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French: Ron’s Learning Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 68 30 January 2014 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
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I would like to keep a log of my progress with learning French. French will be my first second language, so I don't have personal experience in language learning. I do feel that I've already gained an incredible amount of insight from members here. Although I have only just joined, I've already spent a considerable amount of time reviewing HTLAL archives.
Starting from no knowledge of French outside of what one picks up over time from American media, I will recap what I have done so far. I keep a fairly detailed sheet on time spent on various methods. My primary method is Fluenz French. I am currently at level 2, session 27. Fluenz has 5 levels, with 30 lessons in each. I am also complimenting it with Assimil French with Ease. I just started that and have finished the first passive wave lesson 5. In addition to Fluenz and Assimil, I have Living Language and all the books, audio and video for French in Action. Initially I purchased LL and decided to look at other methods. I learned about Assimil and FIA from members here, Fluenz from reviews at Amazon. After doing the trial of Fluenz, I decided to go with it as my primary beginning method. I enjoy Fluenz very much and find that it has been very effective so for my needs. Fluenz gives me structure, repetition, and drilling the basics in a format I like. I'm finding that Assimil complements it very nicely with it's broader and maybe looser conversational approach. I think they will work well together. I'm happy with where I am at today and feel that I've recently made good progress. My goal is a solid B2 by the end of February 2015. Start 11/13/2013 Fluenz Course -- 90 hrs. Fluenz Audio -- 11 FIA -- 4 Vocab/Grammar -- 4 Assimil -- 4 LL -- 6 Flashcards (Fluenz/Anki) -- 56 Total Hours -- 173 Days -- 77 Hours/Day -- 2.3 I've also spent many more hours with French movies and English subtitles, and French music. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 68 31 January 2014 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
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At this point my most immediate goal is to finish both Fluenz and Assimil. At the current rate that I'm advancing, these methods will be where the bulk of my time is spent for the next few months. I'll also be spending some time with a few books.
Essential French Verbs - Marie-Thérèse Weston Essential French Grammar - Seymour Resnick (thank you emk for pointing this out in your log) A Frequency Dictionary of French - Deryle Lonsdale and Yvon Le Bras Looking forward, I'd like to progress into reading native materials. I have a couple of early French readers, but I think for the time being I will continue with Fluenz and Assimil courses (my training wheels). When working through my course-ware, I always speak out repeating the course material. I feel that I'm doing well with many of the French sounds such as nasal vowels, and even the R for some words, although I need to slow down and be very deliberate in the delivery. Fluenz has a self recording step within the lessons, and I don't sound all that bad sometimes. I'm getting to the point where I'll be needed a tutor soon. I'll probably look at hiring a paid tutor via Skype at first. I've never had a paid language tutor, so I'm not sure how the interaction would go. But I feel that my courses give me structure, and I'm most interested in having someone to speak with at my early stage, correct pronunciation, give tips and feedback. I've collected a couple of URLs where I can find someone, preferably a native speaker from France or Belgium. I'll wait about a month before I start this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 68 31 January 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged |
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Good luck on your French project! It sounds like you've found some good materials and you're enjoying them.
One popular place to look for tutors is iTalki. I've only gotten around to trying it recently, but I was pleased with the prices and the ease of finding good tutors. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 68 01 February 2014 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you emk for the suggestion. I took a look and there does appear to be a good selection of tutors available. I'll definitely take a closer look when its time.
Now that I've had a chance to use both Fluenz and Assimil together for awhile, I can see that they definitely do work well together for my needs. At some point during the second level of Fluenz, I felt ready to take on another method but wanted to make sure they complemented each other well. At first I tried working through French in Action, but soon realized that to do each level as intended using the workbook and study guide, it would take a fair amount of time. Given that I need about 1.5 hours or more to do a Fluenz level and flashcards each day, being fully committed to both methods at the same time would be challenging. So I took another look at Assimil New French with Ease. I can spend 30 minutes each day on a new lesson and review. Quick and easy, especially with the knowledge I've gained from Fluenz. The material is great and I'm enjoying it very much. I've already found a couple spots where it fills in a gap or extends something learned in Fluenz. Example, in lesson 6 it teaches that du, de la, and des becomes de in the negative. That was like a light bulb, as somehow I did not realize that. I makes perfect sense now but it was Assimil that pointed it out. What I like about Fluenz Dialogs used in conversations are full speed ahead. Explanations given are generally good. Exercises allow plenty of good practice in formulating statements and questions. Exercises help re-enforce knowledge of verbs. Immediate feedback when answers are correct or wrong. Covered material becomes engrained very well. I like the progression of material covered, it seems very appropriate. Very enjoyable. What I like about Assimil The necessary time commitment each day is not great. Conversational and idiomatic nature of the material covered. Excellent explanations given on the content. Great native accents used in the dialogs, with shifting female to male coverage. Fun stories make lessons entertaining. Someone said that this trait reenforces memorization of the material. I can see that to be true. The audio can be used separately in a car or on the run, for additional study. No English in it! It complements the knowledge gained from Fluenz very well. Edited by rlnv on 01 February 2014 at 11:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 68 04 February 2014 at 12:45am | IP Logged |
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Milestone
