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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 33 of 57 23 March 2013 at 2:19am | IP Logged |
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French:
Getting back into it at full force firing on all cylinders per se. For the last two days, I've been doing a whole bunch of work with Kaamelott and the subs. I watch each episode once and try to understand as much as I can, then I L/R with the full transcript of the episode. Kaamelott is hard because of the very familiar slang/old words, but not too bad. I tend to miss some words here and there, and sometimes they talk so fast that my brain can't make sense of a sentence at the first go. I'm learning a lot more words like "immonde", "crecher", "piger", and so forth. The transcripts are definitely a huge help. I also watched an episode of La job. It's a Quebecois version of The Office and doesn't seem that great. Most of it was fairly hard to understand. I'll keep up with it though. There are 13 episodes and a bit more entertaining than 30 Vies as of now. Spanish: Watched more Big Bang Theory. The first season's subs were way off, but the second season is perfect. I hope the 3rd is also. I have yet to watch The Simpsons, but we'll see. I have a copy of Inglorious Basterds with audio/subs in both Italian & Castellano and it just so happens to be a movie I really enjoy. I'll watch it in Castellano first then Italian. Italian: Discovered some cool new bands. Read their lyrics along with their songs. nothing much. German: Finished lesson 39. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 34 of 57 27 March 2013 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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French:
Off the burner. I watched a bunch of Kaamelott over the past week with subs. Some episodes of other shows, etc. I've taken an interest to podcasts lately on the news, politics, comedy, and so forth. I really underestimated podcasts before. I'm finding the comedy/talk show podcasts to be the hardest to understand and keep up with. They change directions rapidly and I don't understand most of the references/jokes. I found one podcast however, about issues in France where they invite experts on to discuss. This one is the right one for me at the moment on all sides. It's over my level a bit, so I think it'll help me progress quite well. And it's also interesting. They have two 1 hour episodes each day which is great. I really want to conquer these comedy podcasts though. That's a new goal for me this year. Good thing it comes out everyday. It's almost 2 hours long too. Yikes. This won't be fun for awhile. Spanish: A lot more Big Bang and some telenovelas. I'm almost ready to hop into movies again I think. I'm getting a much more better handle on the language in total. Conjugations aren't a big deal anymore. I feel functional in Spanish. I've tried to listen to some podcasts, but it seems to be a bit too hard at the moment. I need some more vocab. When I was looking for podcasts to download from Spain, many of them aren't in Spanish but rather Catalan. That reminds me of Canada and the English/French situation a little. Italian: Big Bang Theory. Some podcasts. Some writing with penpals. There aren't many good movies that have come out within the last 5-6 years from Italy, so it's hard to find them. I've discovered some soap operas though. German: More Assimil lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 35 of 57 03 April 2013 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
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French:
After going full throttle for about a week of radio/podcasts/Kamelott, I'm ready for another break. I listened to so much French on my day off that I had a tension headache for like 3 days straight. I can understand most of those little "native speaker contractions" now. I can feel that solid C1 closing in on me. I'm not sure what else to do to improve any further without living in the country. I talk to people, watch tv, listen to podcasts, and the radio. I can keep up with the large majority of them from Europe. I guess I can always keep working on the other accents. Besides, I have other languages to work on. Spanish: It's incredible what just listening does. After reading Ari's thread on listening, that encouraged me to put fear aside of not understanding and just do it. I did that with French and that held me back I believe. I would just listen to Spanish radio and podcasts, then all of a sudden I can understand a radio debate about the death penalty this morning. Whether that is because it's so close to French or what, I'm not sure. But hey, it's working at least. I'm going to watch some more films with subtitles before I start on some of the more exciting stuff. Italian: My little breakthrough with Spanish encouraged me to do the same thing. I've been watching Un Posto Al Sole and radio/podcasts. Un Posto is a bit harder because there are a lot of different accents. Also, some of them cut off letters so I can't expect it so much. Tutt' il giorn', Vien' con no', etc. I still hold to my opinion that this is the hardest of the 3 Romance languages that I'm learning all around. German: I finished lesson 61. This language is the hardest I've ever studied. Unlike when I first studied French, I can't even understand descriptions of movies. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to improve German after Assimil. I haven't found many tv shows or people to speak with. Edited by sillygoose1 on 03 April 2013 at 6:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 36 of 57 16 April 2013 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
