Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 297 of 336 01 September 2014 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
My condolences, sctroyenne! I'm very sorry about your loss.
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 298 of 336 01 September 2014 at 9:30pm | IP Logged |
Josquin wrote:
My condolences, sctroyenne! I'm very sorry about your loss. |
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Thank you! Any motorcycle riders out there, please stay safe!
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 299 of 336 02 September 2014 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
August 2014
Total Hours: 226:21 Daily Average: 7:18:06
(The weekly graph has a bug)
French Total: 143:24
Listening: 87:53
Reading: 22:34
Speaking: 5:28
Writing: 4:45
Class: 8:18
Vocab: 10:30
Grammar: 3:44
Irish Total: 48:46
Listening: 3:54
Reading: 1:50
Speaking: 0:36
Writing: 0
Course: 21:45
Vocab: 18:28
Grammar: 1:50
Spanish Total: 1:55
Listening: 1:55
Meta: 34:42
Meta learning includes all the time I spent making materials, such as Anki cards. I
spent a lot more time doing that this month, which I look at as an investment. I
watched a film in Spanish though I had planned on doing more. I worked more on vocab
and grammar which reduced some of my other times, but I look at that as well as
investment.
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 300 of 336 10 September 2014 at 8:47am | IP Logged |
Worked my way past the genitive unit in the Duolingo Irish course!
In total I've completed 25 units (not far from halfway) and made it to level 8 in Irish. It's going pretty well for reviewing and drilling what I already know or what I'm already familiar with (plus picking up some extra vocab). This is despite some of the problems - the mistakes that come with it being in Beta and the less than ideal audio (the Beta testers are pushing to get them to replace it with a real native speaker).
I'm thinking of turning the sound files my group leader captured into some sort of pronunciation trainer. I'll work on making that idea a reality this weekend.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 301 of 336 10 September 2014 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
Ah, Duolingo! I've spent some time with it for the past week. At first I did some kind of placement test (and got lvl 7), but since then I've reviewed the first units, and then just the "Strengthen your skills" bit.
Yeah, the audio is annoyingly unnatural for some key phrases (I've had a good laugh at the pronunciation of "teaghlach" and "cait").
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 302 of 336 11 September 2014 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Yeah, the audio is annoyingly unnatural for some key phrases
(I've had a good laugh at the pronunciation of "teaghlach" and "cait"). |
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I think I'll never stop saying "kwit".
I had the writing class at the Alliance Française again last night after work. I had
planned on getting something simple for dinner but a last minute email from the
department head in his typical cryptic-style got me all into confusion and brain-fry
mode again after I thought everything had been squared away. So in lieu of some pho or
wonton soup, I said to myself, "I need a cocktail."
I think I need to make this a regular ritual. My spoken French was on point all night
and after some brief yet intense brainstorming, my writing flowed pretty well and I was
incorporating a relatively rich vocabulary. The pre-class cocktail in addition to the
in-class included wine may have had nothing to do with my performance but I think it
merits another try to see if a little bit of alcohol helps relax my brain and
unlock my foreign language mode. I've previously had the experience of consuming more
than just a little bit of alcohol and believing that I was speaking brilliant French
with barely an accent but I don't know if that perception is reliable. So I'll try
smaller amounts.
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 303 of 336 05 October 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged |
Just saw Stromae in concert last night from the FRONT ROW! I have no voice left which will make talking to my French friend tomorrow challenging. Some pics:
In other news I'm off to France in less than one week! I'll be there for about two and a half weeks: mostly in the Paris region with about 5 days in Toulouse. I'm beyond excited and can't wait to collect books, go to plays and TV tapings, and chat all day everyday in French.
My September report is forthcoming. Nothing record-breaking. In terms of progress my French Anki deck is working great. The vocabulary I'm working on comes from online articles and blog sources (thanks to emk's SRS Collector). It's all very relevant and keeps popping up all over the place - I'd say everyday I encounter at least one word I've been studying out in "the wild".
Most of my Irish contact has been through Duolingo. It works great to reinforce what I've already learnt and to help me work out the fine details. As I said in the Duolingo topic, I'm not sure how good it would be for someone using only Duolingo as a resource. TG4 posted an Aifric episode again after a long hiatus and my listening comprehension continues to improve which I'm very pleased with.
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Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 304 of 336 07 October 2014 at 1:20am | IP Logged |
Stromae, great! Good for you! I like also his lyrics, and I feel really happy when I can
understand them just by listening to the songs.
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