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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 345 of 439 08 November 2014 at 8:28pm | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
How have you found Using French? I bought it the other week but I haven't formally started using it yet. |
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Good luck with Using French.
I like that most of the lessons aren't too long (compared to Business French). There is a wide variety of vocabulary, literature, radio, cinema, slang, poetry, etc.
Generally, I've found the audio and text the most useful. The notes are helpful too. I'm now figuring out what to do next with it.
Like all of the Assimil French courses, it's a gold mine.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 346 of 439 11 November 2014 at 3:07am | IP Logged |
A quick catch up on ma pensées de aujourd'hui.
FSI Basic French - The grand review has begun. There are two tracks. Units 1-6 and units 7-12. Units 1-6 have truncated silence. My challenge is to respond in unison with the responses on the recordings. So far, so good. I'm on tape 1.5. I want to pull out the tough drills for later reviews. That's only been a handful so far. The dialogue with participation, some B (advanced) drills, and one of the final A drills.
On the 7-12 track, I did tape 7.1 today. I don't plan on pulling out the more difficult drills on this track yet. I'm imagining that will come after a "truncate silence" track. E.G., when I've gotten through units 13-17 the first time.
French In Action - I finished lesson 7 tonight. I watched lesson 8 last night. I've gotten good feedback on lang-8 for more form written work. Lang-8 is great for stuff like that.
The smartphone truncate silence track is on recording 05-01a.
On my in the car memory stick I'm spread a little wider. The final recording from lesson 4 is the earliest recording, I've done the mise en ouvre for lesson 5. Tomorrow I hope to do the mise en ouvre for lesson 8. The car is good for speaking out loud.
I've been watching some videos ahead and rewatching a few earlier videos.
I try to spread French in Action activities over more than one day. That's good for memory and I don't feel so rushed. This has really been a great course. Like the Prime Minister PM says, the more you do it, the more fascinating it becomes. There's a great deal of coherence to the course.
I read the textbook two or three times per lesson. That gets spread out over several days. One can think of it as a graded reader. It's neat how the pictures in the textbook remind you of the video, and then you want to watch the video again, which is good.
French Frequency Dictionary - word 1170 is sinon. If I don't do Anki every day, the reviews pile up and then I don't add any new cards. C'est la vie !
Radio France International - I listened and read along today with some help from google translate.
Using French - I finished lesson 70 a few days ago. I think I'll put this Assimil back in la salle de bains to keep the vocabulary fresh. I have other Assimil ideas. More on that below.
New French With Ease/French Without Toil - I loaded NFWE and FWT on my smartphone this evening. These are meant for a vocabulary cleanup wave. Some shadowing in the car. My goal is not to zip through these again, although that will probably happen for the early lessons. When I get to something that seems unclear, I want to review the books so I focus a bit more on the unknown, rather than the known. I'll add these to my memory stick (in the car) once the trailing lessons of Using French disappear (on lesson 68 there).
Audio Livres - I want to have a few familiar books on my smartphone for background listening and a couple in the car. The "in the car" has been mostly occupied with FIA and FSI lately. I expect that will continue.
Learn French in your Car - lesson 68. Still a snoozer.
Sur la Liberté - by John Stuart Mill. Still on paragraph 3.4 in a listen wave in the car. FSI and FIA have put this guy in the back seat.
Philosophie Vivant - in the gym slot. Lecture 25 is next. This doesn't get enough mental focus, but I want to continue through it and come back to and listen again in a couple three months. I haven't been focusing enough on exercise in the gym, since I'm always thinking about killing another lecture. Easier material would give me license to get back to working my tail off in the gym and I need that.
I don't know that I'll finish my FSI review in 2014. I don't want to rush it. I've even been considering having through unit 18 (3/4's of the course) be my 2015 goal, rather than the whole schlamozle. Il faut voir, ça depend. Peut-être ...
Edited by luke on 11 November 2014 at 3:19am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 347 of 439 13 November 2014 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
Here is the audio for the Summary Quizes at the back of the French in Action Study Guide.
French In Action Summary Quiz Audio
I haven't been using the FiA Study Guide for the last couple of weeks, but my wife found it in my suitcase and
I decided to look at it tonight. That got my looking for the audio and answers. The audio is above. I haven't
found the answers yet. I didn't see them in either the Study Guide or the
French in Action Instructor's
Guide.
Quizzes aren't quite as useful without the answers. I did the Summary Quiz for lesson 2 tonight using the
audio above. I think I got a 100%, mais on ne sait jamais.
So with the whole immersion experience of French in Action, which I believe is also known as the Direct
Method, I'm no longer such a fan of the Study Guide. I may continue doing do these trailing quizzes though.
