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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 353 of 436 14 September 2013 at 1:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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Another holiday sounds good ^_^. My French is failing me.. What's Revenants?
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| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 354 of 436 14 September 2013 at 9:21am | IP Logged | |||||
I watched my sons football practice in the pouring rain last night, so I can't help but agree :-)
Ghosts or maybe strangers. But if it's a film I'd expect the former. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 355 of 436 16 September 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Les Revenants is a TV show set in the French alps. I've only seen the first couple of episodes, but it looks like a few people in the town have mysteriously come back to life and everyone (including me!) is trying to figure out what is going on. It's creepy rather than scary, with a great soundtrack if you like Mogwai.
So I spent most of the weekend procrastinating French. I did other important things, like having a driving lesson (that's another skill I've decided it's about time I finally learned), doing some shopping, and going out for tea and cake with my husband. I also spent two hours having the laziest language exchange ever, where I mostly spoke English and my partner mostly spoke Japanese - but I guess at least it was listening practice for us both! I even worked through the first lesson of Say Something in Welsh, which is either a direct consequence of montmorency's recent enthusiasm, or an incredibly desperate attempt to procrastinate French. Probably a bit of both. Anyway, at times of serious procrastination a little bit of insight can be helpful. I wondered if the thing holding me back was a concern that the textbook I'm working with isn't challenging enough. It does start right from the beginning, after all. However, I seem to be able to get through one unit in around 1.5 hours, so a total of 30 hours work to revise all essential basic grammar and vocabulary doesn't seem like such a big deal. So when I got back from work today I gave myself a little kick up the backside and managed to force myself to study Unité 4. And I'm really glad I did. Not just because it means I'm moving forward again, but also because I actually learned some things I didn't know before, which just proves to me that this is a worthwhile book to use. It might start at the very beginning, but it moves at a rather fast pace. I still can't wait to finish it, but at least I should be able to enjoy using it too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 356 of 436 21 September 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know you can read French really well because you've posted about it already on the past. I'm curious how
you discipline yourself to keep doing textbooks when you could be reading an interesting story instead? Edited by kraemder on 21 September 2013 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 357 of 436 21 September 2013 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My reading isn't that good! I've just developed the skill of being able to follow the thread
of a story despite missing details. As for disciplining myself, the truth is I don't. I'm a terribly lazy student. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 358 of 436 21 September 2013 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's probably time for a more complete update.
Thanks to yuhakko, I was able to practice speaking French earlier this week on Skype, which I really appreciated! I'm still slowly plodding along through L'homme aux cercles bleus. I've also managed to get into the habit of checking the news on French news sites in the morning, rather than just the BBC. It's a good habit to get into. I'm not getting enough audio input. It's a relatively easy thing to fix, I just haven't really been in the mood to sit down and watch TV shows or films this week. I have, however, decided to take a fresh approach to closing up some of the biggest holes in my grammar knowledge. I have a copy of Schaum's French Grammar, which I bought last year as it was recommended for the French course I tried to do. Using the contents page as a guide, I've produced for myself a list of grammar topics which I have ranked according to how important I think it is for me to study at this point - I think I've just designed my own grammar curriculum! It seemed a bit of an overwhelming thing to attempt to do to start with, but once I got going it didn't take me longer than an hour. I already knew, for example, that I needed to do a complete review of pronouns, but I soon realised that in order for this to make sense I would also need to do a review of a number of prepositions first. When it comes to verbs, I don't really need to spend too much time on verb forms for the present tense or passé composé, but I definitely need to do some work on the conditional, the future and the present subjunctive. I certainly don't need to worry about things like the imperfect subjunctive just yet, but it's nice to know there's a section in the book if I need it. I have a list of grammar topics which I know I need to review, and I've put them in an order which makes sense to me, rather than to the authors of a textbook. It provides a little more motivation to actually go on and study the stuff! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 359 of 436 23 September 2013 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is basically what I've ended up doing with the Japanese N3 So-Matome/NKM books. I'm using them as a list of things "to understand" and mostly finding the explanations elsewhere. I must admit I never thought of tackling French grammar that methodically. Maybe when I go back to brush up I'll do something like this.
I too find it so much easier to produce a list of things on a TODO list than to actually do those things. If writing lists were enough I'd be halfway through Mandarin by now :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 360 of 436 23 September 2013 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The first rule of writing TODO lists: task number one should always be "write a TODO list". That way you always start with the satisfaction of crossing an item off!
Basically I was getting very frustrated with following a French textbook in order. Following a (good quality) method in order can make a lot of sense when you still don't know the details of what you need to know, so you might as well trust the instinct of the author in terms of presenting the grammar in a logical order with lots of natural reinforcement. But I already have a fairly good overview of what you need to know when it comes to French grammar, thanks to 7 years of classes at high school, plus a generally better understanding of how languages work and are described thanks to my work on Japanese and German. Spending the last three months or so getting reacquainted with French and, most importantly, actually attempting to use it, passively and actively, has also shown where the most fundamental weaknesses in my grammar knowledge lie. I could have just gone in and picked off bits and pieces one by one as they start to bug me, which is basically what I've done with Japanese over the last couple of years. But I decided I still wanted some kind of structure to what I was doing with French, which is why I've basically reordered the grammar book to suit my own priorities. If I never get round to studying the sections I've prioritised as "low" or "very low" I don't think it's going to be a big deal, but I'm very keen to get through the sections I've marked "high" and "medium" because I know these are topics that I just have to review to bring my level up. So far it's working. I've crossed off 5 lines on the list already, I've learned some useful stuff, and I've actually cut down on the amount of time I spend studying every night, which means I have more time to do the all important reading and watching TV. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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