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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 33 of 243 07 September 2011 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, Microsnout I won't give up the hunt. Thanks again to you and s_allard.
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I’d wondered what had happened to Ulysse Gosset, and more particularly, his excellent France 24 programme “Le Talk de Paris”. A quick Google search under “Ulysse Gosset France 24” yielded the news that Gosset’s contract had not been renewed, and the programme was closed down in late 2008. The official France 24 explanation was that the programme schedule for the new season was being overhauled; and that “Le Talk de Paris” combined “the highest expenses with lowest viewership” (both points challenged by Gosset). Given that the programme, whatever its viewer numbers, would surely have been a “prestige” programme for any network, it seems a real shame. “Le Talk…” had an impressive roster of guests, including quite a number of sitting heads of state (Turkey, Pakistan, Italy…) or NGOs; but sometimes even better -- people who were no longer in office, and thus perhaps freer to reflect on their lives and talk candidly about politics. And, of course, from my small and selfish language-learning perspective, many of the broadcasts (on the France 24 site anyway; not the ones on Dailymotion, etc.) were also transcripted. However, reading further, I found considerable media speculation that the layoff was connected to an interview that Gosset had done with Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gosset himself, in an interview with le Nouvel Observateur, talks about the Kouchner interview, and – for the record – categorically states that he believes “neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor Kouchner himself had called for [his] head”. After all that, how could I not spend 30 minutes of my #French #news time listening to the now infamous interview?? And – if you understand French – you can too: Part 1. Part 2. The parts that seemed to spark Kouchner’s anger are references to an article in l'Express: “Sarkozy et Kouchner: Sont-ils à la hauteur?" ("Are they up to the job?”,very loosely translated.) In brief, the article (another #French #reading 40 minutes) is critical and highly uncomplimentary of Kouchner, portraying him as someone marginalised in his job. It’s quite amazing, watching a high-level politician lose his temper and his cool during 30 minutes of national TV. Since I have minimal knowledge of French politics, and none of Kouchner himself, I certainly can’t speak to the merits (or otherwise) of the article’s contents. But the “Le Talk …” interview seems to have taken place just a few (two?) weeks after the article was published. I suspect that, as a journalist, Gosset could hardly have ignored issues which were the subject of such recent controversy in the mainstream press. In a happier world, BK would have been better prepared for that. Instead of which, he (perhaps entirely unfairly) came across as in turn choleric, defensive, prickly, and sarcastic. But it made for some fascinating television. And the whole process yielded a rich, rich harvest of interesting new vocabulary for my Quizlet/Flashcards++ sets: être secouer par le licenciement – to be shaken by the dismissal mettre à pied – to dismiss; to lay off. la rédaction – the newsroom (also other meanings) refonte de la grille des programmes – overhaul of the programming schedule se plaindre – to complain acharner – to go at fiercely limoger – to dismiss; to transfer; to relieve of command le limogeage- dismissal (sadly, so many ways to say someone's lost their job) peter les plombs – to blow a fuse exigeant (adj) – demanding être l’apanage de … - to be the perogative of [someone /something] la /le funambule – tightrope walker le cabotin – a ham (as in a ham actor; not as in Christmas dinner) l’énarque – a graduate/student of l’ENA. (I knew this one; but it’s so interesting it bears repeating). Should the initial “e” in the word be capitalised? les palinodies (f) ministérielles – ministerial recantations, sudden changes of opinions l’ingérence (f) – interference caracoler – to prance dérapage – to skid trébucher – to stumble l’écart (m) – a gap entamer – to eat into; to undermine [also other meanings] vendre la mèche – to give a secret away - And my favourite, rétropédalage – which Google translates puts as “coaster”, but which I’m guessing is actually “backpedaling”. -Does anyone know? And a postscript: If anyone's interested in communicating with me about the actual content of the l'Express article, the interviews, French politics or politicians, or France 24's treatment of Gosset, you're welcome to send me a personal message, rather than (for what I hope are obvious reasons) commenting on this thread itself. I'm absolutely not a political geek; I just wanted to share the background to the two "Le Talk de Paris" clips because, knowing the context, it really gave another dimension of interest to the broadcast itself. Edited by songlines on 07 September 2011 at 5:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 243 08 September 2011 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||
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The TIFF begins tomorrow! It's time for the annual film-binge: hundreds of films, screened over ten days. I'll limit myself to a modest 40 or so (the limit is 50), with a nice sprinkling of French-language films; and a balance between obscure independents, first-time efforts, and new releases from established directors.
I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to my French studies (such as they are), but hope to at least get some flashcard time on my iPod between screenings. From experience, I've found that one needs a bit of mental "down" time after each film, to absorb and reflect on what's been just seen. So that might cut into possible Assimil/reading time. On the plus side, I hope to count the French films towards my #French #films tally. (The Fitocracy tally's another matter, unfortunately. I'm still not quite well enough after my flu to get anything done on that front.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 243 10 September 2011 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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On the TIFF front, watched two French-language films: One, Omar m'a Tuer, is about a miscarriage of justice when a Moroccan gardener is accused of killing his employer.The other, Poulet aux Prunes, a melodrama based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel. Didn't count them towards my 6WC challenge, as I had to read the subtitles for both.
