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Gary’s TAC 2012 - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 57 of 167 28 March 2012 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I went to the Language Café a couple of nights ago (it's changed from Tuesday to Monday), which turned out to be an almost complete waste of time. In the spirit of the TAC, which by my interpretation is all about "annihilating" inefficiency in your learning methods, it's time to look critically at my French activities and do a bit of annihilation.
Conversation group I talked about a few posts ago - inefficient. Almost two hours of my day and a small amount of money just to say a few sentences with a group of learners and one native speaker who rarely corrects mistakes. I don't think it's useless, but I just don't get enough out of it for what I put in, so GONE. Language Café - inefficient overall, if you compare the good nights I've had there to the bad ones which have felt like a waste of an entire evening. It's a great idea in theory and I really want to like it, but it's just too hit-or-miss between the success depending on who decides to turn up on a particular night, the relatively low level of a lot of the learners, and the foreigners who're generally far more interested in practising their English than helping anybody learn their language. I'm still in two minds about it because as I've said it's a good opportunity to meet people and practice my conversation skills, but for now it's just getting frustrating so GONE. French meetup - efficient. Most attendees are either native speakers or fairly good speakers, so it's an almost guaranteed couple of hours of French conversation. There's been a few bad nights but they're rare. KEPT. Just wish it happened more often and on a more convenient night of the week. Self-talk - efficient. I'm fully aware that it's a next-best-thing method for when real conversation isn't available, and while it's obviously not as good as a good conversation, it's far better than a bad conversation. And no need to travel somewhere so it's very time-effective. I suppose it can be seen as a "low-risk-limited-reward" method compared to something like Language Café where I take the risk of wasting a whole load of time for the small possibility of a great reward. KEPT. Skype - efficient. Half an hour of one-to-one French conversation in exchange for half an hour of English. KEPT and I might even start looking for more Skype partners again. Shadowing - efficient up to a point. Good for improving intonation, learning to speak quickly and accurately, and revising material; not so useful for spontaneous speech. I'd do more of it if I had the time, but for now it's KEPT as an every-so-often activity. Films/TV - not amazingly efficient but good for listening comprehension, seeing the language in use, and learning expressions. Not my focus but again KEPT for when I have the time or am not in the mood for more "intensive" work. And I can't help but think that the fact that almost every successful non-immersion language learner outside of this whole online community cites films and TV as the main reason for their success means that it's worth something... Reading - inefficient for my goals but useful for times when no other method is possible, so by virtue of being better than doing nothing it's KEPT. Writing - same as reading. The effect of regular writing on my spoken production ability hasn't been massive, but I don't think it's been negligible either. Giving up the language café and conversation group gives me several more free hours per week to do more productive activities, not to mention to pursue music a bit more which I haven't been doing nearly enough recently. And the final nail in the language café coffin - I've just found out that there's an Italian meetup the same evening. I've signed up for that and will hopefully go next week. It's really about time I got started conversing properly, and while I feel like I'm not quite ready yet, it's too easy to make excuses for not being ready. Hell, I'm objectively more "ready" than a lot of the people who I've met at French meetups. Going somewhere where everybody is speaking Italian should make it a lot easier for me to converse than trying to convince someone at the language café to help me. Quite excited about this. Edited by garyb on 28 March 2012 at 12:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 58 of 167 03 April 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Italiano
I just went to my first Italian meetup. It was a small group of 6-7 people, in a quiet bar, speaking Italian all the time. Pretty much an ideal situation for more advanced speakers, but a bit tough for beginners as the more advanced speakers tend to dominate the conversation and it's hard to get a word in, especially when you have to think about what you want to say. In a way that isn't a bad thing as it forces you to be assertive, interrupt, and have some confidence in your ability lest you remain silent the whole evening; however I think some more learner-friendly situations like one-to-one conversations or a guided conversation group would certainly balance it out. I definitely plan on going back, but especially at my current stage I think I'd get more return on my investment from a language exchange or begging my Italian friends for help. I was pleasantly surprised by my listening comprehension - there were maybe three or four sentences during the course of almost two hours that I didn't understand. I wasn't so pleasantly surprised by my speaking ability though - finding the words was difficult and my pronunciation, which is reasonably good when I do shadowing or talk to myself, wasn't great. I think that was mostly due to it being a situation that I'm not used to and where I was under pressure to get the words out quickly, although also my lack of knowledge and often simply not knowing how to say what I wanted to say was a big contributing factor. Makes me think about the whole early speaking debate - starting fairly early and getting used to conversations, versus waiting for longer until you have more knowledge and therefore confidence for these conversations. I'm still on the former side as I just find that, no matter how good your knowledge, the only thing that really improves speaking ability is speaking. Anyway this is all very familiar from my French experience - my first French meetup was much the same - and in fact it made me realise how far I've come as these sorts of conversations no longer give me much difficulty. My plan remains the same - finish Assimil then move onto speaking as much as possible plus lots of native materials. Français Went to meetup, meetup was good, the usual. Definitely happy with my French progress in recent weeks; I just wish I had more chance to speak it with people! The thought that I'll be spending over a week in France in a couple of months definitely helps keep me focused - nothing like a good deadline to create a sense of urgency! Edited by garyb on 03 April 2012 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cihlomorka Triglot Newbie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4614 days ago 15 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak, EnglishC1 Studies: Polish, Latin, FrenchB2, Persian, Italian | Message 59 of 167 09 April 2012 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Hallo Gary,
