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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 57 of 98 17 July 2009 at 1:16am | IP Logged |
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Hi all
Half way through my 52 hours of Listen-Reading in 52 days challenge 52 hours L-Ring in 52 days challenge Day 18-26 6.5 hours 22/52 hours As you can see I've a little catching up to do to be on target. Only excuse is personal life is a bit more busier then usual (which is a good thing). Enjoying the book very much. Occasionly it does seem to veer into multiple plots that seem at first to be unimportant, but what can you expect from a book that is probably bigger then War and Peace. There was only one reader till the last chapter and the new guy is utter rubbish. I hope he doesn't read too many chapters in the book. My last post was a little somber after a bad class but the following class was actually very good. We have an assignment this week to write an opinion in French of a film we have recently seen on a forum. This forum is as good as any other so expect a review of Au Hasard de Balthazar very soon in French. We did have a short piece to hand in this week and this is what I wrote. Be kind! We were given a random headline and had to write a corresponding story. Un homme qui eest bien connu de la police heir est tombe d'un train en marche. Le veillard qui a cette annee quatre-vingt cinq ans a ete pleusieurs fois arrete pour de petites infraction au dode de la route. La derniere fois qu'il a ete arrete il avait grille un feu rouge. C'etait la derniere infraction et apres un petit sejour en prison il a ete remis en liberte sans son permis. Les circonstances au sujet de sa chute sont encore inconnes de la police mais le suicide n'est pas exclu. Not much else to add really. Slowly working my way through Futurama season 3 and reading l'etranger very slowly. A french guy who I work with was trying to teach me some slang today. I'm not quite up to slang yet! 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 58 of 98 01 August 2009 at 11:48am | IP Logged |
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It's been a couple of weeks since my last post here.
I went to Paris to visit a brother who lives there. Saw the end of the Tour de France on the champs elysee. Saw just about every major tourist that you can think of when you see Paris. In terms of language efforts it was a success for me. I had my first long extended conversation with a French person. I got across mostly what I wanted to say and didn't need to revert to English. I suppose this is a minor milestone reached. I also did all the little things like buying tickets or food in French. Bought a ticket to Versailles and needed information, I asked in English as was at major location and the lady spoke English but we quickly changed to French when she hesitated a little. I think what I learned from the trip is that if at some point I want to go to France to do one of the language courses in a school for a month or two it would be an invaluable experience and I would gain a lot from it. I plan to do so at some point in the future. In terms of my other studies and goals they have come to a grinding halt because of time restraints and a lingering apathy since my return from France. I will hit them hard soon! 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 59 of 98 09 August 2009 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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Hello once again from your big slacker.
Yes I'm slacking and passing through an extended lull in my studies. Any effort at studies that require more then just a little effort make me woozy. I don't know what this can be attributed to but I hope to snap out of it soon. My course at alliance Francaise finished last week and I've choosen not to continue this term. Actually I didn't choose but was forced to because of lack of funds. It's a bit dissapointing as I was learning lots of grammar and was speaking French in the class. It may seem that everything has come to a grinding halt but not exactly. I am still actively watching films, tv shows and random stuff on youtube. On youtube I've mostly been watching interviews with directors that I like. There are two interviews that stand out because of the aggressiveness of the interviewers. It looks like they are being put on trial, and for what? Anyone can recommned some nice stuff on youtube I will be really happy. With Bresson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVODh2lkVdc With Godard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJbPHboAsbQ I saw two films recently. I saw La Ceremonie by Claude Chaboral which I really recommend to you all. I picked it up at random and it's a real gem. The other was Ascenseur pour l'echafaud by Louis Malle. I didn't like this one as much. I've seen three films by Louis Malle now and i've yet to find a film I like a lot. Now there is a girl a work who spent some time in France learning French as a second language and she can speak fluently. I didn't try previously to speak to her as did not want to draw attention to myself as being just another person learning french, but now I couldn't give a stuff. So recently we've been talking pretty much in only French for small conversations. I told her previously that I was learning French but she can't believe how much I was keeping my French under wraps. I don't know why I just didn't speak earlier. But it's good pratice anyway for me. Well 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 60 of 98 16 August 2009 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
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One of my favourite hobbies when I have the time is to pop into a bookstore and gawk away at the language learning books. I know at this point in my studies that purchasing one of these books would not help a great deal. I prefer not to study from a book on grammar or a course in print if I can help it. Nevertheless it's a nice way to kill some time. Most books I flick through are mind boggingly complicated when they go into explanations for points of grammar. 99.9% of the time I go empty handed into the shop and come out empty handed.
I've stumbled across a wealth of free resources recently which I'm not sure is completely legal. It's great for me because it combines my love of language learning with my love of good cinema. That resource is youtube. Up till now I somehow didn't notice that there are an abundance of films sometimes with subtitles or without. Some directors if you are interested on youtube are Godard, Bresson, Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabarol and I'm sure many more I havent bothered to look up yet. If your a fan of French or world cinema you know the extortion prices you have to pay for DVD's. I simply cannot indulge in a DVD here or there. I've watched two very good films up on youtube. Masculine Feminine by Godard and Les Biches by Chabarol. You can go and watch them now if you like. Also finished watching a Season of futurama in french with french subs. Listening to learn in you car french as walk to work each day and before bed Continuing to talk with co-worker who speaks french and talked with my mother last night on the phone in French for one hour. Her native language is French. We never really conversed in French as previously she wasn't very patient and I wasn't very good. Progress is being made sort of... Edited by Adrean on 25 August 2009 at 10:42pm 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 61 of 98 25 August 2009 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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Going to spend the next couple of days away in Brussels. They speak French there right??
