|
 |
Gary’s TAC 2011 - Team Œ | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 73 of 104 13 June 2011 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
|
I gave the exchange a miss as catching up on sleep was a more productive thing to do. I
did go to the Wednesday meetup as always, and it was good although people weren't as talkative as usual, myself included, seemed that everyone was a bit tired. The week wasn't as productive as I had hoped, as I was told at short notice that I had a job interview with CERN! Not an in-person interview or even a phone one, but rather a recorded video interview where questions come up on the screen and you give your answer on video. It's a lot more difficult talking to a camera than talking to another person, although thankfully as I've mentioned I've done a bit of talking to the camera in French previously so it wasn't a completely new experience. Anyway if I get through to the next stage (hopefully a real interview) I'm sure they'll want some evidence of the French skills that I claimed in the application. And if I were to get the job, it would be in a mostly French-speaking environment so I'd finally have a good chance to reach a decent level in the language, and to be honest that's one of my main motivations for getting the job... Anyway preparing for, and doing, that interview (including dealing with the inevitable technical problems) took up a couple of evenings and all of Saturday so no real study to report. On Sunday I mostly watched TV and films: - A TF1 documentary about what French teenagers are getting up to these days - looks like our binge drinking and drug culture has well and truly made its way across the Channel! And yes, they refer to it as "le binge- drinking". http://videos.tf1.fr/enquetes-et-revelations/sexe-alcool-et- drogue-enquete- sur-la-face-cachee-des-ados-6519105.html (if I'm very lucky then the forum software might not break that link...) - A film called Le Vilain, a comedy about a bank robber who takes refuge in his mum's house. I didn't have much trouble understanding it which is good. - The usual Simpsons and South Park episodes. I also made a start on a course on slang last week, although I keep forgetting to do the last few lessons... Anyway, only three days to go... Edited by garyb on 13 June 2011 at 12:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6087 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 74 of 104 13 June 2011 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
|
wow I hope you get the job! The next three days should give you plenty of time to prepare..
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 75 of 104 15 June 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged |
|
Thanks!
L'épreuve has come, I'm off to France early tomorrow morning. As I've said I don't really feel ready, at least on the speaking side of things, but I'll see when I get there. Hopefully if I get in a few good conversations I'll get into the swing of it and be able to evaluate my progress properly. I'll report back and set new goals as necessary of course! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 76 of 104 21 June 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
|
TRIP AND PROGRESS REPORT
(and: long post warning!) As I've stated before, my main French goal was to, to quote from my original log, "be comfortable in French conversations" for June for the Hellfest music festival in France, as it would be the perfect opportunity to use the language. I just got back from the festival so here's the report on it and on my progress and goals in general. To be honest, overall, it was a bit of an anticlimax and I didn't actually get to speak a whole lot of French. The atmosphere just wasn't the same as last year and, while people were friendly enough, they mostly just stuck to their groups and didn't really socialise a whole lot. On the plus side though I did get in a lot of short conversations, which are the ones I really need practice with because as I've said I'm usually fine when I get settled into a proper conversation but it's the first bit that I find hard. Switching to English was also a problem - if my trips in the last couple of years are anything to go by, the majority of young people in France speak at least passable English (I'd conservatively estimate 3 in 4 do), and will switch to it as soon as it becomes obvious that I'm not a native French speaker which is generally of course pretty quickly. A one-second pause, probably with body language that made it clear that I was having to think, was enough to trigger the switch. Also, I started all my interactions with airport staff in French, but they'd immediately switch to English upon seeing my British passport. Also I handled all the typical "getting by" situations like shopping and buying train tickets very easily: I had no problems understanding and making myself understood, and importantly I didn't feel nervous at all which is a big step up from my last trip to France a few months ago. I think that was as much due to my attitude as my ability - instead of thinking about it as "I'm going to have to buy train tickets in French" and thinking about exactly what to say, I just thought of it as "I'm going to buy train tickets" and didn't make a big deal out of the fact that it was in another language, and I reminded myself that my French was good enough to handle the situation without preparing in advance. Half the battle for me is just feeling confident in my ability so I'm glad I'm starting to do so. When you have that confidence, the words just flow a lot more easily and you become a better speaker because your mind isn't busy worrying. Originally I thought I was going to be the main "spokesperson" for my group of friends, but then it turned out that a French Canadian girl was joining us and so she'd obviously be a lot more qualified for the job. That meant I got a lot less practice than I thought I might, although I'm sure it was for the rest of the group's benefit :P. I did overhear a ton of conversations between French people and I understood almost everything in most cases, even when there was a lot of slang involved. My use of films and TV has definitely paid off. I still sometimes didn't understand when someone came up to me and said something completely random in French, but not really any more so than when that happens in English - if someone comes up to you and just starts talking, you often don't quite pick up the first bit even in your native language. I always understood after asking them to repeat. Overall it was definitely a positive experience. Even if I didn't get to converse