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French:
Bookmarked a lot of movies and watched/listened to a lot of others. I went through some Kaamelott with little trouble. But, I started to do something I never did before. Watch a movie with no subs at all. I tried it for the film "Pour elle", but I found that it was hard to understand because of the recording style I believe. I say this because I tried to watch "Les hommes libres" and understood more. The same thing happens to me with Homeland also. I watched a movie called My Little Princess, which I never would have watched if not for it having subs. (It's not about princesses by the way.) I listened to some economic discussions but I couldn't keep up with it. I can't too much in English either. Spanish: I watched quite a few movies. I'm at the continuous pausing stage still where watching a movie isn't even worth it because it isn't enjoyable. I definitely feel like I'm on the B1 -> B2 edge, no doubt. I have as much movies left to go as I do for French, so I think I can get to B2 once I build up more listening/vocab then head back to interpals/italki to get some conversations going. Italian: I watched La nostra vita. It was an ok movie, but it had some dialectal words in there which threw me off. I found some directors I'm really into like I did with French & Spanish. German: REALLY bored with this language. The grammar is too tedious for a language I was never 100% in to. Doing a lesson feels like a chore now. Besides, I have yet to find many movies/shows/directors that I like. I'm going to backburner it one more time and if I can't finish Assimil, I'll be satisfied with my A2 level. I suppose that's the most I need to travel to cities anywhere where people speak English & French. *Mandarin* I did a lesson of Colloquial & Assimil. It seems like fun for now. I'm going to see if I still like it after a week or two to put it on my study list. Being able to communicate with 1+ billion people isn't a bad motivator either. I hear the grammar is easier than German too. Anyway, I don't have long before I have to sell my PC, so I have to get through a whole bunch of movies on my hard drive for French & Spanish. This is going to be intense and I can see my levels rising up a bit from it. Current standing & goals according to this guide: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/elp-reg/Source/Key_re ference/EAQUALSBank_levels_EN.pdf French - C1. Goal - C1+ by September Spanish - B1+/B2. Goal - C1/C1+ by December Italian - B1/B1+. Goal - B2+ by August German - A2. Goal - A2, maybe A2+/B1 Mandarin - A0. Goal - Get interested enough in the language to keep going 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 37 of 57 20 April 2013 at 11:49pm | IP Logged |
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French:
Watched a few movies. I had trouble with some words and understanding others that I knew, but overall I think that had I watched the movies without subs, I would have still enjoyed it. The most challenging podcast I've found that is right at my level is (maybe I mentioned it before?) On va s'gener. What makes it awesome? There is a 1:40 - 2:00 hr long episode that comes out daily. These episodes are non-stop talking. There isn't 10 seconds that go by without conversing. What makes it hard? It's full of jokes, references, and slang. There are times where I understand the words, they all laugh, and I'm sitting there like "what the hell was so funny?". I had about a 50-60% comprehension rate my first episode, but after a few weeks - a month, I think I'm at about 70% now. This means that I can understand what they are talking about, but not necessarily the details. There are also times where I know all of the words, but my brain can't form the meaning quick enough because it's so fast/so much informal speech that I just learned. This reminds me of Kaamelott where my comprehension was around 30% my very first episode. I kept watching, and watching, and watching. Little by little, I understood more. I started to get a hang of native level speech and I learned a lot of informal words. Now, I can watch just about every episode and have a laugh. Once I can get 90% constant comprehension on On va s'gener, I'll consider that a huge leap forward. It's