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Swift’s Log - French and Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 9 of 91 11 May 2012 at 1:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's been a little while since I made a journal entry here. Sometimes it just feels
like there are always more things to do in my language studies! Thus I try to refrain from over-stretching myself, even if it means not doing something as simple as this. My French novels arrived recently. I also bought a slang book. It's more so something for in my free time, as I'm not really at the level to dive into it. But it's interesting and should be useful for the native music I listen to, as well as my trip to France this summer. So I had told myself that I wouldn't start reading until summer, as I have lots of exams to study for. Nonetheless, I couldn't resist. I've read the first 60 pages of L'étranger; what an amazing experience reading a novel in a different language is! I've worked up a fairly loose routine of reading a chapter at a time when I can, then re-reading it later for vocabulary. But I don't look up every word I don't understand; that is far too slow and frustrating. I can understand the general idea of what is going on, so my thoughts are that I can gradually add to my vocabulary, instead of overloading on new words. I also managed to get a full audio-book for the novel too! So after vocab., I read through the chapter while listening to it. I think the final stage will just be listening to it without reading. A bit of repetition never hurts, especially with a slight variation. Speaking of that, I tried the famous shadowing method using the audio-book. Honestly, it didn't go very well. I found it very hard to get a good balance between hearing myself speaking and the audio. I won't go into too much detail but it felt very frustrating. I watched Prof. Arguelles' 55 minute video on the topic afterwards, and it seems like it is for people beginning a language (way below my level). Anyone have any tips/ advice? Is it not meant for things more advanced than Assimil courses? I know people swear by the method so I don't want to dismiss it after my first try. Lastly I tried a new vocabulary method today. It's the list one Iversen recommends. Wow, it worked really well from the word go. I managed to get through about 75 words in an hour. I definitely enjoyed the method, which is really important. There is a certain sort of satisfying routine to making my columns, writing the words in the TL, translating them out loud until I get them all right comfortably, etc. I'll have to wait to see the results, but so far I'm glad that I gave it a shot. I've also been using Anki on my phone for 15-30 minutes a day, but I'm not sure about it. Entering all the vocabulary that I already have written down is a real pain, whether using the computer or the phone. It kind of seems like a waste of time to be doing both, but for the moment I'm trying out several methods. I still like the app overall, although I wouldn't call it "cheating" like some people have. Edited by Swift on 15 May 2012 at 11:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 10 of 91 15 May 2012 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm up to about page 110 on L'étranger now. My French has already improved so much with
all the work I've put into using this book (talked about in the previous post). I think it's a really good book too. Although it would be interesting to see what I would think if I read it two years from now with a C2 level. I wonder if it would be like realising the fiction you loved as a ten year old wasn't as good as you thought. Besides the novel, I've just been hammering away at work. I've tried to get through 100 new words of vocab. a day using the three column method. Although, it is important that I don't rush through them just to have completed them, otherwise there is no point. For the past three days, I've been trying to devote at least one hour at a time several times a day to thinking in French. It's a really cool and interesting thing to try to do. I just found a bunch of French made for TV movies on YouTube, so I think I'm going to watch some of them when I get the chance. I think I can still get a lot of benefit from them without subtitles. It doesn't hurt to try anyway. Lately I haven't had much of a chance to talk with my native friends on Xbox because of study for exams (on both ends, I think). Kind of makes me sad because I love talking, but I still have other opportunities of course. On a similar note, I "met" some new natives that spoke ridiculously fast and didn't try to slow down for me. It really made me realise that just because I can have decent conversations with some people, it is still a challenge to understand normal talking speed with lots of slang and informal language mixed in. All the more motivation to keep practicing! :) 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 11 of 91 16 May 2012 at 11:26am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm enjoying the log so far, always good seeing other people working away at French.
Share the wealth! I'm always looking for new stuff to watch in French during my lunch break. Similarly I found a lot of documentaries on Youtube, just search for the word "documentary" in your language of choice, so for French "documentaire". They seem good as they're reasonably long and often have a good mixture between the scripted and clear speech of the narrator and spontaneous speech in interviews and real-life footage. The ones on subjects like crime amongst young people are good if you want to hear some proper "street" language.
