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20 in 20 - learning log of the deranged | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes  Studies: French | Message 105 of 138 05 September 2010 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Il y a deux semaines, je suis allé au Playland, un parc d'attractions, avec my fille et deux amis de ma fille. Pour la première fois, je n'étais pas la personne la plus courageuse: cette visite, quand ma fille et ses amis ont pris le 'Hellevator' beaucoup fois, je suis resté sur la terre tremblant avec la peur and gardant les sacs à mains. Pour peut-être la première fois, je me rends compte que je suis un adulte en lieu d'enfant.
Il y a une semaine, nous sommes allés à Pender Island, où nous avons visité nos amis et poursuivi les cerfs qui sont nombreux sur cette île. Nous avons nagé dans le lac et aussi je crois qu'un petit peu de vin était bu. Un été très occupé, mais la semaine prochaine, ma fille va retourner à l'école - c'est vrai que l'été est presque fini. C'est semaine, je suis en train de regarder "Les disparus" ("Lost"), saison six avec les sous-titres français (malheuresement, il n'y a pas de version française sur le disc que je loue): Jacob: Ton ami Jin ne pourra pas me voir. Hurley: Pourquoi? Jacob: Parce que je suis mort il y a une heure. Hurley: Désolé. Ça craint. Jacob: Merci. Translation (though perhaps not word for word): Two weeks ago, I went to a local amusement park with my daughter and two of her rascally friends. I go on to lament that, much as my parents did for us when we were kids, I have now become the person who remains on the ground holding the bags and mini-doughnuts. If I knew the French for "circle of life", I might have worked that in. May I take the opportunity here of cautioning the reader against riding the Hellevator, a ride designed to attempt to make people throw up out either from fear of heights or from the effects of sudden acceleration. One week ago, we went to Pender Island to visit friends and tease deer. We swam in a lake and huge buckets of wine may have been consumed, though probably not by the deer. A busy summer but next week my daughter returns to school - summer is almost over. This week, I am in the process of watching Lost, season 6, disc 1, with French subtitles (unfortunately, there is no French audio version on the disc I rented). There is much I do not understand, but this is unrelated to language issues. The original English text of the above bit of dialogue is presented herewith: Jacob: Your friend Jin won't be able to see me. Hurley: Why not? Jacob: Because I died an hour ago. Hurley: Sorry, dude, that sucks. Jacob: Thanks. Edited by Spanky on 05 September 2010 at 10:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 106 of 138 05 September 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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In terms of study this past week:
French I am starting to work regularly through audio-based material and have gone back to re-review some material previously worked through (Pimsleur and frenchpod101.com units) and some new basic level material (Instant Immersion discs borrowed from the library) just for review and to get my legs underneath me again. I am planning on working through as many of the numerous articles, audio files and tests on French.about.com - Grammar as may be useful (there is a lot, though it takes a bit to tool around through the site); I am starting with the articles relating to verbs. As has as has been said elsewhere by others, to know French well, know the verbs, so I am focussing hardcore on les verbes until I have them down solidly. Instant Immersion - Discs 1 through 5 Pimsleur III, units # 9 through 12 Frenchpod 101 – several old miscellaneous newbie lessons French.about.com articles: - general articles concerning verbs, including inflection, conjugation; la voix; les modes (personnels et impersonnels) and the effect of pronoun subject clauses and collective nouns on conjugation, - la voix passive: appropriate use, conjugations, proper use of prepositions with the passive voice - le participe présent (as a verb, gerund, adjective and noun) - a test just for fun concerning conjugation at the beginning of the week - I got 80 correct out of 100 ("pas mal" according to the site). Would have been much higher (probably at least 105 out of 100) but I totally blew a tire on the subjonctif which I have never really had a handle on and on any question relating to conjugation of "falloir". I will take the test again in several months and then we will see who is "pas mal" Also, the creation and repeated review of a great many index cards of precedent sentences from the above materials. Japanese Reviewed the hiragana (still well internalized) and the katakana (a bit hit-and-miss in terms of what had been retained from before). Did some hiragana and katakana recognition drills on Smart.fm Learned/memorized (and anki'ed) 25 words in hiragana Including practising with audio files for each word to try to get the pronunciation down correctly from the beginning. Cette semaine passe, j'ai utilisé le site: Languageguide.org Reviewed Heisig, RTK, #1 - 25 (previously memorized; now refreshed and anki'ed) As a preliminary observation to this point, the words I am learning randomly in hiragana are way more useful than the words encountered so far in Heisig: I already know in hiragana just from this week the words for various body parts, clothing items and four animals (or five, if like me you consider a child to be a form of animal). In Heisig, I have learned among others the kanji for fish guts, bulls-eye and nitrate. Hopefully by the end of two years, it will all come together. Edited by Spanky on 05 September 2010 at 10:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 107 of 138 14 September 2010 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Le weekend passé, nous sommes allés à Osoyoos, une petite ville dans la Columbie-Britannique un peu près cinq cents kilometres de Vancouver. Tous les ans, nous visitons Osoyoos pour une ou deux jours. Cette visite, on a joué le "mini-golf", et aussi on a conduit les "go-karts". J'ai vu deux cerfs et aussi un loup. Au "Desert Cultural Centre" on a vu plusieurs serpents et j'ai tenu dans mes mains un petit serpent. Une nuit, on a joué le jeu de société "Clue" - ce n'est pas toujours vrai que "the butler did it." Cette fois, juste comme j'ai cru, c'était Mademoiselle Scarlet qui a assassiné quelqu'un, dans le conservatoire, avec un tourne-a-gauche. Je ne crois pas que ce sera nécessaire à deposer contre elle au tribunal - Mademoiselle Scarlet était un peu soulagé qu'on a trouvé son secret et je crois qu'elle va avouer plutot.
