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Gary’s TAC 2011 - Team Œ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5707 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 25 of 104 14 January 2011 at 12:44am | IP Logged |
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Yeah right I completely understand what you're say about not knowing where our progress
comes from. I guess the point to take home is to use a wide range of different materials which is not the most revolutionary idea. Thanks for the post, very informative. 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 26 of 104 18 January 2011 at 3:44pm | IP Logged |
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No updates for a few days as I haven't done loads of significant work...
Français Most of my French work recently has been watching TV shows and films: Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Misfits on the TV front; all dubbed, but I'll definitely put some native TV into the mix, for example Caméra Café, which I found very difficult to understand last time I attempted it but it should be easier now if my listening ability has actually increased like I think it has. Les 400 Coups on the film front, which I watched with simultaneous French and English subtitles which I think was certainly useful although required a lot of concentration. I also watched Inglourious Basterds which has plenty French spoken in it (and German, and a little Italian), with the bad-ass polyglot character Hans Landa. Also been listening to a bit of French radio from time to time (list of French radio stations with streaming). I'm doing my first private lesson tonight. Not sure what to expect from it or how it will go, but hopefully it'll be helpful and give me much needed speaking practice with someone who's actually there to help me as well as just talk. Using French arrived today, and I'll investigate it this evening or tomorrow. I also started on MT Advanced, which is mostly revision for me at this point but it should help me get a bit better at using the more complex tenses as I currently often get a bit tongue-tied when I'm trying to say things like "I would have had" etc.. Русский Haven't done as much work as I'd have liked to since I had a busy weekend. Slowly going through MT advanced, and still forgetting quite a few words. Also working through the Penguin book; again I need to go over things a few times before the stick, and it seems most useful for reinforcing and building upon what I've learned in MT. I've been reading some of the work emails in Russian to get some reading practice and I find that I can understand some of them due to knowing the basic verbs and prepositions and there being LOT of cognates with English, especially in technical language. I still don't think I'd be up to much in a conversation though. For after MT I'm not sure whether to give Pimsleur another try or to find a copy of Assimil La Russe sans peine. I reckon Pimsleur would probably be more useful for my current needs, then Assimil if I decide to pursue the language further in future. 2 persons have 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 27 of 104 19 January 2011 at 11:50am | IP Logged |
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My lesson yesterday evening was exactly how I thought it would be: we just had a conversation in French and she corrected my mistakes and explained various words and expressions that came up either because she used them and I didn't understand them, or because I wasn't sure how to express a particular idea. Definitely worth it, especially for the very reasonable price she's charging. It's the same price as Yakety Yak (the small group conversation sessions) in fact. One-to-one and group conversations are of course slightly different, albeit overlapping, skillsets and since both are important to me I think both the private and group sessions are worthwhile.
Good things (particularly things that she commented on): - My grammar, particularly my correct use of auxiliary verbs, tenses, etc.. I can probably thank my high school French for that, as they did drill the verbs into us. - Good vocabulary and knowledge of expressions. - Decent pronunciation; not perfect but definitely understandable. - I understood almost everything she said, and when I didn't, it was usually due to not knowing the word/expression rather than not being able to pick out words. "Bad" things (mistakes I made a lot): - 3rd person plural verb forms - I often forget which ones are pronounced the same as the singular and which aren't and which ones are irregular. For example at one point I said "ils faisent" instead of "ils font". I guess these verb forms give me trouble because they're less predictable than the others. - Certain words always trip me up, for example "emmenager" (I always forget which 'e' is pronounced how) and "embrouiller" (quelle ironie, le mot « embrouiller » m'embrouille!). - A lot of minor mistakes. For all these "bad" things it's just a case of practice makes perfect really, and focusing on what I find difficult, the "weakest links" as it were. One concern though is that, with me not being the greatest conversationalist, we'll run out of things to talk about. I guess having more in-depth discussions or debates about particular subjects would help with that. I do sometimes worry that my below-average social skills impede my language learning progress, particularly when it comes to less structured events like meetups; ah well, that's something else to work on, and by socialising in French I'm killing two birds with one stone, at least in theory and as long as I make an effort. I've ordered a copy of the book Conversationally Speaking which should at least help me take my conversational skills from bad to OK which will benefit me in all areas of life. On the subject of Meetups, I went to one last night, since I was already "warmed up" from the lesson, but yet again it was just a case of being spoken to in English, people being unfriendly and downright rude (e.g., turning away from me to exclude me from the conversation or completely ignoring me when I speak to them), and most people sticking to their native language. I think I'm going to make the switch to the Wednesday (all-French) meetups now rather than the Tuesday (English/French exchange) ones. The exchange idea is great in theory and I'd be very happy to help people with their English in exchange for them helping me with my French, but in practice it's just a disaster. Even if I don't get much chance to talk at the all-French meetup, at least the conversation around me will always be in French so it won't be a complete waste of time. I'm not usually one to talk about politics, but I can't help but see the parallel with communism and capitalism: the "exchange" meetups theoretically benefit everyone equally but in practice the few people at the top of the social "hierarchy" get a much better deal, whereas private lessons allow you to get exactly what you want as long as you have the money. 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 28 of 104 24 January 2011 at 1:16pm | IP Logged |
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J'ai été très occupé ces derniers jours - les fêtes, la famille, et la musique ont pris la priorité. Mais hier j'ai enfin commencé Using French et pour l'instant tout va bien. Les enregistrements ont beaucoup plus de variété d'accents plutôt que les accents « standards » sur French With Ease. D'après la première leçon, ce livre aide à dépasser du niveau de pouvoir comprendre et se faire comprendre à « vivre la langue », et c'est exactement ce dont j'ai besoin.
