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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1033 of 1317 08 June 2014 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I actually saw a great discussion of this the other day on reddit's r/programmation:
Over the last few years, I've seen hints that Québécois developers seem to code almost entirely in English, but that French developers tend to code in Franglais. But as you can see from this thread, it seems that even in France, more and more people code exclusively in English unless somebody forces them to use French. One of the big drivers here is that any programmer who works with open source web technologies has to read an enormous amount of English every day, because the technology moves so fast, and the documentation for thousands of useful, open source libraries never gets translated. And as my personal experiences show, it's not really that hard to transfer reading knowledge between English and French—a few million words is enough to make it pretty comfortable.
Interestingly, O'Reilly France pretty much gave up translating technical manuals to French, because there was no market, and everybody bought the English versions. Even in Quebec, where documentation must often be provided in French by law, I hear stories of Francophone programmers routinely trashing the French documentation, because even they don't recognize the French technical "vocabulary", much of which is never used by actual professionals. I've had excellent luck, though, with French programming blogs. Anybody who's interested should really check out my French blog subscriptions; there's a ton of programming and startup stuff there.
The Internet has definitely made it far easier to learn languages. I never could have gotten as good as I did at French with access to hundreds of websites and to Amazon.fr. And of course, since English is an important language—and the Internet is full of a vast ocean of content for every interest—of course it makes it easier for people to learn English. So I expect that we'll see both more English speakers, and also more polyglots, thanks to the Internet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 1034 of 1317 08 June 2014 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
That sounds a lot like I have been doing for German: read a basic grammar at the start; rote learn some vocab; plunge into lots of native materials. Would you say it's major advantages is that it is systematic (in grammar and vocab) and that it's very accessible to beginners? As I understand it from previous posts it leaves you somewhere in the B1 range after about six months. Is that correct? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1035 of 1317 08 June 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
The biggest difference between Assimil and native materials is that Assimil is graded, and somebody has already provided matching L2 text/L2 audio/L1 text and footnotes, basically. This gentle learning curve really helps for a language like Egyptian, where native texts are completely opaque, with virtually no cognates ("Pharaoh," "adobe," and "ebony", that I know of). It also helps first-time language learners. After about two months, Assimil uses plenty of real texts, even for ancient Egyptian. But in the beginning, it's nice to get a daily, bite-sized piece that only introduces 3 or 4 new things at a time. Assimil is quite happy to throw in oddball vocabulary and unusual grammar. Some of it they repeat, but other stuff never appears again. This adds a nicely authentic feel even to their simplified texts. They also tend to have a rather dry sense of humor—when France was occupied during World War II, they actually got in trouble for satirizing prominent German officials in their French-based German course. I think the short, daily lessons really help, too. If somebody actually commits to doing a lesson every day the way you commit to reading two books per week, Assimil almost always seems to work out pretty well.
More of a strong A2 with a bias towards passive skills, I'd say. But if you follow it up with any of the usual intermediate study techniques, it won't take long to be a solid B1. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 1036 of 1317 08 June 2014 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Ethan Zuckerman's book Rewire:Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection is worth reading. One point he makes is that it used to be if you were a blogger (say in Cairo) that you would naturally write in English, as that was the language of the Internet, but as more Arab speakers have come online, bloggers are going back to their local languages to communicate and they often say things a bit differently when speaking in their own language to a local audience, than when they communicate in English internationally. I am sure the same is true in Hindi, French etc. His concern is actually that while the Internet early on promised some sort of global melting pot, as time as gone on things have become more and more fractured along linguistic/cultural lines. The book is not perfect, but he has thought about these issues a lot and makes some interesting points. There is an interesting differences here in Berlin between English language blogs -- written either by native English speakers, foreigners from Spain, Sweden who don't speak German, and by Germans who want to write to an international audience -- and those written in German. The overlap in concerns is very different, with little common ground between the two discussions. There is no sense that English is somehow replacing German. I bet the same would hold for Paris blogs or Madrid blogs or whatever. The concerns of locals (at least native speaking locals) are written in the local language not English. I work for an NGO that provides a news service out of Central Asia. We publish in both Russian for our local audience and English for our International audience. There is surprisingly little overlap between the two audiences as far as I can tell. Those who can would naturally read the Russian as this is much more the language of region.
Hmmm... 2-4 books per month (say 1000 pages) not per week! :) You definitely have to commit to systematically doing lessons either way. I found the Super Challenge helpful as it developed a regular daily reading habit (say 30 pages). If I hadn't had that push and reinforcement I would probably have slacked off and at some point given up. Edited by patrickwilken on 08 June 2014 at 5:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 1037 of 1317 09 June 2014 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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It was Emk's experience, among a few others, that inspired me to use Assimil for
learning French. I began by taking his advice to complete 1 lesson a day, but things went off track around lesson 35 or so. After that I worked on it in fits and starts, and finally finished the passive wave two years after starting. I think it worked out very well for me this way. If I were to do it again, I think I would do it daily but on a week on / week off basis, because I think it took me more time to actually absorb the content (which fits in with the "bow wave theory" of Leosmith). On the alternate week I would read from a simple grammar like the one Emk suggests, begin to get into native material, do lots of listening practice, etc. The reason I think Assimil works well is that it gives a pretty significant amount of comprehensible input in a steadily graded manner. If you like learning from "content" then Assimil is a great place to start. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1038 of 1317 11 June 2014 at 2:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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patrickwilken: When I read French writing online, I see massive evidence that younger writers read extensively in English, and translate lots of ideas for a French audience. In fact, on many French blogs aimed at the younger generation, it's often taken as a given the reader can deal with untranslated English.
