Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 97 of 119 21 December 2012 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
songlines wrote:
!! - Did you think you could sneak that in there without anyone
noticing, Spanky? Well, perhaps you studied
the toast very carefully indeed before consumption?
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Unfortunately not. Very much unlike the case with my French language materials, the
French toast was rather quickly and thoroughly digested.
Love the Edith Piaf motto...
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 98 of 119 29 December 2012 at 4:27am | IP Logged |
CETTE SEMAINE (T-52) 16 décembre - 22 décembre
1 measly hour this week, mostly French language television.
While not a great week for studying, it was memorable by virtue of the great language
meet-up songlines and I had at Café salade de fruits in Vancouver. The
restaurant, although a touch noisy, has a huge poster of Tin-tin on the wall and a fun,
crowded café bustle to it. It was awesome meeting another htlal'er and learning the
story behind songlines` nick, which unlike mine is quite interesting.
About 11 seconds of my French that week occurred during my lunch with songlines, when I
was reckless enough to try to show off my French by asking the waiter for a coffee
en français. The waiter replied in French, I believe asking whether I would
prefer milk or whether I would prefer cream for the coffee (I am not entirely sure; he
was after all speaking French). After approximately 11 seconds frantically reviewing
in my head all those many hours of Pimsleur and Michel Thomas, I believe je lui ai
répondu: “Oui”.
Oh well, hopefully I will be more advanced by the time of our next language meet-up.
I took all of the following current week (T-51, 23 décembre jusqu'a aujourd'hui)
off from studying, but will be back at it soon
DCCA: 930:07
Edited by Spanky on 29 December 2012 at 4:29am
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 99 of 119 29 December 2012 at 6:21am | IP Logged |
Spanky wrote:
While not a great week for studying, it was memorable by virtue of the great language meet-up
songlines and I had at Café salade de fruits in Vancouver. The restaurant, although a touch noisy, has a
huge poster of Tin-tin on the wall and a fun, crowded café bustle to it. It was awesome meeting another htlal'er
...
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It was indeed. And so much fun. - Thanks, Spanky!
Also, for any French speakers who might be living in/visiting Vancouver,
the cafe is housed in the same building as the
French Cultural Centre. There's a small library of French books
and DVDs, as well as an even smaller second-hand-books corner (six books for a dollar!) where I found, among
other titles, a hardcover French-language edition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror / Un Lointain
Miroir.
So. Good food, great company, and an interesting book. With a little French thrown into the mix. In beautiful,
beautiful (albeit a little damp) Vancouver. Pretty well the perfect way to spend an afternoon, I'd say.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 100 of 119 29 December 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
Spanky wrote:
Not much French lately - I was tied up researching a potential book project, concerning the essential quotations of mimes through the ages. Ran into exactly the sort of dead-end I should easily have forseen right from the beginning, so I am back to French study. |
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I have been impressed by your plan to become either a "comfortable" French speaker or a mime. But I must confess to a certain indecision. Should I encourage you in your French studies, or should I look forward to those delights which would naturally follow from your career in the performing arts?
Because of this conflict, I find no other alternative but to support both possible outcomes, this by means of providing you with some carefully-selected YouTube videos.
Stage de Mime Corporel avec Thomas Leabhart à Hippocampe - Paris (slow French, some English)
Commedia Ecole Internationale formation Cours Atelier Mime Corporel Dramatique Belleville Paris (intermediate French)
Mime suiveur des Champs Elysées (music in French)
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 101 of 119 01 January 2013 at 6:33pm | IP Logged |
emk, would it sway your thinking at all to know that if I am forced, by dint of laziness
in my continuing studies, to become a mime, I will likely not become a classically-
trained mime, steeped in the rich traditions of the craft, but instead a super-annoying
mime? Much like the following:
trying to avoid this
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 102 of 119 01 January 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
Brand new year, back two-thirds of my 18 month challenge.
In terms of my goals for the pending year, I have divided 2013 in half conceptually:
during the first half I hope to finish as much explicit learning materials (some core,
some just fun) as possible, and in the second half, to work through as much native
French language material as possible while trying to balance listening, speaking,
reading and writing, all roughly in line with the following wish list
First half of year
- FSI Basic, Volumes 1 and 2
- French in Action videos
- Michel Thomas, Advanced French
- BBC, Ma France
- French.about.com - 400 new article pages
- RFI, L'affaire du confret
- RFI, Mission Europe (Paris)
- RFI, Le talisman brisé
- RFI, Comment vont les affaires?
- My beloved TV, at least one French language TV show per week
- Le petit prince - via Ilya Frank website
- Le petit Nicolas - via the awesome book songlines gave me - thanks again
songlines!
I figure I will need around 15 - 20 hours of effort per week to get through all of that
thoroughly by mid-year.
Second half of year
- 180 French language TV episodes (30-60 minutes each), one per day
- 26 French language films (likely with French subtitles), one per week
- 6 novels (or the equivalent increased number of novellas or short stories), with
related audio if possible, one per month
- RFI, Journal en français facile or equivalent, regularly (4 or 5 a week)
- Lang 8 submissions and review of corrections - 100 to 150 submissions of 50 to 100
words per submission
- Yabla videos, at least 200 of the French language short videos (pay site)
- Posting here en français
- Lots of some form of conversation practice, either in person or perhaps Skype?
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CMTM Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4547 days ago 28 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 103 of 119 02 January 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged |
A visitor from team Romulan here! You seem to have everything planned out, I wish I could
be that organised. Good luck!
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Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5394 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 104 of 119 02 January 2013 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
Good luck with your goals this year. I look forward to hearing about your French studies.
If you become a mime, you will have to make some youtube videos so we can see how awesome you are. :)
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