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Team EN - TAC 2010 - Goal French Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 73 of 119 14 September 2010 at 2:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hi Adrean
The idea of "language decline" in a total immersion environment is alarming! I am planning such an immersion myself of between 4 to 6 months in Montreal starting in November and have hopes of making significant progress. I would be interested in any advice you have for maximizing progress. Like your current situation, I will not be enrolled in a school but will use my current study methods combined with the highly social language hacking methods of Irishpolyglot (Benny Lewis). I will also do once weekly telephone lessons with a private tutor. Perhaps I should also set a goal of doing one of the DALF exams in the spring - just not sure which one. Bonne continuation, microsnout Edited by microsnout on 14 September 2010 at 2:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 74 of 119 14 September 2010 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thankyou for all the eager encouragement. It is very nice. Humbly, modestly I will stick with C1 exam and before I step a foot into any exam room I will diligently prepare. Ya know the proverb with the tortoise and the hare. I'm going to start a website soon fluentin5years, think anyone will want to read it?
I didn't mean to alarm anyone!
Hey I recommend to you using an language exchange website and meeting people that way. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Perhaps if you want to be well prepared you can start contacting people now in Montreal by using Skype. Also keep working on your grammar and vocabulary, that way you won't be regurgitating what you already know. Goals are fantastic. Why not arrange an ambitious language exam like Benny and give yourself the 4 months to try and pass it. I can't see why you couldn't try the DALF C1 exam. How did your sailing go during the summer by the way? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 75 of 119 14 September 2010 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I definitely plan to try the language exchange thing using conversationexchange.com. I have searched it already
and found 200 listings for French-English exchange of which the majority seem to be people from France newly arrived in Montreal. The sailing was great but malheureusement I did not reach Québec and thereby achieve an immersion environment. Interestingly, upon arriving in Kingston Ontario which is nearly 100% English, I asked a man if he knew where the marina office was and he replied "Désolé, je ne comprend pas". I think it was the first time I met someone who spoke no English whatsoever! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 76 of 119 17 September 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Before I reply I'm gonna post a link to a unintentionally funny video. It's an online teacher for French. You may as well watch the whole way through but if you wanna cut to the funny bit, just go to the 2 minute mark. If you see text covering the screen you can easily remove it.
You can start talking to Pierre in Bourdeaux right away if you wish. There are plenty of people searching for people just for Skype conversations. It's a great resource. This week I've had three conversation exchanges. So that's about 3 hours or solid French conversation and well 3 hours of English. Most often arrange to meet at a metro and find a cafe together. The other day was a little more interesting then usual because we went to see Victor Hugo's house in the Place des Vosges. It is now 'La Rentree', the return to school and work after the summer, I think people use this time to brush up their rusty English, which means daily I get several requests to meet up for exchanges. It's great because I don't have to do all the searching. At work I'm slowly getting better. My accent often is noted upon by colleagues. But I bet they couldn't string 3 words together in English so..... I'm currently reading 'Lettres de Mon Moulin' by Alphones Daudet. I bought it for 20 cents at a second hand store which is not so uncommon. I could fill so many suitcases with all the wonderful texts that I find at RIDICULOUS prices. But I won't. I've already amassed an unhealthy and uncarriable amount of books. Starting next week I will look at dates for the DALF C1 and start studying accordingly, I'm really looking foward to it. And finally this may not mean a whole to some of you but if you're familiar with Claude Chabrol, he passed away just a few days ago. He has been one of the most prolific and active film directors in France for the past 50 years. I watched 8 of his films as part of my study for the past two years. If you anyone is interested 'La ceremonie' or 'la femme coupee en deux' are both good films to start from. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 77 of 119 17 September 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
HA! That's not a native speaker, by the way. Hearing the English, I thought the person was from Québec, but then the nasals sound European, and many weirds things, especially that notorious "faute" doesn't sound right at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 78 of 119 24 September 2010 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Just returned from a 2 hour language exchange. It is my third and last of the week. The person with whom I had the exchange underestimated my level and spoke very slowly, articulating each sound. They needn't have bothered because listening is fine its as usual speaking which is the problem.
Well I have plans to do the DALF C1 some time in the short term future so I have been spending quite a bit of time flicking through grammer books in bookstores in Paris. I don't have the luxury to buy several so after much consideration I decided to choose this book, 
You can check out a few free chapters on the web if you like. The course is actually put out by the univeristy Sorbonne. It's a very no frills traditional text book, no pictures, no audio. It's just exercises, lots and lots of exercises, 157 pages. For content it seems like very good value for money, they squeeze a lot of questions onto each page. I am going to approach the book very systematically, from front cover to back, I will do each excercise, noting the wrong answers and moving on. If there is a particular section I had trouble with I'll return to it later. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 80 of 119 03 October 2010 at 12:48am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Slowly and surely working my way through the grammar book on one of the above posts. It takes an infinite amount of time to work through each exercise. I think if I continue steadily and surely I may have it finished in a year :/ . It's a fantastic resource for those of you who are very serious about learning your French grammar.
As always inspired by the latest video by Splog/FluentCzech, I feel suddenly inspired to make the most of my immersion time. If you don't feel like checking out the video, he explains how he's started up university in the Czech Republic and has committed himself for the last two months to eliminiate English from his life. I wish I had his commitment and devotion. I would love to try to this out, but I have a feeling I would fail quickly, very quickly. Why? Because I need keep a little English in my life to keep me sane. I realised that it's 5 months this week since I came to France. I did the homestay, did the school, got the job, opened the bank account and now I ride the metro like every other sucka. Success! I've seen loads of films in recent time. Really too many to mention. I did sit and watch one film which is attracting a lot of attention with the French public 'Des Hommes et Des Dieux', I thought it was very good. I went quite late into a dark cinema, I mean black, black as moonlight on a moonless night. I heard no sounds at all. So I thought I walked into an empty cinema and promptly went over and felt up a stranger. The lights came on and I was in a half full cinema. Quite surreal. Very embarassing. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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