One neat thing about doing the one tonight is that it made me remember all of the video scenes that were
being refernced. It's not exactly what's in the video or textbook, but each individual plays the same role.
E.G., le vieux professeur, tante Georgette, Marc et Catherine, et Mirielle. In lesson 2, which is all about
greetings, etc, it's just neat noticing the use of tu and vous in the various conversations. Not just that, but the
whole quick interaction thing. Not being much of a small talker, even lesson 2 has taught me a good bit about
how that is done in French. I even thought of how it applied to English.
Edited by luke on 14 November 2014 at 3:51pm
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5474 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 348 of 439 14 November 2014 at 7:47am | IP Logged |
luke wrote:
I haven't been using the FiA Study Guide for the last couple of weeks, but my wife
found it in my suitcase and
I decided to look at it tonight. That got my looking for the audio and answers. The
audio is above. I haven't
found the answers yet. I didn't see them in either the Study Guide or the
French in Action
Instructor's
Guide.
Quizes aren't quite as useful without the answers.
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I've used the Study Guide extensively over the years and never found any answers. Mind
you I began using it almost pre-interent... well not exactly but at least pre
omnipresent internet. It would be good if there were answers but I don't stress about
that too much. The topics covered in the Study Guide quizzes are a summary of what's
been covered in the lesson to which the quiz pertains. Of course you know that, and I
agree answers would be helpful nonetheless. As for the Study Guides themselves - I
find them very useful for background information. For example further explanation on
things such as syllable division and tonic stress, explanations on the oral production
of French vowels and so on. I think it's a great tool, but the quiz, take it or leave
it, but I do it simply because it's there.
- Currently on leçon 4 - I think I'm finally finding my study 'flow' again dare I say
it and on a mission to make up some lost ground, keep it up Luke, I'm right there with
you mate!
PM
Edited by PeterMollenburg on 14 November 2014 at 7:48am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 349 of 439 14 November 2014 at 3:56pm | IP Logged |
PeterMollenburg wrote:
luke wrote:
Quizzes aren't quite as useful without the answers. |
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I agree answers would be helpful nonetheless. As for the Study Guides themselves - I
find them very useful for background information. For example further explanation on
things such as syllable division and tonic stress, explanations on the oral production
of French vowels and so on.
- Currently on leçon 4 - I think I'm finally finding my study 'flow' again dare I say
it and on a mission to make up some lost ground, keep it up Luke, I'm right there with
you mate! |
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That's a good point about the syllabification and pronunciation and tongue position, etc. It's covered more thoroughly in the French in Action Study Guide.
Since I haven't been looking at it the last few lessons, I don't know what I'm missing :)
I do think the immersion experience is helpful. Figuring out what to do by listening to and reading the French instructions and explanations is a vital part of the course.
You keep up the good work also Monsieur le PM !
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 350 of 439 16 November 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
Thinking about FIA and reading about "tongue position" makes me feel kind of funny...
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 351 of 439 17 November 2014 at 1:14am | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
Thinking about FIA and reading about "tongue position" makes me feel kind of funny..
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Foxy Lady
Le monde selon Wayne
Edited by luke on 17 November 2014 at 1:19am
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 352 of 439 20 November 2014 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
Je commence ... euh, lesson dix de French in Action. Ce n'est pas bon quand on ne peux pas utiliser un
clavier avec l'orthographe juste.
FSI - I'm deep into unit 3 in the grand review of the first half of this fine course.
Assimil - I'm putzing around a bit with NFWE.
I've been on the road again, so I've just said "no" to Mr. Anki.
Anyway, my studies are a bit scattered because my routine has been non-routine. I'm happy with FiA and
FSI. I haven't done any FSI in the last few days, but the early progress was good. The "half silence" trick I
started a thread about "Hard Core FSI" tells what I'm up to there.
It's come on me that the Trilogy, the Triumverate, and the Trivium of French are ...
French in Action
FSI Basic French
Assimil French courses.
So, course wise, those have been my focus lately and will continue to be for a while. FiA is starting to mix in
some of the grammatical forms that FSI Basic was beating me over the head with a few weeks ago. Assimil
always has un peu de tout.
Anyway, the more I do FiA, the better I think the course is. The instructions in French, the extremely coherent
story, the videos, the workbook, the audio, all the challenges. C'est bon !
FSI would be equally killer if it had a coherent story line and good audio, but we use what we have.
Assimil French Without Toil has a storyline through a good bit of the course. I really think that's a very cool
thing to have in a course.
FiA is of course the best at this. Everything, from geneology to all the subtleties of family and interpersonal
relations are all laying there waiting to be noticed. C'est le bijoux !
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