then paying for a ticket to the top), a walk along the Bassin de la Villette, a morning at Marches aux puces de Saint-Quen (biggest antique market in the world), shopping at Gilbert Jeune language bookstore in the Latin Quarter, a walk in the Bois de Vincennes, a street market near near Daumesnil metro.
I brought back some goodies. A Top 10 guide to Paris in French. A collection of seven films by Eric Rohmer which I bought for very cheap. I bought a very good book of activities for the DELF B1 test which I'll be doing early January, ideally I would like to do every single excercise in this book before my test. But the biggest buy of the trip for me was some Savon de Marseille. I'm not a big fan of soap but in the progress of my study I heard about savon de Marseille from french fluent audio and I've been interested to get some ever since. So when I saw a shop selling the real Savon de Marseille at the Christmas markets on the Champs Elysee I had the chance to buy some and talk to the woman for a short time. I put a link in the previous paragraph for Fluent French audio. I've been using this resource for several weeks now for my study and I can tell you all without reservation that it is the bomb! I did not mention it in a earlier post because I wanted to give myself time to sufficiently describe the method and the product to you all. Unfortunately it is no longer being published but 6 publications are still available for shipping from what I understand. The course is aimed at the high beginner to advanced speaker. Essentially there are five interviews in each magazine and total audio time of interviews is one hour. So what makes this course so special for me? I love the fact that the interviews are so interesting. They discuss all things french. Thats the most important thing. Topics include marriage, cycling, lumiere brothers, La bise, French table etiquette. But what I've found the most interesting are the interviews with the people who own/run unique businesses, for example un Astrologue, bouquiniste, Escargots, fruits confits and Savon de Marseille. These interviews are not scripted and by native speakers. The audio is simply fantastic and what I've been looking for for a long time and it would stand on it's own as a study tool just with the audio. What really takes French Fluent Audio out of the stratosphere is that it has accompanying translation. English translation is directly underneath the French writing. It also has footnotes for idioms and difficult phrases. Each publication is approximately 100 pages long to accompany the audio. So far this has been the most effective tool for me to learn how the French really talk. It's not the news, it's not 19th century literature, it's not a false dialogue in a text book. What it is is two native speakers having a chat about something very interesting. What could be more beneficial? Edited by Adrean on 29 November 2009 at 6:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 83 of 98 01 December 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged |
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Off to my French class a little later and have a little spare time to kill. It is now the first day of the last month of the challenge. I guess now is as good as time as any to post regular updates of my studies. Generally I have made about an update a week up to now.
My overall goal was to understand French when spoken for 2009, not necessarily to speak fluently or write correctly. I suppose a good indication of my progress has been in watching Tout le monde veut prendre sa place. At the beginning of the year I was able to watch the show because I had the channel. I watched the show again several times in France recently and my improvement since January Febuary has been collasal really. Earlier this year I watched to tune my ear in and thought the host was funny though I did not understand what he said but now I can understand a lot of what is being said. Here is a clip. I have watched two films La Petite Lili by Claude Miller and La Femme d'aviateur by Eric Rohmer. Lots and lots of Anki and Fluent French Audio. Thats all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 84 of 98 05 December 2009 at 1:04pm | IP Logged |
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I must say I'm looking foward to competing viciously in the 2010 team challenge. I was rather underwhelmed at the idea of beginning a new log for 2010 but the team challenge has given me the extra motivation to maintain a log in '10'. It's worth pointing out that the '09' logs are still continuing. There are still a few of us limping up to the next year that managed to give regular updates throughout '09'. It's about that time now when we get the fruits of our labour. However I think we'll be old news as people prepare their new logs for 2010. I look foward to within the coming weeks throwing around my acheivements all over this forum and I will state my case for being the 2009 champion. I do believe I will be a slim chance outsider because I have contributed a little less regulary then others and there is also the fact that I studied only one language through the year. When I did post I did try to make it more then just a mere statement of what I studied. Frankly I think nobody finds that interesting. Very soon I hope to give a figure of approx. hours studied in 2009.
As for my studies I've had one minor achievement. On Anki there is a public shared deck of 3500 cards for French. If you're unfamiliar with Anki you will not care a bit for what I have to say. It doesn't feel like very long ago that I undertook adding 50 new cards each day to work on from this deck and just yesterday I finally reached the point where I had seen every card. I think slow and steady was the key to me finishing successfully. I had approximately 120-140 cards to revise each day in addition to the 50 new cards each day. I have not finished with the deck but I know the workload will become lighter and lighter as time goes on. I am in the process of completing my own deck of cards taken from different sources. I hope to share it with the public in the next few months. It's very very time consuming but it give me great pleasure to think I'll be contributing back to the community. The deck will comprise for the most part of sentences. I learned from the current deck (even though it's fantastic) that learning new words is best learned in context. Give a context to the verb and you'll understand much better. Ok thats all thankyou Edited by Adrean on 05 December 2009 at 1:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 85 of 98 08 December 2009 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
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I watched two films since the last post.
The first Coup De Torchon by Tavernier Noiret, 1938. En Afrique Occidentale Française. Lucien Cordier est l'unique policier d'une petite ville coloniale. Lorsque son officier supérieur lui fait prendre conscience de sa médiocrité, il se transforme en justicier inspiré par Dieu... The second Le Pacte Du Silence, Everyone has a secret. Twins Sarah and Gaëlle near 25; for ten years, Sarah has been a fundamentalist Carmelite in a Brazilian convent, and Gaëlle has been in prison for a heinous crime. I've been working on Learn French by Podcast along with their PDF lesson guides and noting any senetences that I can add to Anki. I downloaded a 3cd compliation called cafe de Paris. It features Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Josaphine Baker, Maurice Chevalier, Tina Rossi and Jean Sablon. It's very very old music. I though all of a sudden that I'm lacking in the French music department so.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 86 of 98 10 December 2009 at 1:32am | IP Logged |
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Its really apparent that I havent delved too much into French music as part of my studies as some of you for your studies. The problem is I really don't know where to begin especially with modern French music. So I choose the obvious Piaf, Gainsbourg etc.etc. I just want to share a few clips of music which I enjoy. The first is a clip taken from the film Tirer Sur La Pianiste which is a really nice film. Bobby Lapointe is singing. There are French subs which are included in the originial film for this scene.
Framboise ou Avanie And two songs from Edith Piaf with English subtitles. Really very special. The accordionist La Foule --------------------------------------------- Going through the Learn French by Podcast lessons a second time and adding lots of sentences to Anki which I hope to share with the world soon. I will share the deck when I reach 1000 sentences or so. There is a lack of a good solid intermediate deck of French sentences on Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 87 of 98 11 December 2009 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
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Just returned from class. We worked on expressing a point of view in a nuanced manner. In terms of specific grammer or vocabulary we worked on four words which I had a vague handle of but now after this class are cemented forever in my head (I hope). They are:
Cependant Pourtant Bien que Malgre Cependant and Pourtant mean more or less 'however'. I get the impression that Pourtant is slightly more formal. If anyone would like to elaborate on the difference between the two feel free. 'Bien que' means even though and is followed by the subjunctive which makes it slightly complicated. Malgre for me is like 'despite' in English and is followed up by a noun. We did an exercise in class where we wrote the beginning of a sentence and someone had to complete it. For example 'Malgre la circulation,........'.(anyone care or dare to finish?) Edited by Adrean on 11 December 2009 at 1:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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