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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 1 of 102 19 November 2008 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Note (01/31/11): Februarathon begins on page nine, message 69.
Note (12/02/09): DECEMBONANZA begins at the very top of page 5, 2 Dec 2009. Note (10/02/09): Japanese begins bottom of second page, July 2, 2009. I have decided to place here a log detailing, or at least roughly describing, my French learning. Up to this point, my French study consists basically of having watched about half of the French in Action videos and playing an RPG in French (which I had already played in English) and putting interesting (usually most) sentences into an SRS. These both occurred months ago, my efforts having stopped entirely around mid-August. Having mostly abandoned my efforts but being eager to attack the language still, I have chosen to reassemble my war party and lead a new campaign against it. This can only lead to bloodshed. I have for this go Assimil's French with Ease (an older one, from 1982), some books in French for some of which I have audio, and still well over half of that RPG to go through. I can also find video and things like that should I want to at some point. With that, the plan is to use Assimil as a basis or something like that, and continue on the side with the native input (reading, for now only accompanied with audio book to make sure I have a consistent internal phonetic representation of the language). Further, I have set for myself a 30-day trial (a la Steve Pavlina) of studying French a minimum of one hour per day for the next 30 days (starting yesterday). Which I think is actually the most important part of my study plan, since I tend to lack consistency. Yesterday, I went through Assimil lessons 1-7, which took about 20 minutes, since there wasn't much of interest in there. I don't know at which point the book will catch up with me, but surely at some point (I hope, else I shouldn't have spent that money). And went through about a chapter of a book. All said, about 70 minutes, I think. Off to do today's, I suppose. Edited by NuclearGorilla on 22 June 2011 at 4:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 2 of 102 23 November 2008 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've succeeded thus far in spending an hour per day on French, for now 5 consecutive days. And I'm sure I wouldn't have had I not elevated the goal's status as I have.
I've done 7 lessons per day from the Assimil, either because I don't find the material at all challenging or because I'm doing it wrong. I suppose it's like how I was learning before, only graded rather than at a constant level. I've been considering upping the amount I do, since I mostly just put this off until an hour before I want to go to bed and so I'm not anxious to do much more than an hour (although I've been doing about 70 minutes as a result of circumstance). Although I've got rather a lot of other things I should be doing. I should probably work on pronunciation so I feel safer reading things without audio. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6565 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 3 of 102 23 November 2008 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations for sticking to your plan. Keep it up!!
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| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 4 of 102 02 December 2008 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the encouragement! It helps. I have continued still, and have now studied at least an hour for 14 consecutive days. For the first 7 days, I went through 7 Assimil lessons each day and did "reading" along with an audiobook. After that, starting Assimil's "second wave", I've done fewer, and in the past week have gotten through only 10 additional lessons, as well as the corresponding number of second wave. I've been a little lazy, and have been watching some French TV shows as part of my study occasionally. Although it's not like this is a worthless activity; I'll have to get used to spoken French eventually. Yesterday I'm counting as having completed my study at my discretion; I was falling asleep a lot during it. But I technically put in my hour. I'm going to redo what I did "off the clock", though. One motivation I have for learning French is to use some of the various other Assimils, including "Le Hindi sans peine" which I was able to purchase brand new for pretty cheap. Other motivations probably fall into the category of "coulds", these being benefits that exist that I probably wouldn't take advantage of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 5 of 102 04 December 2008 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I had one more day where I was almost falling asleep, but then yesterday I managed to fulfill my hour well before even considering going to bed, which kept making me feel as if I hadn't actually done it. I was able to stop falling asleep by doing some reading on French Wikipedia. Probably not the best source for input, but I'm always impressed at how much I can figure out, although I usually use a topic I'm already familiar with. I should be okay about getting enough sleep until... I suppose Monday.
I think I should possibly come up with some definite goals for French. Not sure what they'd be yet, although I intend to start learning Hindi at roughly the start of the year. Perhaps to complete the Assimil by some point around then. I'll come up with something specific at some point. Well, I'm on lesson 64, there are 99 lessons, so there are 36 more lessons for me to do. If I do 3 lessons a day, therefore, I will be done on the 15th, which will mean that I'll have completed the ("first wave", at least) of Assimil exactly in the one month I have been using it. Seems reasonable to me. (Almost too reasonable...) I think this is roughly the pace I've been going lately, although perhaps a bit more (since I've been kind of lazy and doing other non-Assimil things). Interestingly enough, roughly once those 30 days are over, I should be able to spend more time on French, since it's only a few days off the end of my exams for the semester. Hopefully I can come up with some fairly intensive study to finish out the year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 6 of 102 07 December 2008 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've kept to my three lessons a day (as well as the hour a day, of course). They're starting to take a bit longer to go through, which means doing less alternative work. I could probably make a reasonable case to break this the next two days, but won't for the pleasure of keeping a streak alive. (I love keeping streaks alive, even fairly pointless ones.) And it's probably good for self-discipline, or similar.
Today makes 20 days, I believe. I'd still like to do some sort of work on my pronunciation. Maybe later in the week, then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 7 of 102 16 December 2008 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I am now on the day before the final day in my 30 days. At which point I'll comment more generally. As it is, I'm looking forward to them being over, simply because this has cut into my sleep too often of late.
I miscalculated my Assimil, so I'm finishing with that today, instead of tomorrow, after cutting these final three days into two lessons a piece, as opposed to three. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 8 of 102 19 December 2008 at 6:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I finished my 30 days. While some might say, "Well, I've kept it up for that long, may as well not break the streak," my approach is more to break the streak as some sort of manner of showing that I have met my goal and am free to stop at will. Since yesterday I mostly didn't do any French as a matter of showing this.
There's actually a sort of feeling that nags a little now, reminding me to do my hour of French. But, I'm done with my semester, and so may do quite a bit of things over the winter break. Thinking of doing at least a few days rather intensively (at least 8 hours). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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