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Team EN - TAC 2010 - Goal French Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6169 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 89 of 119 01 November 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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The past week I've been very studious, or at least more than normal. I think some serious time with the books are the only way I can be fully prepared for the exam. So pretty much each day I've spent about 2 hours in a library where I'm away from distractions. I'm making some good progress especially in regards to grammar and getting some of the simple things right. I make sure to give myself a break every 45-60 minutes to keep the concentration up.
At the moment I'm working very closely with a book on grammar. However I have to begin soon to focus on the book which is specifically made for the DALF C1 exam. Apart from just knowing the language you have to know how to structure an essay specifically for the exam. You have to be prepared for what will be asked and be able to format whatever you're doing into a proper context, whether it's listening, reading, writing or oral. I'm learning now to see an article and take clues such as titles, headers, format, to ultimately streamline my overall comprehension. I've done just a few exercises from the book and it's very hard. In a perfect world all that would matter would be my level of French but apparently learning, or relearning for me how to structure an essay is equally important. I'm keeping a study journal which is somewhat reflective of the things I do each day. I cannot record everything as that would be too difficult being in my target language country. So I record the reasonable chunks, like movies, podcasts, time spent with a book. However, I don't note the 10 seconds I spent buying a baguette. I kind of made a points system based on the quality of the resource I use. Essentially there are some studies which are more valuable then others; for example I spending time with a grammar book or Anki is quite intensive and valuable learning time for me, so one hour spent doing those things is equal to 3 hours with a film for example. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 90 of 119 02 November 2010 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As I know you're a fine connoiseur of Anglo-French-related clips, let me present a video on Globish this evening as a means of some light-hearted relief. I wasn't really sure whether to keep laughing, take notes, or raise a longbowman's "V" sign and declare that "neither is my mother a hamster, nor does my father smell of elderberries" when I saw this...lol...enjoy! Edited by Teango on 02 November 2010 at 8:23pm 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 91 of 119 06 November 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I chuckled throughout the video. The poor video production doesn't inspire confidence with his method.
Ok I will update my log while listening away to a podcast. This week I have maintained a consistant approach to study. I have slowly and surely cocooned myself into a sort of immersion environment. This is emphasied by the fact that I've watched the frankly lamentable 'Plus Belle La Vie' nearly each evening this week. If I'm not enjoying what I'm seeing at least I'm getting some French practice in. 'Plus Belle La Vie', if you don't know, is the most popular soap in France. I always have something to listen to of interest, whether it's in going to work or shopping or when I have some down time. I've collected a kind of 'best of' in regards to podcasts. I have some which are available daily; 'on allume la tele' 'la revue de presse'. There are some which are weekly; 'Tire Ta Langue' 'Carnet Nomade' 'Le Masque et La plume' et finally those that get updated whenever they please 'Learn French By Podcast' and 'Coffeebreak French'. There are those which I listen to with mild interest or those like the movie critic by 'Le Masque et La Plume'with eager interest. When the subject is of great interest to me, I find that I can listen without even the slightest difficulty in understanding. For example in listening to a program on Oliver Cromwell (a person of whom I had a prior interest) on '2000 ans d'histoire', I found it not at all an inconvenience to study at all. Frankly I am at a point of comprehension now which I can be pretty pleased with. I literally am exposed to 10+ hours a day of French. Be it in my job, television, on the streets.... In January 2009 I watched several episodes of Plus Belle La Vie on TV5 monde. Whilst I could understand some words, I was far from understanding everything. Around this time too, I watched the movie La Vie En Rose without subtitles as I noted in the beginning of my 2009 TAC log. To be honest I didn't get a whole lot, I could follow the events and characters just from what I saw, I would give the film a 7/10 rating in terms of language difficulty. I am sure now that if I watched it again I would be far from understanding everything but the vast bulk of it I would get. The same goes for another film I saw around that time which was frankly imcoprehensible because it was strictly dialogue based called Le Rayon Vert by Eric Rohmer. I've since come to watch his films, not without difficulty, but at least now without subtitles. All this hit me whilst watching an episode of Plus Belle La Vie because I frankly got almost everything, even idiomatic or difficult expressions. So in preparation for my exam I'm not going to spend hours stressing myself out over one part of the exam which is based on listening comprehension. I can do a few practice run throughs to get the hang of the exam setting but then I can focus my attention on the other three parts. If listening comprehension will be the easiest for me then written comprehenison will be the second easiest. I'm currently going through exercises for this part of the exam. I'm trying to establish a method for deconstructing a text so that I can maximize time whilst still having a very good comprehension of the text. The most difficult will be my own written section and the most nerve inducing would be the discussion with the jury. I will talk about those later. 3 persons have 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 92 of 119 07 November 2010 at 6:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Adrean. Congratulations on your progress! I can definitely say that I am not yet happy with my listening
comprehension yet but hope to fix that in the coming months. I was unable do very much at all in Sept and Oct other than listening to the radio while driving around and taking one course at the Alliance Française which I did because I liked the teacher and there were only 3 students in the class. The boat is now put to bed for the winter and I am 5 days into my stay in Montréal which may last up to the end of March. So far I have been to several English-French exchange meetings by meetup.com, today talking with 3 guys all recently arrived from Paris and looking for work here (one has found work, as he arrived 6 months ago). At a non-language related meetup, I met a concert pianist, born and raised in Montréal from francophone Swiss parents. He had to learn to speak a perfect international French at home or his father would be upset and a perfect Québécois French at school or his classmates would bully him! He could demonstrate the differences better than anyone I have met so far! Good luck with your exam. Edited by microsnout on 07 November 2010 at 6:57am 2 persons have 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 93 of 119 11 November 2010 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
He seems like the perfect study tool! A great phonetics coach. I listened to a program on the radio about the writer Jack Kerouac of whom I have an interest. I knew he had a French-Canadian background but nothing he ever tried to emphasise too much. The program led me to this video of him being interviewed in French. I found his accent out of this world. He has clearly forgotten a lot of his words since he was a child but he still speaks quite well. The interviewer has a classical accent with just slight hints of that strong Canadian accent. The English subtitles help. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 95 of 119 15 November 2010 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It must be exhilarating to watch Plus Belle La Vie now and get almost everything, especially those trickier colloquial expressions and accents. Your progress and commitment this year has been second-to-one, and I can't think of anyone who deserves to get an official C1 cert for French on their wall more than you. Bonne chance with any remaining prep and hope you get a friendly X-Factor jury! ;)
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 96 of 119 20 November 2010 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think I can't be much more ready then I am now. I am currently training myself for the setup of the exam; how to structure an essay, how to create a summary from several texts, how to do a global reading and a detailed reading of a text, I will move later onto a few short listening exercises and finally the spoken section. These elements relate more-so to the setup of the exam itself. I must also give myself some time to relearn my verb conjugations, for my writing and of course speaking. I have two handy websites; verbs online and verbmate. While being great they are far from perfect, so if anyone knows a great verb conjugator website I will be very greatful.
Even Simon Cowell couldn't stop me from passing. But if I look into Dani Minogues eyes too long I could become a little distracted. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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