Non ho recentemente studiato l'italiano ma ho passato del tempo con alcuni dei mii amici Italiani. Non penso che ubriacarsi con dei Italiani è come studiare ma potevo un po' di ciò che dicevano. Dicono che « io capisco l'italiano » ma non è davvero vero... У меня не есть так много времени для русския - я роботаю над MT Advanced и я понимаю грамматика пока что но я забыду слова. That sentence was my first attempt at writing anything in Russian so it's probably VERY incorrect. I'm going to try and write here in all my languages once a week from now on. Edited by garyb on 24 January 2011 at 1:23pm 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 29 of 104 26 January 2011 at 5:37pm | IP Logged |
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Another French lesson yesterday, we were working through some short texts, extracts from news, literature, etc.. Firstly I'd read aloud to work on speech and pronunciation, which is similar to what I sometimes do on my own but having a native speaker there to correct me and explain words/expressions is very helpful. Then I'd try to summarise/paraphrase the text and give some observations on it, all in French of course. Definitely useful stuff; some of the texts were a bit too formal or old-fashioned but there were still some good expressions and summarising was quite challenging at times because it required thinking about what words and expressions to use to explain the facts.
If I find some free time I'll try watching French Simpsons episodes and following along with the transcripts (available online), it should be a good source of conversational expressions etc. and the transcript will ensure that I actually pick everything up and go through it in detail, and the fact that I've seen most of the older episodes will help as I'm familiar with the story. For proper listening comprehension practice there's more than enough other material out there. 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 30 of 104 01 February 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged |
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Weekly writing time!
J'ai regardé quelques épisodes des séries américaines doublés en français: Les Simpson ( avec transcriptions, comme j'ai dit ), Les Griffin, South Park, Les Griffin étant de loin la plus difficile de comprendre. Je continue à faire Assimil, lire des blogs et des sites web en français, et écoute la radio quand j'ai le temps. Je n'avais pas le temps de suivre MT Advanced. J'ai téléchargé le livre audio du Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. Je ne sais pas si ce livre me conviendra, étant donné son âge et mon intérêt pour la langue moderne. J'écouterai les premiers chapitres dans le bus ce soir avec les nouveaux écouteurs que j'ai achetés - ils ont du technologie d'atténuation de bruit afin que je puisse écouter dans un environnement bruyant sans m'abîmer les oreilles ! Le matin je me surprends souvent à penser et me parler en une langue étrangère quand je me réveille. Surtout français mais de temps en temps russe ou italien. Я поеду в Украину через 2 недели. Может быть. Я ещё не узнал. No Italian. I don't have the time to even think about Italian, at least until after Ukraine (where, as I tried to say in the Russian bit, I may or may not be going in 2 weeks). Studying two languages at once is crazy enough. For Russian, I don't feel anywhere near ready for a conversation as I haven't come across much actual conversational vocabulary or expressions yet. Also I don't know any numbers at all. They're two areas to work on before I go. I'm hoping to start Pimsleur soon and it should cover a good bit of that. Numbers is also a weak area of my French - whenever I read, hear, or say a number, I have to pause and think. I need to practice numbers specifically so they become more automatic. 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 31 of 104 03 February 2011 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
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I went to Meetup last night and got to converse a bit. I'm feeling a bit frustrated at my conversational French, it just doesn't seem to be improving a whole lot and it's difficult to find the time and opportunity to practice it anywhere near enough. I just need to keep looking for opportunities and try to make the time. I'll also go on SharedTalk more; it's not the same as a real spoken conversation but it allows you to practice some of the skills and I can use it in situations when I can't actually talk.
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| 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 32 of 104 07 February 2011 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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Français: pas grand chose, just continuing with Assimil.
Русский: Finished MT advanced, about bloody time! Started on Pimsleur today. It's mostly revision so far, and a bit slow and boring, but has already filled in a few gaps (for example I now know how to say I speak a bit of Russian, rather than just that I do or I don't) and revision of the basics is always useful at this stage. I'm also continuing with the Penguin book, which as I've said before is most useful for revising what I've already learned and learning the written language. I'm proud to say that my understanding and production of spoken Russian is better than that of written Russian - it's nice to be doing things the right way round this time! Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my ability to read and write French well, but the spoken language is a lot more important to me. A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with a workmate about music and languages, and we agreed that in both cases it's best to hear and try to produce first before you start thinking too much about the rules and the notation, and when you do learn these, they make a lot more sense within the context of what you've heard. Edited by garyb on 07 February 2011 at 12:44am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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