Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5639 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 65 of 88 17 November 2014 at 9:33am | IP Logged |
Français
Le mot du jour: dodu - plump
Total (week 46): 443 hours and 51 minutes
I finally started working through French in Action and I'm really enjoying it. I first
watch the video, then read through the transcript in the textbook and add any unknown
words to Anki. I aim to do this once a day if I have time. I'm thinking of giving up
Using French for a while because I'm bored of it. I started reading another Roald Dahl
book, Fantastique Maître Renard. With that I also try to do a chapter a day and add
unknown words to Anki.
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5639 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 66 of 88 21 November 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged |
Nederlands
Ik denk dat dit jaar heel belangrijk is geweest voor mijn Nederlands. Ik weet niet of
mijn Nederlands werkelijk verbeterd is maar mijn mentaliteit ten opzichte van de taal is
wel een hoop veranderd. Vroeger had ik altijd moeite met spontane gesprekken. Die angst
is nu weg want ik heb meer vertrouwen in mijn vermogen en mijn Nederlands is wat meer
automatisch geworden. Dit komt ook door mijn gezondheidsproblemen. Als je een kruk (of
twee) gebruikt, spreken mensen je af en toe aan, dus je bent gedwongen om spontaan te
spreken. Ook heel belangrijk is dat ik wakker werd van een operatie en onmiddellijk
Nederlands begon te spreken. Dat vond ik wonderlijk en het gaf me het gevoel dat de taal
nu echt van mij is.
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5639 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 67 of 88 11 December 2014 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
Français
Total (week 49): 467h 43m
C'est presque la fin d'année! C'est pourquoi je ne suis pas très productive. Je suis
fanatique d'Un Village Français. Je le regarde avec les sous-titres en français. Je ne
comprend pas tout mais c'est suffisante pour suivre l'histoire.
It looks like I won't reach 500 hours by the end of the year, especially with
Christmas coming up, it's just not going to happen. I just want to keep working
through French In Action. And I've got a new book "Le roi Arthur" by Michael Morpurgo.
It's for ages 9 and up and I am finding it quite challenging. There is a lot of new
vocabulary so clearly I haven't reached age 9 yet :) I hoping next year I will become
a pre-teen so I can read Harry Potter and browse the young adult section of amazon.fr.
I'm thinking for next year that I won't set goals like "reach B1" because it doesn't
really matter what official level I'm at. I don't need to pass a test or find a job in
France. I would prefer to just focus on the Super Challenge and make sure that I
always have an enjoyable course to work through.
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 68 of 88 11 December 2014 at 2:31pm | IP Logged |
Iolanthe wrote:
I'm thinking for next year that I won't set goals like "reach B1" because it doesn't really matter what official level I'm at. I don't need to pass a test or find a job in France. I would prefer to just focus on the Super Challenge and make sure that I always have an enjoyable course to work through. |
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I think that's a great attitude to have. If you're just doing it for yourself, why beat yourself up? Enjoy the ride and you'll probably be surprised by how much progress you make.
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Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4005 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 69 of 88 11 December 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
Iolanthe wrote:
Français
Total (week 49): 467h 43m
C'est presque la fin d'année! C'est pourquoi je ne suis pas très productive. Je suis
fanatique d'Un Village Français. Je le regarde avec les sous-titres en français. Je ne
comprend pas tout mais c'est suffisante pour suivre l'histoire.
It looks like I won't reach 500 hours by the end of the year, especially with
Christmas coming up, it's just not going to happen. I just want to keep working
through French In Action. And I've got a new book "Le roi Arthur" by Michael Morpurgo.
It's for ages 9 and up and I am finding it quite challenging. There is a lot of new
vocabulary so clearly I haven't reached age 9 yet :) I hoping next year I will become
a pre-teen so I can read Harry Potter and browse the young adult section of amazon.fr.