and get to know people anywhere near as much a I had hoped, it felt great to be in a foreign country and be able to completely understand almost everything that was going on around me. Anyway going back to goals, my goal was to be comfortable in French conversations, and I'd say I succeeded at that, albeit barely. Compared to a year ago, my listening comprehension and knowledge of the language have improved massively and I'd definitely put them at a fairly advanced level. My speech is also much better: a year ago I hadn't learned pronunciation properly and it was obvious, but there's still a big gap between my understanding ability and my production ability, and I still make a lot of mistakes and often have to think. Even compared to my last trip to France in March I think I've improved noticeably, at least regarding pronunciation and confidence. I'm proud of what I've achieved but I still feel that for all the hours and hard work I hoped I'd be a bit better by now. My main problem was that, despite all my efforts to find opportunities to speak, I still just didn't get anywhere near enough of them. Finding people to speak to is HARD; in fact I'd say it's been the hardest part of learning the language for me and still is. Since that goal's out of the way I'm going to tentatively set my new goal: be fluent by June 2012. Which is of course quite vague and requires a definition of fluency, for which I think the dictionary definition will suffice: able to express oneself easily and articulately. So perfection isn't required, but the easily part is important - I want to be able to say what I want to say without hesitation and thinking. I know that a year is a very long time in Internet language learning community time with Fluent in 3 months and Yearlyglot etc., but I think given what I've achieved in the last year, my limited time and resources, the way time flies by, and the fact that I don't seem to be a particularly fast language learner, it's quite reasonable. Obviously if I'd love to get there in less time, and maybe I will, but I'm just trying to be realistic given my situation. To break it down into smaller goals, I plan to (in order of importance): - Get pronunciation out of the way. I still need to get to the point where I pronounce French well and effortlessly. Currently I have to think about pronunciation, which causes a big bottleneck in the brain-to-words process, lest I make big mistakes that often prevent understanding. It needs to become automatic so it's one less thing to think about. Thanks to all my recent work I now at least know specifically what good pronunciation involves, so I just need lots of practice in order to make it a habit. Fortunately I can practice on my own by reading from texts, talking to myself, recording myself, etc. since I'm aware of all the obvious mistakes. - Improve my general conversation/social skills so that I get more out of the limited speaking time that I have, not to mention other innumerable benefits in life. This is another significant "bottleneck" for me. - Keep speaking as much as I can and looking for as many opportunities as possible. - Keep watching films and TV, and focus on not only the words but the contexts in which they are used and the non-verbal communication, and apply what I learn to my speech in order to make my French "more French". For that reason I'll start focusing more on native TV rather than dubbed Simpsons episodes etc.. - Regularly set very short-term and concrete goals, along the lines of the most recent Yearlyglot post. - Start writing in French regularly again, to practise expressing myself at times when I can't practise speaking. - Keep reading, to increase my knowledge of the language. This is at the bottom because my knowledge is already good, but there's always more to learn. Short term goals for this week: - Join the French Institute - I was told about this recently, they have a library with lots of French DVDs and they're 5 minutes walk from my work so I have no excuse. I might even be able to speak French with the staff! - Go to the Meetup tomorrow and talk to at least 5 people. - Write a diary of my Hellfest trip in French (I'll post it on here in instalments). - Finish reading Conversationally Speaking (yes, that book I started on months ago). - Find a good French TV series to watch. Hell, if I'm feeling very dedicated and can't find anything better, I might even have to resort to soap operas as they have plenty realistic and everyday (although of course exaggerated) situations and language. Any suggestions of native French sitcoms/dramas are very welcome! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 77 of 104 24 June 2011 at 6:29pm | IP Logged |
|
Hellfest diary instalment as promised!
I'm also posting it to Lang8 in the off-chance that someone might correct it. You never know! Première partie - Jeudi J’ai dû me lever à trois heures du matin - un peu difficile après une fête chez un ami la veille, mais j’étais très excité d’y aller donc je n'ai pas eu de mal à me reveiller. Pendant le reste de la journée je ne me sentais pas fatigué du tout. On a pris l’avion à Édimbourg pour Paris, et ensuite le TGV de Paris jusqu’à Nantes. La dernière étape du trajet était un train régional au petit village de Clisson, pour lequel je devais acheter un billet - une tâche que j’ai éffectué en français sans peine et j’ai même plaisanté « oui, pour Hellfest, comme tout le monde ». Mais ce que je ne savais pas, c’était que personne n’avait pas acheté de billet parce qu’il n’y avait pas de contrôleur dans le train. Tant pis; au moins, c’était une occasion de pratiquer mon français, et je peux dire que j’ai soutenu la SNCF... La gare de Clisson était chargée de gendarmes ; je me demandais pourquoi, est-ce qu’on leur a prévenu de quelque chose ? La violence ? Nous, les métalleux, sommes généralement assez paisible pour la plupart. Pour vérifier les billets ? Non, il ne faut pas plusieurs gendarmes pour faire ça. Ils nous ont menés à la sortie de la gare, tout en veillant à ce que personne n’échappe par un autre chemin. Après avoir pris un virage, j'ai compris - des chiens policiers, qui cherchaient la drogue. Sans doute, ils ont réussi un beau coup. On est arrivés, et puis on a monté les tentes, on est allés au supermarché chercher de la bouffe et des bières, et s’est installés au camping. Après cette longe journée je n’avais pas envie de faire la fête, alors je me suis couché. Edited by garyb on 24 June 2011 at 8:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 78 of 104 29 June 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
|
So I didn't quite meet my weekly goals...
