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TAC 13 - PAX - Croissants and Panettone | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 1 of 12 08 January 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's TAC challenge number 5 for me this year and whilst I may not have the same
vigorous approach to study and updating these journals, French is still very much a part of my life. I have 5 more months here in Bordeaux and I intend to make an improvement on the first three months I spent here. I am currently an English teaching assistant in a high school. Sadly I have fallen into an English bubble, but I'm making efforts to add more French to my life. For 2013 I've made a commitment to use Anki. Whilst it may not be the most fun, you get a lot of bang for your buck. I would class Anki as active study whilst most of my study is passive such as movies, T.V and podcasts. In March I will be visiting Italy and I intend to move swiftly through Michel Thomas Italian foundation. I will get my hands on an Assimil from French base to learn Italian. I won't have to time to complete Assimil but I will peek at the first few lessons. Italian doesn't tickle my fancy too much as a long term goal, but the commonalities with French will surely aid me in undertaking short term study. Hopefully more goals to come. ------------------------------------------------------ For archiving purposes. 2009 2010 2011 2012 Edited by Adrean on 08 January 2013 at 5:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6237 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 2 of 12 08 January 2013 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great! I will have the privilege of reading your log this year as well. Always a pleasure.
I first accidentally misread your log title as Crosseyed and Painless, which is a wonderful Talking Heads song, but of course makes no sense at all with regard to French and Italian. Right now I'm more into the former than the latter but sometimes it's the other way round. They are both beautiful and interesting creatures. I'm curious how you will fare with Anki. If you're successful it will certainly be a great inspiration for someone who never manage to stick it out. Make the most of your stay in Bordeaux! A great opportunity for sure. //aloysius Edited by aloysius on 08 January 2013 at 6:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 3 of 12 16 January 2013 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a lukewarm start to the year thus far - thankfully I didn't make any
grandiose ambitions right from the get-go. I've been hitting Anki for 10-20 minutes each day. I used this successfully a few years ago and I know it's a proven method especially when you are studying from sentences that are in context, so I am returning to it. I watch several hours of T.V every other day. I've seen a couple of films notably an Italian film with French subtitles called Accatone by director Pasolini. I also joined a French dance class and got along just fine with comprehension. Just one of those New Year Resolutions. Thankyou Aloysius for your comment,I look forward to working with you once again. Crosseyed and Painless is quite the funky song and perfect background music for writing this post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 4 of 12 29 January 2013 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Almost to the end of the first month of the challenge. Overall this month was an
improvement on the last three. I had more exposure to native resources, in particular podcasts, T.V and film. I would say in terms of this kind of passive study I have done between 50-70 hours. Apart from passive study I've had a couple of language exchange meet-ups which went reasonably well. Still trying to find a reliable and regular partner. I have another exchange this weekend.I have a dance class once a week. I attended a wine tasting just last week too. I have been doing 10 minutes or so of Anki each day and getting through the cards which are proposed to me. As I progess more through the deck the more and more cards will appear so I will likely spend more time with this method. As for films I have seen 6 or so during the course of this month. Notably 'Holy Motors' which was voted the best French film of 2012 by 'Les Cahiers du Cinema'. I think I could write a little about Bordeaux in the coming posts to give any readers a better idea about the region. The days are getting longer now and the temperature is becoming more milder which is very welcome indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5206 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 12 30 January 2013 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, please; - I really enjoyed your posts/blog entries from Annecy, and presently know almost nothing about Bordeaux. By the way, there's a small Team PAX activity which we're doing. Read Kanewai's proposal in post 105, and share a song...! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 6 of 12 13 February 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Songlines - I will make it my goal to make a post about Bordeaux with pretty pictures
eventually! It's been a couple of weeks since the last post. It's been more of the same, more or less. I have been keeping up regular study with Anki which is quite satisfying. I can finish off a hundred or so cards a day in about 15-20 minutes. It depends how quickly I want to run off and do something else. The deck I am doing concentrates on words in sentences and therefore in context. I find it almost easier to retain a whole sentence than just a singe word out of context. If anybody is using Anki to study French I recommend French Intermediate Sentence deck which has about 1007 cards (there are some single words). I made the deck 3-4 years ago now and I'm glad it's doing well and has the number one spot for French deck downloads :) Socially, I had an exchange the weekend before last which went remarkably well. I am having one this Saturday. I had a few drinks with some of my older high school students last night but I treated it as an opportunity for them to speak English, although French naturally broke out between them sometimes. I also had a dance class which I guess is a bit of a 'learn language' class too. Little exchanges are happening all the time just by being here in France, but there are too many to mention. Most notably in terms of study I have tried to make audio recordings on subjects which have me speaking for 5 or so minutes. This was inspired by my team mate tastyonions who makes short audio recordings. I usually choose a subject that I like and try to talk about it without stumbling too much, for example I chose Anki and a couple of my favourite French podcasts to talk about. I might share them with the PAX group later and get a second opinion when I muster the courage. I will be in Italy for 10 days in 3 or so weeks which I'm really excited about. I forgot to mention the last time that I got my hands on the French Michel Thomas course version to learn Italian. It's almost as if they copied the Michel Thomas Italian course script and used actors and adapted it slightly for the French language. This might be a good idea for those of you who would like to use L2 to study for L3. I think overall it's very well done. Edited by Adrean on 13 February 2013 at 5:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 7 of 12 18 February 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Had a satisfying exchange over the weekend. The language became somewhat relaxed and
flowed easily for a short period. I mentioned this afterwards to the person and they said they realised that I seemed a little more in control than usual. I wanted to drop down here, if only for my team-mates who are learning French a few videos that I made to see my level at the moment. I would like to share some of my preferred methods of study and I hope they may grab someones fancy. I made the videos quickly and on a whim so no fancy editing or purposeful rambling - just rambling. The first is my favourite French radio program called Le masque et la plume . It's a once a week French cultural program on the cinema, theater or books. The second is a podcast put out by a Swiss radio station called On en parle . It's about various subjects, though they often pertain to a Swiss public. The third is about my French intermediate sentence anki deck which I made several years ago. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6165 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 8 of 12 02 March 2013 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just returned from having a language exchange. Thankfully I've found a regular
responsible person who is willing to meet each and every week and spend 3 or so hours together. The French wasn't flowing today all too well though. We visited a museum which on the first floor has sculptures from Roman times to modern times. The second level is dedicated towards the history of Bordeaux. Tonight I will be going to dinner at a colleague's house and so I will spend the evening speaking French. I fretted about what to bring to a French person's home for dinner but I ended up choosing a bottle of wine. I lost my anki deck due to a computer reboot. Haven't got the motivation to restart with the same deck just yet. I have been watching a few episodes of South Park in French as well as podcasts. The last few weeks I've taken advantage of the warmer weather to go exploring around Bordeaux by bike. If you find yourself outside of Bordeaux centre chances are you will have a vineyard within sight. It's simply breathtaking to see the plenitude of vineyards everywhere. At this time of year they seem to be quite busy with the cutting down of the vines from the previous year. They effectively leave the stump of the tree and just a few inches of the vine branch. After they have cut down the vines they collect the wood and burn it which seems to be quite lawful. The smell of burning vines is becoming a familiar smell at this time of year. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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