I am a newbie to both the Romantics team and this forum. After reading your log down attentively I can see we share quite identic goals, even if my Italian is at much earlier stage since I only started two weeks ago with no previous insight to the language, and I take it rather slow in order to make the phonetics stick in my mind... I am currently following quite a traditional way of learning, with one textbook (Routledge Colloquial Italian) and Vocabulearn for building a basic vocabulary. Furthermore, I do something seemingly absurd and listen to podcasts and songs in the Italian radio (in full speed) - not in order to learn (usually, I merely catch a few words), but to get used to the language's sound and phonetic patterns in the same way a baby is getting used to it before he starts talking. I got the idea from this article http://www.everydaylanguagelearner.com/2012/01/30/language-l earning-tip-use-music-learn-foreign-language/ and some others promoting the "Listen then Speak method", and as I am also a musician, I have a feeling it may actually make some sense. I only keep these three studying methods and I've decided to do so for some time since I am that scatterbrained and eclectic type who gets easily distracted on search for new, and new, and even newer materials. :) I am however considering to add some other things in the future. You mention in your posts Michael Thomas, Pimsleur and Assimil. After what you've already experienced, which sequence/combination of these three courses would you recommend me? Wishing you all the best. Hopefully we can meet each other in Paris in summer and exchange some French/Italian ! :) Carolina 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 60 of 167 10 April 2012 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the wishes Carolina! It does indeed sound like we have similar goals, and
I'm just a wee bit jealous of you living in Paris for a year... I've never used music a lot as part of my studying but it doesn't seem like a bad idea - anything that helps you remember the words and phrases is a good thing. I have spent some time reading Alcest's lyrics as part of my French learning. I have been listening to quite a lot of Italian radio recently, just because it's something I can do while I work (depending on how involved the work is of course; listening isn't much use if you're not paying attention). I'd rather spend more time speaking rather than listening, but I can't exactly practice speaking while I'm in the office. I've done loads of listening and TV watching in French too, which has given me good comprehension and a good idea for what "sounds right". It hasn't helped my pronunciation lots but I think it could do if you really pay attention to the intonation etc.. In any case I'm still in search of that elusive "perfect learning method" as much as anyone else here. As for courses, I'd recommend Michel Thomas, which teaches the structure of the language and some basic vocabulary, then Assimil which "fills it out" a lot more and revises all that. Not sure about Pimsleur; it was the first course I used and I picked up a lot from the first unit, but it just got tedious after that. I'd certainly be up for meeting up in Paris if you'll be around when I'm there: probably around 18-24 June. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 61 of 167 11 April 2012 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Update!
Français I've been getting tons of French practice in the last week! I had good Skype conversations on Saturday and Sunday. Then, despite saying a few posts ago that I had given up on Language Café, I ended up going there again - I stayed late at work and then I was walking right past there anyway on the way home so I thought I may as well check it out. And to my surprise it was very good this time - still mostly learners, only one actual French person, but very enthusiastic learners who were keen to actually practice their French. Then when I arrived home, I was ready to chill out a bit but I found myself invited to an 8-way Skype chat with French speakers and learners, which was fun but I was too tired and occupied with other things to really get into it. My accent still needs a lot of work - some things never change, people still say it seems like my voice is coming too much from the throat rather than the mouth, and I still don't fully understand the meaning of that and how to remedy it. Also, people sometimes find me hard to understand in noisy bar-type situations like the Language Café, which suggests that my speech could be more clear and articulate. I've started doing a bit of experimentation recording myself with my microphone and trying to speak in different ways to see how it sounds, which is giving me a better idea of things. Accent improvement seems to be very much an iterative process for me: I discover something that helps improve it, I make it a habit, I become aware of something else that I can do to improve it, and so on and so on. Now that my speaking is getting more fluent and so not requiring as much mental attention, I can pay a bit more attention to the accent. Which is of course completely backwards from my philosophy of getting the pronunciation right from the start, but with French I didn't so too late now. Of course it's important to note the difference between pronunciation (getting the sounds right) and accent (intonation, general sound of voice) and that the latter takes a lot more experience and time with the language to really get right. On the positive side, I think my intonation has improved a lot in the last few months, and as I say my speaking's continuing to get more effortless. This improvement is just a testament to the good old truth that the