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DaraghM - 1,000 hours Supreme Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 17 of 35 28 June 2012 at 10:19am | IP Logged | ||
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As planned, my main language is still French. I'm jumping between a lot of different materials, but the main focus is "Grammaire Progressive du Français - Niveau Intermediaire". There is a lot of material and exercises in this book, and I'm almost at the half way mark.
The material seems to be at the end of A2 and covers most of B1 in terms of it's level. I've managed to get most exercises correct so far, apart from an exercise that featured a number of different verbs including verbs like éteindre, plaindre, etc. I wasn't paying enough attention and ended up forgetting the 'g'. E.g. nous éteignons, vouz éteignez, ils éteignent. Oddly enough, the French FSI course doesn't cover this material until near the end, in unit 19. My language study will be taking a short break as I'm heading to a family wedding for the weekend. This may sound odd, but I'll really miss studying languages. I think I'm addicted to language learning. Study since 1st April Spanish 4 hours French 141 hours Russian 6 hours Czech 3 hours Edited by DaraghM on 28 June 2012 at 10:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 18 of 35 10 July 2012 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I just realised I haven't update my log in a while. My French study is still continuing but it's slightly slower than the first couple of months. My daily average has dropped just below three hours when it was approaching four hours before. I think the study gap caused by the wedding has brought this down.
During the last couple of weeks, I ploughed slowly through the FSI Basic course, listening to each tape around three times. Since unit 7 consists of eleven tapes this took a long time. I think I'll stop using the course as it's moving way too slowly. I've read ahead through volume 2 and I think other courses will teach more material in a much shorter space of time. My other problem with the course is the French register it uses. It seems to be use 'langage soutenu' more commonly found in writing, and less of the registers 'courant' and 'familier'. Study since 1st April Spanish 4 hours French 171 hours Russian 6 hours Czech 3 hours Edited by DaraghM on 10 July 2012 at 11:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 19 of 35 23 July 2012 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I seem to be updating my log a lot less now, even though my study is continuing as strong as ever. Regarding French, I decided to drop the FSI Basic Course and concentrate on my other resources. Inspired by emk and his successful attainment of B2, I picked up Assimil New French with Ease again. My current strategy is one of over learning. I'm listening to each lesson about forty times which is what I did the first time around. This had made the active wave exceptionally easy, as I remember the lessons verbatim.
I'm currently pausing my French, to work on my Spanish again. My primary driver to boost my Spanish is the trip to Peru at the end of August. I'll also be visiting Paris the weekend before Peru, so I'll hopefully cram in some French beforehand. Returning to Spanish, I realise how far I've still to go with my French. Considering I studied French in school for six years, and not Spanish, it really surprises me that I've got to B2 in Spanish but not in French yet. Spanish 21 hours French 192 hours Russian 6 hours Czech 3 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 20 of 35 09 August 2012 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that a thousand hours is quite a long time for language study. If I manage to stick with my original goal, I'm confident my French will be very good at the end of the challenge. I've been hesitant about updating my log with all the recent problems. Fingers crossed we never lose any posts or messages again.
My language study has been a blend of French and Spanish. I've never studied the two Romance languages at the same time before, but now I've started. Previously, I would study one or the other for a period of weeks but never blended both on the same day. Now that my Spanish is much stronger, I'm finally able to do this, without getting them confused. The only thing that caused some confusion was a random Italian conversation I had during the week. I haven't spoken any Italian since Rome, so it was slightly ironic this happened the same week I decided to multitask the other Romance languages. Changes since the last post. Spanish 49 hours French 213 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 21 of 35 09 August 2012 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey, great log! Interesting angle to run your own challenge in parallel with the Super Challenge and the 6WC.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 22 of 35 09 August 2012 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
My supreme challenge is also meant to cover the half super challenge I signed up for, as they both end the same time. Your super challenge inspired the supreme challenge. Unfortunately the half super challenge is happening very slowly, so I've a busy year ahead trying to cram the fifty books and films in French. I haven't signed up for the 6WC since I don't use Twitter. However, I can easily work out my study since the start of August, so I might do a post to see how it compares to others. Thanks for reading my log. It's very much appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 23 of 35 06 September 2012 at 10:10am | IP Logged | ||
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My primary goal in learning languages is to know how to speak the language. This rarely comes about through my study, as it focuses mainly on listening, reading and writing. While I practise saying phrases aloud to hone my pronunciation, it's only by interacting with native speakers that I develop speaking fluency. The past couple of weeks have seen a major boost to my language skills as I spent several days in Paris, and several weeks in Peru.
The trip to France finally allowed me to practise my French active skills, and it went better than expected. My wife, who speaks fluent French, didn't need to intervene in any of my conversations. My dialogues weren't limited just to standard tourist interactions, as I managed to hold a detailed conversation about languages in the French language bookshop, Gilbert Jeune. Barely a week after the trip to France, I was off to Peru. As Spanish is my strongest language, I didn't spend much time revising it beforehand, but I did spend a bit of time watching Peruvian television. The Lima accent is one of the easier accents to follow, but some Andean accents were a little tricky. While I was there, I ended up dabbling in Quechua, but nothing beyond the basic phrases. In a language bookshop, I found some very good Quechua learning material written in Spanish, but I resisted temptation and didn't purchase. Spanish 115 hours French 231 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 24 of 35 21 September 2012 at 11:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I've just realised it's been a while since I've updated this log. My primary language is still French, but I've also tried watching some television in my other target languages. I had been focusing on Assimil, but I started wondering whether it was really challenging me enough, compared to some other courses. While I could easily learn an Assimil lesson off by heart, I found some of the exercises in Grammaire Progressive du Français - Niveau Intermediaire a lot more challenging. Even the start of the Assimil active wave was easy due my tendency to learn the material 'par couer'.
My current course is 'Vite et Bien 2 - B1'. This is a challenging course written entirely in French, and intended for classroom use. However, the course contains an answer key which makes it ideal for self study. With some courses it's hard to ascertain what level they're designed for, but this course is closely tied to the DELF B1 level. The first chapter is on 'contretemps' and 'empêchement', and discusses various forms of delays and set backs. I couldn't find these words in Assimil, and it makes me wonder, if Assimil reaches the B1 level. Spanish 116 hours French 277 hours Russian 7 hours 1 person has voted this message useful |
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