Yesterday I completed Fluenz French level 2. This is significant because it gives me a sense of progress, and more importantly it means that I can start Level 3. It is my understanding that level 3 has a new instructor presenting the lessons and she is a native French speaker, whereas Sonia from levels 1 and 2, is not. Sonia does a great job and I enjoyed her presentations, but I feel that there are benefits to as much native speaker input as possible. Although this is not absolutely necessary with Fluenz, as there are at least 5 separate voices during the lessons, CD audio, and podcasts. Most sound like natives. First missed day Since I started on 11/13 of last year, every day I have logged time with study materials, except Saturday which which was a lost cause due to having a few beer in the afternoon and being too tired to study during the night. I did watch a good movie though, Angel-a, by Luc Besson (with English subs). A very good light romance, with amazing footage of Paris. So to make up I did 5.6 hours on Sunday. Tonight is a review night before moving onto level 3. I will do another lesson in Assimil as I have been doing one per day. My daily average is back to 2.3 hours (course time only). Accent I'm interested in speaking with an accent that is well understood so that I don't cause any undue strain to natives. I know how difficult it can be to have conversations with English speakers with thick accents. Due to my line of work, I frequently talk to people in a diverse list of countries, within the company I work for. It can be very taxing when speaking with someone with good English, but with a thick accent. Therefore, I will make it a priority to be as clear in my production as possible. And thus, a new book on order: D'Accord - La Prononciation du Francais Internationale: Acquisition et Perfectionnement, by Peter Hagiwara. I found it browsing this thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37033&PN=1 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 68 09 February 2014 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
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Since last posting to this log, my study time consists of the following:
Fluenz Course -- 6.6 hrs Fluenz Audio -- 0 FIA ; -- 1.3 Vocab/Grammar -- 0.7 Assimil -- 3.3 Flashcards (Fluenz/Anki) -- 3.1 Cumulative Total Study Hours -- 200 Days -- 88 Hours/Day -- 2.3 Completed: Fluenz 3-3 Assimil 11 I'm just casually watching the FIA videos without doing the associated study material, so I'm not listing the levels as completed. Fluenz and Assimil contrast These two methods take a massively different approach, and maybe that's why I like working on the at the same time. Fluenz is smooth, progressive, gentle. Assimil is abrupt, rapid, unpredictable. Fluenz holds your hand and guides you down a path and when you get to the mile marker, you know where you have been and how you got there. The path is slender, but very vivid. Assimil leads you down a path that is unmarked in places, has some overgrowth, but also some clearings where you can see more of the forest. When you get to the mile marker, it is less clear how you got there, but the view was much broader. I will spend more time with my thoughts on Assimil later on as I progress far enough to get a good feel for it. I do like it very much. Also, since Assimil is very popular at HTLAL, and Fluenz is less known, I'll probably talk more about Fluenz for the time being. Caroline takes over Caroline is now the instructor within the Fluenz lessons starting at level 3, and she is very good. She spends more time explaining the lesson dialogs, and providing review concepts to further cement what has been learned. In levels 1 and 2, the instructor presentation following the dialog was about 5 to 10 minutes. So far in level 3 Caroline is spending 15 minutes or more discussing the dialog and she is very thorough. Starting at level 3 some verb future tenses are used, whereas in earlier levels only present and past tense were in use. I was happy before with Fluenz, and like it even more now as I progress. A typical Fluenz French lesson It goes something like this: 1:Instructor comes on for a short overview of the lesson. 2: The dialog for the lesson is next with a conversation between multiple people, it has 3 ways to listen; 1) with French and English text along with the audio, 2) only French text with audio, and 3) only the audio. 3: The instructor comes back and discusses the dialog, giving explanations on the vocabulary and grammar, also maybe some cultural insight or background. 4: Words and phrases are displayed with a button to listen. They may be from the dialog, related in some way, or review. 5: Sentences in French are displayed and you drag them to their English counterpart. They are usually related to the lesson but with variations, or they may be review. 6: A small number of picture flashcards come up for word matching. 7: English sentences are presented and you must type the French equivalent. These will be somewhat related to the dialogs. 8: French audio is heard, typically at a normal conversational pace and it may be rapid. You write what you hear. 9: The dialogs are presented again with buttons to replay the characters individually. You can record yourself and compare. 10: You participate in the dialogs playing one of the parties, and respond to the other person. Its recorded so you can hear the interaction afterwards. 11: The dialogs are played and you write what you hear. 12: Related phrases are presented and you repeat them back. 13: The instructor comes and gives you a well desired pat on the back. Edited by rlnv on 09 February 2014 at 1:53am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Indíritheach Senior Member United States Joined 4043 days ago 108 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish, French | Message 7 of 68 09 February 2014 at 1:58am | IP Logged |
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Great to see another French beginner is using Assimil! I'll be following your log with interest...I'm currently on lesson 25 and am really enjoying the method (I used it to re-activate my Spanish, so this will be the first time I attempt to learn a language "from scratch" with Assimil.) Good luck and have fun!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 8 of 68 09 February 2014 at 7:01am | IP Logged |
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Hi Indiritheach. Thank you for following along.
After I complete the 5 levels of Fluenz and Assimil NFWE passive and active waves, I may very well follow them up with the more advanced Assimil book. I think that its called Using French. Time will tell, but that's that path I envision myself taking at this time. Right now, my typical day consists of studying from the Assimil, Fluenz, or study books, maintaining an ongoing averge of between 2 and 3 hours. When that is done, I've been watching a French movie with subtitles. This is my entertainment time. This time going forward will be for movies, shows, and reading native books. As I progress, I suspect the course time will decrease, and entertainment time will increase. Edited by rlnv on 09 February 2014 at 7:02am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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