Jeffers: It's certainly possible to go through Assimil at much less than one lesson per day, especially if you make Anki cards. I'm learning Egyptian at a rate of one lesson per week, and it's working great. Plus, anytime after lesson 40 or 50, it's theoretically possible to wade through real native materials in small quantities, even for a language as challenging as Egyptian. ... What's in Assimil's L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique I recently spent some time flipping through the second half of Assimil's Egyptian course, and I was blown away by the quality of the texts they use. Below, I break the lessons down by subject and explain everything in English. This is going to be a really fun course to finish. Introduction to the writing system. Lessons 1–7: Introduction to vocabulary and hieroglyphic writing. Several easy stories which introduce the language gradually. 8–23: A garden, a great house, and those who manage it. 24–31: A young scribe. 32—47: Feeding some monkeys, and a monkey who steals a necklace. Native materials. 48—63: Excerpt from the Westcar papyrus. A bored pharaoh asks 20 scantily-clad servents to row a boat. One drops her fish-shaped necklace overboard. The necklace is recovered by a sorceror who causes half the lake to fold up over the other half. (If you're familiar with the story of Moses and the pharaoh's magicians, the Westcar papyrus stories will sound very familiar. The whole story with the staff that turned into the snake? It would fit in perfectly here.) 64—71: Excerpts from "The Eloquent Peasant." This is a surprisingly modern piece of literature, with a strong satirical bent. The "framing" tale concerns a peasant who is cheated by a rich land owner, and who takes a complaint before a judge. The peasant gives several eloquent speeches on justice and corruption (the speeches are probably the real point of the tale). The judge is so impressed by the peasant that he drags the court case out and writes everything down. The brilliant part of this tale is that none of the government officials are actually corrupt, but the peasant nonetheless gets to spend quite a lot of time talking about the evils of corruption. This is how you safely discuss politics when the ruler is considered to be a god, I'd imagine. 72–84: Excerpts from "The Satire of the Trades." Another classic work of Egyptian satire, this one explaining why being a scribe is a sweet, sweet job, and pretty much any other job is horrible. 85–91: Excerpts from "The Tale of Sinuhe." A classic Egyptian adventure story, about a high official who overhears people plotting against him and flees the country. He rises to prominence in a foreign land, has adventures, and eventually returns to Egypt a hero. I understand that this tale was extremely popular in ancient times, and it exists in many manuscripts. Personally, I find that it drags a bit—for every paragraph of story, there are three paragraphs praising the Pharaoh. But, well, that's Egyptian for you. 92—100: Tomb inscriptions and prayers. Finally! These are highly ritualized and abbreviated, and many courses start with these. Assimil prefers to give you a pretty solid background in actual Egyptian literature before working on these. 101: "I am Ra, Master of Life" from the "Teaching for King Merykare." The author of the Assimil course describes this as one of the most beautiful passages of Egyptian literature. Overall, this is a pretty awesome table of contents. I've already read several of these works in translation, and you can find translations of most of them in the excellent Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, which I recommend highly. In other words, over half of the Assimil course is pulled directly from some of the best known Egyptian writings. And I mentioned elsewhere, Assimil is preparing an English translation of their course, and they may release it in 2015. [Did I mention that Egyptian is an awesome wanderlust language? The writing system is fun, but much smaller than anything learned by students of Japanese or Chinese, and the grammar is delightfully weird but quite regular, with only a handful of declension and conjugation tables. Yeah, I think I've mentioned this before. :-) ] Edited by emk on 11 June 2014 at 2:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1039 of 1317 16 June 2014 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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More talking with French teachers
I had another lovely kayaking trip this weeked, and spent the entire upriver leg talking to a retired French teacher again. And the day before that, I spent a while talking to a younger French & Spanish teacher. Now, everybody who reads my log knows that I gripe about my speaking skills. I can converse, but I have trouble with the really high-level stuff: persuading, keeping up with groups of natives, etc. But apparently, my spoken French is now more than good enough to keep up with many non-native French teachers. Which probably suggests that I'm being a bit of a perfectionist when I complain. This keeps underling an important point: Past a certain point, it's not very useful to compare yourself to other students. If your ultimate goal is to be able to function more-or-less like a native, make sure you set aside lots of time to use the language with native speakers and native materials. A French tech conference! I discovered that a French technology/startup conference will be held in the US soon. I suspect that the main language of the conference will be English, but there's a lot of people coming from France, and a lot French expatriates coming from the US. Since my consulting business is currently in the "lull before the storm", I'm spending a few days translating my résumé, my sales copy, and the blog post I mentioned before, and I've finished filling out my profile on a new French freelancing site. Oh, and I'm probably going to step up my immersion level a little bit. (Let me go find the VoilaTV remote control!) And then I'm going to pay somebody to proofread it all. If you're good at proofreading French, please feel free to PM me. I don't expect any immediate payoff from all this work, but merely having a French presence should make it easier to take advantage of serendipity when it occurs. A lot of things in life require lots of slow, steady groundwork before anything can happen. Actually, AJATT is more or less based on this idea: surround yourself with every possible precondition, and just keep pushing steadily towards where you want to go. Until this conference is over, I probably won't be around HTLAL much. Too busy doing stuff in French. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 1040 of 1317 16 June 2014 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Have fun!! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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