Parce que ces events a duré longtemps, je n'avais pas ont beaucoup de temps d'étudier, mais je continuais avec le projet japonais (kana and kanji) et aussi, pour le français avec Pimsleur et Instant Immersion. Aussi, j'ai regardé des nouvelles en français. Translation (more or less): Last weekend, we went to Osoyoos, a small town in British Columbia, about 500 kilometres from Vancouver. We visit Osoyoos for one or two days each year. This visit, I crushed the competition at min-golf, and nearly got run over by my daughter in a go-kart (reminder to self: when asked in about 4 years by her if she can borrow the car, remember this past weekend and just say no). We saw two deer and one wolf - the latter of which gave me a quiet nod of recognition in recognition of a kindred spirit - and some snakes at the Desert Cultural Centre, including a rattlesnake. One evening, we played the boardgame Clue, a family favourite. This time, the murderer was Miss Scarlet, a very shady character indeed. I managed to sneak in some modest amount of studying in addition to assisting in the solution of this crime: I continued studying Japanese words (kana with audio, and continuing to review kanji characters hat were previously learned). I also continued with Pimsleur III and Instant Immersion bits. Edited by Spanky on 14 September 2010 at 8:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 108 of 138 01 December 2010 at 7:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Je continue à étudier le français et le japonais, mais beaucoup plus lentement que je ne l'espérais. Malgré cela, je voudrais terminer mon étudie française avant l'été prochain. Pendant les six mois prochains, j'espère écrire quelque chose en français chaque jour, même si seulement un petit peu.
Ce soir, j'ai regardé un peu d'un film, Pride and Glory (En Toute Loyauté), en français avec les sous-titres français. Le dialogue français etait bien assorti à les sous-titres. Edited by Spanky on 01 December 2010 at 4:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Martin M Newbie United States Joined 5256 days ago 20 posts - 26 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 109 of 138 13 January 2011 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Had a question about your planned approach to FSI German. Isn't the Basic the more comprehensive program and include the programmatic? Or is the programmatic a good intro so one is not lost in the Basic?
Martin 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 110 of 138 14 January 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
Hey Martin, I'll let you know once I get there, or perhaps you can let me know once you do! Until then, I'm just basing my plans on the sales pitches (always a safe way to proceed through life, I'll bet). I note the following blurb from the FSI German Programmed Introduction materials: "The text and tapes present, in a programmed learning style, the structural features and vocabulary contained in the first six units of the FSI German Basic Course. In its use at the Foretgn Servtce Institute, the Programmed Introduction serves to accelerate the progress of students who subsequently move to the Basic Course." FSI German - Programmed Introduction I love the idea of acceleration. I experience it when driving (and hence my absurd number of speeding tickets), and hope some day to experience it (as opposed to stagnation and lethargy) with language learning. Edited by Spanky on 14 January 2011 at 12:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 111 of 138 01 May 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dang, my bluff got called and we are now confirmed for a 23 day vacation in France this July. A couple of weeks in Paris staying with a sister-in-law and her family and slinking around the various arrondissements, and then a week tooling around the rest of the country, though we have not really decided exactly where. Probably wherever the Tour de France isn't.
My longstanding goal of becoming a suave and sophisticated French language speaker and brilliant conversationalist in time for my first visit has no chance of coming to fruition. If I work really hard over the next two months (which I won't), I might possibly rise to the level of the female student in the Michel Thomas Foundation series, fingers crossed. Also, hosting an exchange student from Quebec for a week at the end of this month (the flip side of my daughter's exchange trip to Quebec last February), though I believe the goal is to provide an English language environment. That blowing sound you may hear in the next day or so is me in relation to the dust that has accumulated on my FSI materials.... Edited by Spanky on 01 May 2011 at 8:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5694 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 112 of 138 01 May 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey cool, I'll be in France in July too! My family and I are going to be in Brittany for three weeks. If you'll be in that area too, drop me a line – it might be a nice change for you to speak French to someone as bad at it as I am, after dealing with natives for a while. :) (And c'mon, I'm sure you're already much better than the MT woman!)
1 person has voted this message useful |
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