As for studies watching clips and movies in French on youtube including film un homme s;est echapper. Finished reading L'etranger by Albert Camus. A friend transfered 50 plus films to my hard drive. Most films are English films dubbed in french but a good 15 are French originals. I therefore have a host of movies to watch for the forseable future.... Report back with my French language adventures in Brussels Edited by Adrean on 25 August 2009 at 8:49pm 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 62 of 98 03 September 2009 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
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I had a small language revelation this week for me in terms of language tools. I've heard about Anki here and there on this forum and I finally decided to download it. I've previously used mneysonmne(sp)but found entering words a labourious and time consuming chore. I downloaded Anki and found myself an intermediate deck of 3000+ words. Joy! I'm sure you knew all about this though and didn't want to let me in on the secret. But wow what an invaluable and free resource. So far about 3 hours on Anki.
Yes I did go to Brussels but plans changed and rushed briefly through Brussels and then onto Amsterdam. I said a few Merci's and several Bonjour's but that was depth and width of my French use in Brussels. Dommage! Saw two films dubbed into French. I will relucantly add one to my list of films seen this year. It was finding neverland. Wow what people choose to watch really amazes me. This film was beyond the beyond of horrible for me. The other was Wallace and Gromit. Easing my way back into L-Ring. Yes it's a daunting prospect for me. But when you are half way through a 52 hour audiobook do you really want to quit? I must say there's countless countless hours which could and should be recorded onto this log. The time before I go to sleep and walking to work I try to use as time for study. I just listen to audiobooks or review some Michel Thomas. I'm not going to count seconds and minutes though just to beef up this log. And I apologize for the last few posts as I've just been recounting the study that I've been doing and not offering any fresh prospectives or new ideas. I promise I will try to think of something original to say the next time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5990 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 63 of 98 04 September 2009 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
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"Very simply it's listening in your target language and reading and following in your native language."
Are you really just listening to french, and reading everything in English? I would strongly recommend against that. You should just read everything in french while listening in french. Just skip over the words you don't know, and keep going. I've been doing this with German and it helps a lot. I'm reading the second Harry Potter book in German, while listening to the German audiobook. I'm also taking sentences from there and putting them into Anki to help reinforce certain words and phrases. This seems to work quite 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 64 of 98 07 September 2009 at 10:29pm | IP Logged |
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Yeh Doviende at this stage I am reading and listening in French to Count of Monte Cristo. I'm following the story just fine doing it this way. It also means I never lose my place. I think that entering new words and sentences into Anki is the next step for me.
Actually I've been enjoying my daily Anki work out. I've found with the ready-made Anki intermediate deck of 3000 plus cards I am good with body parts vocabulary but not so good with fruit and vegetables. Something I didn't know. I'm enjoying Anki so much and looking foward to the 50 new words each day. I'm glad that the words come grouped together such as body parts, fruits and idioms. If you don't have Anki go and immediately download it and the intermediate deck of cards. And I have returned to L-Ring. It was a bit of an extended absence but I'm back! Has anybody out there on this forum done more L-Ring then me? I hate to show off but here is what I've done since I learned of Listening-Reading. This year 20000 Leagues Under the Sea - 15 Jane Eyre - 19.5 hours Ivanhoe by Walter Scott - 18.5 hours Persuasion - 4.5 hours Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - 3.5 hours Contes de la Becasse - 4 hours La Mare Au Diable - 2.5 hours La Logeuse - 3.5 Un armour de Swann by Proust- 8.5 hours Bel Ami by Maupassant - 11.5 hours Germinal by Zola- 20 hours Previously Le Petit Prince - 2 Hours x3(6 hours) La Bete Humaine - 12.5 Hours Madame Bovary - 12.5 Hours x2(25 hours) Une Vie - 8 Hours Journey to the Centre of the Earth - 7 Hours Around the World in 80 Days - 8 Hours x2(16 hours) The Metamorphsis - 2.5 Hours x2(5 hours) The Death of Ivan Illyich - 2.5 hours The Hunchback of Notre Dame - 19.5 hours Le Rouge et Le Noir - 20 hours Therese Raquin - 7.5 hours So thats 240 hours of study spent on just Listening-Reading. Can anyone out there match this.....I will very soon have an additional 52 hours to add to this once I finish my current book. Also endless hours have been spent just listening to previously read audiobooks. I am the guru! And finally watched another film of Chabrol's called 'Masques'. Chabrol has been a nice little discovery for me. All the films I've seen of his have been consistent and good. Always on a low scale but fascinating films nevertheless. The worlds he presents may be very removed from my own but there is a humaness and a particular style which always sucks me in. Edited by Adrean on 07 September 2009 at 10:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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