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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 101 17 June 2012 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Félicitations ! C'est chouette.
I enthusiastically recommend lang-8 when you finish the active wave. Assimil's a great course, but it can leave you with slightly shaky grammar. So it's great to slow down your output and get it carefully checked over by a native. You'll discover lots of little glitches here and there, and you'll fix them quickly. I spent 30 days writing ~100 words per day at lang-8, and it did wonders for my grammar, spelling and writing ability. Every time you get corrected, figure out why. Do your best to get stuff correct the first time, even if that means writing fewer words. Other than that, don't hesitate to dig around for really interesting native materials, especially books, magazines or BDs. One or two well-chosen books and another 1,000 words of vocabulary will open up whole words of stuff to you. Bon courage ! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 26 of 101 17 June 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you for kind words and for putting that into perspective better for me.
How did you figure out what to write about with lang-8? Or did you mainly just wing it? Also, are there any books you would recommend or would any Albert Camus novel do? Thanks again! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 101 17 June 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hey, I'm just making this up as I go along, so take my advice with a grain of salt, and do whatever works for you. ;-)
I wrote a lot of diary entries, which helped me learn any specialized vocab needed to describe my daily activities. When I was feeling more ambitious, I'd write about slightly more abstract subjects, or occasionally mess around with some point of grammar. I tried to write very accurately, and made heavy use of Google, Linguee and the BonPatron grammar checker before posting.
Ideally, you want something that you can't put down. The first couple of books are slow going, so you want any help you can get. For some people, this means fascinating non- fiction. For others this means a cliff-hanger plot. Is there a French book you've always wanted to read? An English book that you've practically memorized? You may need to try 5 different books before one "clicks" for you. I think this is normal. :-) I used an ultralight mechanical pencil to underline words, and looked some of them up later. To avoid looking the same words up 20 times, I turned the interesting ones into SRS cards. The Kindle apps have a built-in native French dictionary. It's pretty difficult as native dictionaires go, but it's only a single finger-tap away. ... Oh, one other thing, when you're picking books: Don't be afraid of the passé simple. It works just like the passé composé (j'ai mangé), except it's conjugated with a very regular set of endings (je mangea, for example), and you only need to know the third person. We're basically talking about 4 endings and ~20 irregular stems. Many English-speaking French teachers call the passé simple a "literary tense." In fact, it's the standard "narrative" tense for modern French fiction. If you buy, say, a crime thriller in an airport, it's extremely likely to use the passé simple. Same goes for Harry Potter, science fiction, fairy tales and certainly anything published by a classic author. So if you see an otherwise fascinating book, and discover that it uses the passé simple, don't let this discourage you. The learning curve is tiny, and if you read fiction, you'll use this skill constantly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 28 of 101 18 June 2012 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks again for the advice. I'm not sure if I have quite enough money to spend on buying 5 books to find one I like, so I think I'll play it safe with L'Etranger and other Camus books because I hear good things.
One small update that got me a lot more excited to just finish my Active Wave in two days and move on to Using French is the fact that I randomly listened to French talk show radio. I was able to understand 80% of it after listening to it for 5 minutes until it was dinner time. They were talking about how you should listen to their show, and a bit about politics. I remember a few months ago, I could barely understand anything. Also, they were talking fast too. I'm just going to continue my plan with one lesson per day though plus Linguaphone. I think what helped me the most was the fact that I never moved on from an Assimil lesson until I could understand at least 95% of the lesson without looking at the text. I would just keep playing it over and over and over. I also watched a little series on YouTube called Le Quebecois parle aux Francais. I didn't catch as much, but I think that is definitely attributed to the Quebecois accent and the fact that I have no exposure to it. Edited by sillygoose1 on 18 June 2012 at 4:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4663 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 29 of 101 18 June 2012 at 10:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sounds like you are making great progress with Assimil! I know I would be overjoyed if I could understand 80% of talk radio. I still listen sometimes anyway even though I get only a little fraction of it. :-)
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| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 101 18 June 2012 at 11:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Good point. If you want cheap French books, there's also a ton of free 100-year-old classics available from the Gutenberg Project and on the Kindle. Also look for your local Alliance Française—if you live near Boston, for example, you have access to a huge library. Bon courage ! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 31 of 101 18 June 2012 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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tastyonions - Yeah, it was a great feeling knowing that all the work I put into studying each day for almost 6 months now, paid off. Huge motivation booster. Keep studying though and the results will come even though it seems like forever.
emk - Holy smokes, there is an Alliance Francaise about 30 minutes from me. What do you do there? Are they classes or just a place to converse? Do I have to pay for a Membership if I don't want to take classes? Also that Gutenberg Project website is great. So many books! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 101 18 June 2012 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The Alliance Française is basically a giant international club of people who love the French language and French culture. There's something like 3000 local chapters throughout the world. The smallest chapters typically have small libraries, regular cultural events, weekly lunches where people speak French, and other stuff like that. A really big chapter, like the French Cultural Center in Boston, may have an enormous library of books and films, extensive classes, DELF and DALF exams, summer camps for kids—you name it. As for fees, that depends on the local chapter, though they usually have student memberships and stuff like that. It's a mostly volunteer operation. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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