I'm thinking for next year that I won't set goals like "reach B1" because it doesn't
really matter what official level I'm at. I don't need to pass a test or find a job in
France. I would prefer to just focus on the Super Challenge and make sure that I
always have an enjoyable course to work through. |
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I binged-watched Un Village Français while I was in Belgium. It was a great show, and can't wait until the new
season in available on DVD or Netflix.fr. However, I saw a nice little jump in my comprehension after watching
all the episodes with French subtitles like you -- and learned some great vocabulary! Enjoy!!
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5639 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 70 of 88 24 December 2014 at 5:49pm | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
I think that's a great attitude to have. If you're just doing it for yourself, why beat
yourself up? Enjoy the ride and you'll probably be surprised by how much progress you
make. |
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Exactly! Unfortunately my only previous language experience was of learning languages
that were forced on me. So learning French has given me a new perspective on language
learning.
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Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5639 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French
| Message 71 of 88 24 December 2014 at 5:56pm | IP Logged |
Tac 2014 round-up
Français
I’m happy with my progress in French this year. I think my skills are at least A2 now.
I was
aiming for B1 but looking back that was probably not realistic. I only had the
experience of
learning Dutch in an immersive environment to compare it to so I didn’t know what to
expect
from learning my first ‘fun’ language. I’ve learnt a lot about how to learn a language
on my
own this year. The most important thing for me is to make sure it is fun and that I
always
have a ‘go-to’ course at any given time. Then I’m able to make sure that I have
contact with
French every single day. Even on days when I don’t have much time or energy, I can
still go
through my Anki cards or watch French tv. So I’ve made it a part of my life and I’m
looking
forward to when this becomes even more automatic.
Study time grand total: 487h 58m
Nederlands
I ended up not doing a great deal with Dutch except for living everyday life and doing
homework for university. I’m quite torn. On the one hand I do want to be at C2 level
at some
point and now I think my speaking is B2, writing B2/C1 (depending on the subject
matter),
listening C1 and reading C1. But on the other hand I don’t really find this language
‘fun’ at
all. It’s just a practical necessity so I find it difficult to commit to reading and
trying to
improve without having a teacher breathing down my neck. And next year I will still be
finishing up my bachelor so I will have to do a lot of writing, speaking, reading etc
so I
think I will see what impact all that has on my Dutch before setting any independent
goals.
On a personal level, I have noticed big improvements with Dutch. For example, I woke
up
speaking Dutch after surgery and I also had lots of doctors appointments this year and
even
though I was pretty much always nervous I was still able to say what I needed to say
in Dutch.
And another thing I am proud of is that my Sinterklaas poems had so few mistakes this
year
that for the first time my family wasn’t able to guess that I was the one who wrote
them.
Other languages
Afrikaans, Turkish, Russian and Yiddish are languages that received the dabbling
treatment
this year. I got a bit overly attached to Yiddish for a while. Maybe I would like to
learn it
one day, but there is not exactly much use for it where I live.
Turkish I do want to learn more of next year but it will be secondary to French. Where
I live
there are allegedly plenty of Turkish speakers if you go to the right places which
makes me
excited to learn it. My focus will be on learning basic vocabulary. I’m not expecting
to be
able to discuss politics in Turkish, but I think it would be nice to be able to have
A1/A2
conversations with native speakers.
Edited by Iolanthe on 29 December 2014 at 9:35am
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plumbem! Groupie United States Joined 3631 days ago 44 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French
| Message 72 of 88 24 December 2014 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
Hello lolanthe!
I have just read your log, as it was short enough to do so, and we share the pursuit of French and Dutch. May we find ourselves on one of those teams this year!
I was wondering how you find the education system in Holland. I have been thinking about going to school there as its so much cheaper than school in the states. Sadly the only universities I could get US federal funding for are UvA, UV, Utrecht and Groningen. I am curious where you go and how you would rate your experience.
Also, do you have any good recommendations for Dutch radio or podcasts? They seem to like their music and the radio 1 segments are too short, or I haven't quite figured out how to download them correctly. I generally prefer programs that are an hour or so
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