Indeed. I've had similar experiences, including one a few days ago. Whenever I think I'm getting good at conversations, I find myself in a proper native-level one and realise how much I still have to learn. And yes, it's frustrating but it certainly does keep up the motivation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eilis91 Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie France Joined 4578 days ago 28 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Irish*, French, Italian Studies: German, Yoruba | Message 12 of 91 16 May 2012 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Really enjoyed reading your log, Swift. I agree that languages are often taught abysmally in school in Ireland. I was
fortunate enough to have an *amazing* French teacher for leaving cert (about half our class got A1s at higher level), but I had absolutely dire Spanish teachers all through secondary school. Best of luck with the leaving cert - and remember, once it's over, you'll never ever have to know so much about seven completely unrelated subjects ever again!! It's a great feeling! I did my leaving cert in 2008 (god that makes me feel old!) and left Ireland the following year. I now live in France, which I love. Unfortunately I'll be leaving in two months though (I'm on erasmus and will be going back to the UK where I normally study). I hope you someday get the opportunity to live in France! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 13 of 91 18 May 2012 at 12:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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@garyb The one movie that I'm still watching is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=kCnie67un7U&list=PL2E05EA48FF373E73&index=1&feature=plpp_v ideo It's about a kid living in a violent neighbourhood who loses hope for his future. All the related videos in the sidebar look like more French movies to me, but I haven't taken a look at them yet. Thanks for your suggestions! @eilis91 The thing I wonder is if languages might not be taught at a good level in secondary schools in general? I feel like the course/ teachers here aren't the best, but it's always hard to teach when a lot of people don't have an interest in what is being taught! Thanks for your support, pretty cool to see someone else who did the LC who is in France. I hope I'll be there in the next year or two! (begin log entry) So today was a really bad day for study. I didn't do anything except for write down some interesting vocab and speak to myself a bit. I just basically played Xbox and relaxed. I have a bad habit of falling into a sense of despair when I have a day like this. I don't know if it happens because of overwork or because of laziness, but I've done it with school several times and ended up digging myself a hole. So with this knowledge, I need to at least make an effort tomorrow to get back into my habits of study! Edited by Swift on 18 May 2012 at 12:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5393 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 14 of 91 18 May 2012 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Languages in school are never sufficient for learning to speak. Most teachers will tell a class that the
best thing is to create an immersive environment at home, practice the language as much as possible but few ever do (it would have helped if my teacher gave tips especially since it was the age before the internet). And it would help if secondary schools had the resources to set up a language lab with video, audio, books and periodicals and conversation workshops that teachers could have their students use during class time and during their free time as well (which secondary students don't have as much of compared to university students). But that sort of thing is rare unfortunately. Plus the teachers have to teach to the lowest common denominator (or slightly above it) and as an academic subject they have to test and tests don't necessarily reveal actual communication skills, just that you know how to conjugate, can identify gender, etc. You'll get down periods. It helps if you have some activities that are automatically in French, like TV, so even if you don't crack open a book or check out a news website you get something. Even putting on French subtitles on an English DVD. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 15 of 91 20 May 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for your advice sctroyenne! Luckily I've at least been able to read a good few
French articles online, along with taking down some vocabulary. That that has at least kept the flow of the language going for me. Kind of like you said, it's important to have something even if I'm not doing "study". Regarding teaching again, I agree that it isn't easy for teachers as they have to teach to the lowest common denominator, like you said. I just wish more teachers would help those who show an interest for the language beyond the classroom. In my experience, teachers are too focused on whatever exam/ grade there is at the end of the course. Questions about topics or ideas outside of the course are usually not answered or given vague, unhelpful answers. Perhaps this is down to the fact that some teachers do not have a level much higher above that of their better students, or maybe they don't want the other students to become confused. Either way, I think it's bad to lose sight of the fact that a language is a living, wonderful and intricate thing, not just an exam! I'll leave it there as I don't want to go too far off the point in my "log" :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 16 of 91 02 June 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello again! I honestly haven't done very much these past two weeks; the situation is
pretty much the same. Still listening, thinking and reading French though. I had an AWESOME experience today. I am looking for a summer job and I went into the local video store to apply. My mother had told me that the manager was French, so when I saw her, I just went up to her and started speaking French. It took me a lot of courage to do this, probably because I was nervous of making mistakes. In hindsight, that is only natural. In any case, she was so amazed that her mouth opened in awe before she responded! We stood there talking in French for probably 15 minutes before I left, but I didn't notice the time pass. She kept on telling me how good my French was. It really did a lot for my confidence :) It was great to have a "random encounter", that's to say a conversation in French with someone that I don't know. The feelings of comfort. familiarity and sureness that one has when speaking with a friend are removed, and thus I think one's real standard of a spoken language comes out. I think I did pretty well in this respect. I really want the job, even if it doesn't pay that well (it's just an entry position anyway). The chance to speak French with a native every day this summer is so tantalising. France seems a lot closer :D (I don't usually use smileys and I know they are discouraged here, but I am REALLY happy!) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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