Also squeezed in time while at home to watch two news pieces, one from Radio-Canada, and the other an interview from the Talk de Paris series, with Grigory Yavlinsky. Unfortunately for any French speakers hoping to improve their Russian, Yavlinksy spoke in English, with voice-over interpretation. From what I could tell, the interpreter for Yavlinsky seems to belong more to the Andrew Darwant school of interpreting; rather than speaking robotically and dispassionately, he echoed Yavlinksy's tones and emotions throughout. - An engaging and impressive performance. Edited by songlines on 10 September 2011 at 9:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 243 13 September 2011 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Having laptop problems, so might not post much till it's fixed. But I'm still doing flashcards, watching French
films, and catching the French-language news when I can. The 6WC was a lot of fun; hope to keep logging on the bot once it's restarted. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 37 of 243 21 September 2011 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||
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The TIFF is over, laptop's repaired, and I miss the Bot which so handily calculated and graphed my language sessions.
Last week, from Monday to Monday, I did 215 minutes of French (not counting any films seen during TIFF). A mix of flashcards, reading, L-R, and news; with the news predominant. Inspired by Professor Arguelles' video on extensive reading, I've placed a hold on bilingual editions of Conan Doyle's stories, and will be using them for L-R, with Litterature Audio.com audio. Or rather, L-R for any reader except René Depasse. It's very generous of M. Depasse to volunteer so much reading time, but I unfortunately find his reading style too florid and his accent too "fruity" for my taste. It reminds me somewhat of amateur thespians who feel they have to declaim Shakespeare, because they're so conscious of it being great litt-er-ah-ture. But that's just my personal take on it; judging from the number of "heart" icons next to many of his audiotexts, there are many people who don't feel as I do. The stories for which there are only Depasse audio versions, I'll just read sans audio. As an aside, an additional reason for my selection of text is that I loved the modern-day BBC production of "Sherlock". Top notch scripts from Mark Gattis and Steven Moffat, superb performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and delightful touches of humour; Riveting and intelligent entertainment, all moving at a smart (and I use the word advisedly) clip. It prompted my return to the original Conan Doyle stories, which I'm happy to combine with my French reading. Also, inspired by this thread (and others) on sentence mining, I've changed the format of new additions to my flashcards sets so they have more context; if possible, the original context in which I first heard/read the word or phrase. Edited by songlines on 28 September 2011 at 5:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 243 23 September 2011 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks to suggestions from others on the forum, I've now added two dictionaries: one for my laptop, and an app for my iPod Touch; both from Collins. For the Mac, I chose the Collins Concise French Dictionary: It recognizes inflected forms, so I don't have to know the root forms of a verb; has a conjugation option; and, best of all, has hotkeys which I can use to get immediate translations/definitions - with the hotkey, I click on a word, and the dictionary gives its definition in a little pop-up window next to it.
The iPod app is the Ultralingua/Collins Pro French dictionary. I haven't used it a great deal yet, but it's a handy tool for my iPod. Edited by songlines on 23 September 2011 at 7:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 243 28 September 2011 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Summary/log for the past week, up to and including Monday 26th:
Flashcards: 50 minutes News: 140 minutes. Reading, or modified Listening-Reading: 215 minutes. Total: 405 minutes, or 6 hours, 45 minutes. The news was a combination of the following: "Le journal en français facile", TED.com (the only French-language talk I've found so far), Euronews, and Euranet. Reading was Harry Potter. I didn't do the full "Listening-Reading" three-sweep method; mostly skipped the last sweep of the L2 audio combined with L1 text, though I did keep the L1 text on hand for clarification and consultation. Two small notes: I don't include the time spent prepping my flashcards: looking up definitions and sample sentences (if the original context isn't appropriate in some way for the flashcard), typing and transferring them from Quizlet to my iPod. I also don't (of course) include the preliminary English-language read of my Harry Potter. If, in the future, I do an L2 audio+L1 text sweep, I'll count that in my tally. Edited by songlines on 28 September 2011 at 5:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5209 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 243 04 October 2011 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Signed up for the Read More or Die! Tadoko challenge. . So I hope to focus a bit more on extensive reading during the next few weeks.
Log/Update for the week up to and including Monday October 3: Flashcards: 30 minutes. News: 330 minutes. (5.5 hours) Total (except for reading): 6 hours. Reading: Harry Potter, 80 pages. Babe, le cochon devenue berger, 103 pages. Reading total: 183 pages Reading. I switched to page-counts for my reading, instead of doing it by time, since the TadokuBot uses pages rather than minutes. Also, I've adjusted the reading down in my TadokuBot counts to allow for the smaller page sizes in my books. I won't adjust for difficulty (since I reason that - as long as none of us are reading below our levels, I'm finding my reading as challenging as more advanced students are finding theirs). The Harry Potter's again a combination of reading and modified Listening-Reading. News. Comprised of RFI, RCInet.ca, TV5Monde, and a new discovery, www.tsr.ch. It's the French-language Swiss channel; TSR stands for "Télévision Suisse Romande". In general, its reports seem to be spoken at a more manageable pace than those on the French (that is, from France) stations. Flashcards. I also did a bit of flashcard-creation and housekeeping, adding vocab from my news-viewing to my Quizlet sets, and transferring them to my iPod. Flashcards++ doesn't seem to easily allow users to flip the whole set of cards from one language to another; you can do it before you begin studying a set, but mid-stream's a tad trickier. So I've created duplicates for some of my sets, with one set flipping from English to French, and the matching one from French to English. - Currently have 1190 cards, not counting duplicates, but fortunately(!) not all are in active study. It's small fry compared with the sets I'm sure many HtLAL members have, of course, but it's a start... More fiction vocab remains to be added to Quizlet. So many variants of, and synonyms for, the word "said" in Harry Potter! Edited to add forgotten HP tally from yesterday. Edited by songlines on 04 October 2011 at 5:43am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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