a lot more challenging than Les grandes gueules, in my opinion. Spanish: I watched more movies with subs. Learned some idioms and informal words. The radio still poses a bit of a problem comprehension wise. But like French, decent radio comprehension didn't come until a couple hundred hours of watching movies, shows, and listening to the radio. I'm not even going to bother with podcasts yet. Anyway, I discovered that I'm a huge Almodovar fan and I'm going to watch every movie of his that have subs. So far, I've seen Volver & La mala educacion. Both were awesome. I found some cool series on rtve. Although most weren't available for the US, I found good ones that were. Mandarin: Finished lesson 6 of Assimil. German: Done for now, maybe for good. I'm taking my tourist level and calling it a day for the moment. Italian: n/a Edited by sillygoose1 on 20 April 2013 at 11:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 38 of 57 03 May 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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French:
My movie/listening only strategy fell through it seems. I need to take a step back to accumulate more vocab and strengthen my skills in pronunciation. For this reason, I'm going to go back to L/R, extensively. Right now I'm going through all of the works by Amelie Nothomb that I can find an audiobook for. Albert Camus, Marc Levy, Anne Gavalda, etc. Whatever I can find. Since French isn't really known for being too phonetic, this is just something that has to happen. Right now I'm going through Stupeur et Tremblements by Nothomb. It's not a huge book by any means, so it's ok that the story isn't too great up to now on page 31. The audio is only 3 hours long. I'm definitely looking into exploring more of this author. Other than that, I'm still able to enjoy series and certain films. My goal is now to take this all the way and learn more and more words to try to fully enjoy them. Spanish: I'm doing L/R also. I have a few things by Marquez, Borges, Zafon, & L. Garcia. As of now, I'm going through El juego del angel by Zafon. It's not difficult to follow the plot, but there are many unknown words that I'm constantly pausing the audiobook for to look them up and put them in notepad. The first chapter was kind of boring, but then things started to heat up. I'm normally not a fan of books that exceed 300 pages because most can't keep my attention that long, but this one is doing good. Italian/Others: There is no way I'm going to have enough motivation to work on other languages when I'm trying to get C1+ in two others with hours of books/tv/movies + what I want to read/watch in English. By the end of the year no less. There are some fabulous Italian arthouse films that have come out recently, so my motivation is there, but just not now. I also really want to get around to reading Gomorra at one point in the future. Edited by sillygoose1 on 03 May 2013 at 8:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| roberto7 Newbie Joined 4225 days ago 25 posts - 27 votes Studies: English | Message 39 of 57 04 May 2013 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
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I read your previous log about learning french and It's just wonderful!
I wish you the best of luck in learning languages:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 40 of 57 06 May 2013 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks! :D I wish you luck with your endeavors as well!
French: I finished L/Ring Stupeur et tremblements by Amelie Nothomb. It wasn't really my kind of book. It had to do with her experience in Japan working for a company. That's about it. Nothing too wild or fun. I did note at least 100 new words total, I didn't count. I'm not sure why they made a movie out of it. There are much better books out there. Right now I'm L/Ring Toutes ces choses qu'on ne s'est pas dites by Marc Levy. I read somewhere that he is the most read French author outside of France right now. Naturally, I have to see what the hype is about. I can't say too much since I just started, so I'll save that for the next update. Spanish: Still L/Ring El juego del angel. Since I didn't do my research beforehand, I found out there was a book that precedes it. Then I found out it's going to be apart of a 4 book series. Normally I wouldn't go back to something I missed when I saw it's sequel before said item, but he is a really good writer. Besides, I don't think it's the type of series where you have to read it in order because they are interlocking stories so to speak. It seems like every new word I see, I forget. Unless I see it at least 5 more times. I forgot what that was like. I really wish I could find more Spanish L/R material but it's more difficult than for French. Italian: Just doing some collecting for when I get back around to it in the distant future. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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