more you practice the more you learn. I'm happy that I can easily keep up with people who've lived in France for a year or two, although I'm jealous of their very good accents. From what I've seen, immersion certainly seems to do great things for accent, at least with languages where having a good accent is of high importance (i.e., most other than English). Italiano My Italian's not been getting nearly as much attention as my French and on top of that I've been busy with other worthy pursuits. I didn't study any Italian at all for over two days, which is quite possibly the first break of over a day since I started in December - I'm certainly proud of that consistency! I got back onto Assimil this morning. I won't have much time to catch up until next week, and I also think we'll be having some Italian visitors around then so I should get some opportunity to practice. Sadly there don't seem to be any more Italian meetups planned right now. I think the whole "from the mouth, not the throat" thing is common to all the Romance languages so I should be able to carry some of my French accent-improvement results over to Italian. As long as I don't start speaking Italian with a French accent of course. Edited by garyb on 11 April 2012 at 12:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cihlomorka Triglot Newbie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4614 days ago 15 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak, EnglishC1 Studies: Polish, Latin, FrenchB2, Persian, Italian | Message 62 of 167 11 April 2012 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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How well I understand you, Gary! Remedying old bad habits in phonetics always requires more effort than learning it right from the very beginning and it is certainly not a one day trip. But the less you have to care about being fluent, the more you will improve your accent. Reading your log I would say it only is a question of time since you seem very consistent.
My problem is quite an opposite one - living in Paris it feels I made a remarkable progress in accent, altogether I sound quite French, BUT on the other hand I still suffer from remnants of my previous French studies in Prague and I occasionally make very stupid mistakes in pronunciation. My first (and only) French teacher wasn't a native speaker and she didn't pay any attention to the phonology (especially for the vowels), for example she never explained the differences between é / è / e / ê and treated them all as one open Czech E - then you can imagine the results and how much I have to look after my own voice. I'd say I started moving forward thanks to self-recording, creating a kind of laboratoire de la langue at home. Even being corrected from a native speaker won't push you much forward without hearing your own voice and understanding how it works. Thank you for your advice about the courses! I guess Assimil might finally suit me best, as yesterday when I checked (out of curiosity) Michael Thomas French course, I was kind of disappointed for what he is doing about the French pronunciation and it lowered my confidence in the method as a whole. I will be in Paris in June, and definitely glad to see you! C. p.s. Heavens, how did you get to an "8-way Skype chat with French speakers and learners:..? :) Edited by cihlomorka on 11 April 2012 at 3:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 63 of 167 16 April 2012 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good to know that you found self-recording to be useful. I've heard enough French that
I know what it's supposed to sound like, so I'm hoping that with some experimentation and trying different things I should figure out what works to make my voice "more French". As I may have mentioned before in the thread, I got some exercises from a vocal instruction DVD that teach you how to feel your voice coming from high up in the mouth rather than the throat, so I've been trying to do these and then speak the same way. It feels unnatural and as if I'm exaggerating and straining, but my voice certainly sounds loud and clear when I record it, less deep than usual yet more "substantial" at the same time, so I guess I'm doing it right and it just feels strange because it's not habit... I guess my bad habits also started at school - our teachers spoke French quite well, but they just didn't pay any attention whatsoever to teaching pronunciation, so I never considered it to be something particularly important. We did at least learn the difference between é/è and u/ou, although not how to actually produce the latter two (which is important as us Scots tend to pronounce the "ou" sound as an [ʉ] which is in between the two so can be mistaken for either). When I started learning again myself a couple of years ago I still had that attitude, and it was only after talking to French people that I started to realise that even just to be understood a fairly good pronunciation is required. Yes, Michel Thomas is infamous for bad pronunciation, but regardless of that I find that his courses manage to teach a lot of useful language in a short time and are a good way to get started with a new language (after learning the sound system of course :), at least for someone like me who's a fairly logical thinker and so picks up grammar and structure relatively easily. It does seem to be the Marmite of language courses though: you love it or you hate it. Assimil's definitely good though. I had never heard of it until discovering this forum and seeing all the praise it receives here. But for what it's worth, I don't think that any courses really give pronunciation the amount of attention that it's due, apart from perhaps a few FSI ones. Courses with recordings of native speakers are a step forward but it's still difficult for most people to pick up the nuances just from listening. As for the Skype chat, my language exchange buddy just decided it would be a cool idea to invite all the learners he knows and a few friends into a group chat. If you add me on Skype I'll invite you to the next one if there is one and everyone is online at the same time... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 64 of 167 16 April 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Garyb, What's the title of the DVD? And perhaps the publisher too, if it's a very generic title. (Apologies if you've already given it in the thread; - I didn't spot it while looking searching.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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