- Join French Institute: done, and done entirely in French at that. Success. - Meetup: success, plenty talking. - Hellfest diary - only did 1 part out of 4. - Book - didn't even have time to pick it up. - TV show - started watching Engrenages, a policier series. Success. I was very busy in the last week, and I accomplished the important things, so I'm happy enough. You might have noticed that I haven't written anything about Russian recently. I haven't studied any Russian for a few weeks now, and I don't know when I will again. This is due to being busy, realising just how much more work I still need to do on my French, not having any use for Russian coming up in the near future unless this mythical Ukraine trip for work ever actually materialises, and, after a not very spectacular performance at a gig a few days ago, realising that I've not been spending as much time on my guitar playing as I should be. So as much as I'd love to continue with Russian, I just don't think it's the best option given my priorities and time. French goals: Another busy week coming up so I'm being conservative. - Go to at least one real-life French speaking event. Maybe Yakety Yak although I'll have to leave early because it happens on Wednesday evening just like, well, every other event of any description; maybe try to go for a drink with some people I know from Meetup. - At least one Skype chat - it's been too long since I did that. - Watch a film and/or a couple of TV episodes. - Write at least 1 more Hellfest diary instalment. - Read at least a chapter of Conversationally Speaking. Edited by garyb on 29 June 2011 at 1:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 79 of 104 04 July 2011 at 1:12pm | IP Logged |
|
Latest speaking attempts:
Wednesday: Yakety Yak. Last time I went it was mostly relative beginners who weren't making any effort whatsoever regarding pronunciation (obviously they had yet to go to France and learn of its importance the hard way like I did) and kept reverting to English. This time though it was a smaller group with more advanced speakers, which was a bit of a struggle for me since I was probably at the lowest level out of everyone, but it was definitely more useful and I had more chance to talk. Thursday: tried to arrange a Skype call but it didn't work out. Friday: I was supposed to be meeting a few French people who I know from meetups and go for food and drinks. Which sounded great: plenty opportunity to practice my French in a social setting and get to know them better. However I waited for a while and didn't see them, and couldn't get into contact. Apparently they were there but we didn't see each other... Who knows. I was a bit frustrated from these couple of days since I feel like I'm making so much effort to talk to people but it's just not working out. Sunday: Finally a Skype chat. Good but we couldn't talk for too long as I had plenty other stuff to do. Other news - I watched the film Nikita. Enjoyable film, and the DVD includes audio in 5 languages and subtitles in about 12 - I imagine some of the serious learners on this forum could get plenty mileage out of that disc! Unfortunately no French subtitles; the holy grail of a French film with French subtitles is as elusive as ever. English subtitles are useful as long as you pay attention to the spoken French and don't get lazy and rely on the subs, but sometimes there's a sentence I just can't catch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 80 of 104 05 July 2011 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
|
I just quit my job today which means absolutely no chance of a Ukraine trip, so that's
the final nail in the Russian coffin for me. It's a great language and I'll certainly pick it up again sometime in the future (or another Slavic language if one becomes more useful to me) but for now I want to get the big-hitting Romance languages out of the way first since they're easier and far more useful to me, and after that time I'll be a much more experienced language learner which will help when I do come to tackle Russian. So my current plan is to continue with French, restart Italian once I get to an advanced level in French (how long that will take is almost entirely dependent on how much speaking opportunity I get), or sooner if a plan to go to Italy comes up (you never know!) and in the longer term I'm quite sure Spanish will be my next language, most likely followed by a non-romance language like German or Russian. But anyway let's not get ahead of myself since I'm still struggling with French and I don't know what my situation will be and what languages will be most useful to me in a year or two's time. (edit: to clear things up, I quit my job to go to another, so there won't be a period of full-time language study, sorry I mean unemployment, like I had last year. However I do have some holiday time to take so I'll hopefully get a week or so to spare which I'll divide equally between language study, music practice, and partying!) Edited by garyb on 05 July 2011 at 6:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
