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Vanthie Learns French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Vanthie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 38 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 17 of 57 26 January 2013 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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> Pimsleur II lesson 8
> Assimil lesson 8 The French Canadian keyboard came in the mail! Some of the punctuation placement is still something to get used to, but at least I can type all my letters without fear again. My writing software has trouble telling when I'm writing in English, though, even when I change the language for all text repeatedly. But that shouldn't be much of a problem unless I'm using quotation marks. What puzzles me more than anything about this layout is how many repeat characters there are. The caret button has two carets, one on top of the other, to show that it's still a caret when you press shift? I guess? ¯\_(o-o)_/¯ I'm running more and more into false cognates, or at least what appears to be words that were borrowed by English to mean different yet somewhat related things (bureau, demande, volontiers...) A lot of the time they're worse than the unique, unknown words, because the English alarm keeps sounding off in my head that it means something that it doesn't. I'm steadily growing used to demander as a thing that simply means “to ask” and not “to rudely command”. Surely that must have gotten the French in trouble with other countries at some point in history. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vanthie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 38 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 18 of 57 27 January 2013 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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> Pimsleur II lesson 9
> Assimil lesson 9 I'm not sure what percentage of comprehension I should be getting from those dialogues at the beginning of each Pimsleur lesson, but lately I'm lucky if I can follow even half of what's going on. Speaking and answering prompts is much better, though, so that's something. And at least Assimil still goes at a snail's pace. I'm getting into the informal you forms in Pimsleur. I'm kind of relieved the regular conjugations for Je and Il/Elle and Tu all seem to sound identical. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5021 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 57 27 January 2013 at 5:22am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, isn't it nice? Mais malheureusement, I'm not so good at producing the lovely French "R"s in those words. By the way, I also remember my delight in discovering "néanmoins": nevertheless. And faux amis can be a real problem in French. If you're interested, Saul Rosenthal has a book devoted entirely to the topic.
This last comment made me laugh. - Thanks! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vanthie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 38 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 20 of 57 28 January 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Just added it to the wish list. Thank you! :D > Pimsleur II lesson 10 > Assimil lesson 10 My writing software seemed to have magically fixed itself overnight and now I don't have to tell it twice when I switch languages. It seems as though the pace of Pimsleur has slowed down for now, and I can finish most of the prompts with only mild error. It was just impossible trying to repeat some of the phrases in Assimil today, though. Not for any particular words, but I guess because of some newbie tongue-twisters. The format was also completely narrative instead of dialogue, so just listening and repeating for a length of time was daunting. Edited by Vanthie on 28 January 2013 at 5:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vanthie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 38 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 21 of 57 29 January 2013 at 1:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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> Pimsleur II lesson 11
> Assimil lesson 11 One good thing about starting a language around the beginning of the year is that you typically learn your months in order, so, knowing how to say January now, I can to say the date and time entirely (barring a few days of the week, but shhh I'll get there). Pimsleur, wisely, has been quizzing on converting am/pm times to military time. It's interesting that I think of the night differently depending on which time I'm using; on the 12-hour clock, I don't really consider it close to midnight until it goes to the double digits, or two hours before. But in the 24-hour clock, I panic after 20:00 even though there's a whole four hours to get stuff done because I think if it starts with a 2 it must be getting late. Edited by Vanthie on 29 January 2013 at 1:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4477 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 22 of 57 29 January 2013 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think my favorite false friend so far is "déception", which means "disappointment" and not "deception."
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| Vanthie Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4141 days ago 38 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 23 of 57 30 January 2013 at 3:14am | IP Logged | |||||
The worst I had to deal with in Spanish was atender and asistir, which mean to assist and to attend, respectively. A lot of Spanish teachers like to point out on the first day that embarazada actually means pregnant and éxito means success, to show that Spanish is not always as ~simple as it seems~ but they're not even remotely as bewildering as French false friends. > Pimsleur II lesson 12 > Assimil lesson 12 I always feel like I've failed somehow when I don't recall a new word in Pimsleur that I've already learned in Assimil. Like dommage. However, today was the first day I really "got" what the Assimil lesson was about just by listening to it (and got the punchline, no less). I don't know how much of that can be attributed to my previous knowledge from Pimsleur or whether a regular Assimil learner could have guessed it for themselves. The voice actors are really good at getting a point across just though their tone, as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5021 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 57 30 January 2013 at 5:51am | IP Logged | |||||
I remember Assimil Lesson 12 as being the one during which I was gobsmacked to discover that "tout à l'heure", which I'd always understood to be "right away", actually has two opposite meanings: Assmil describes them as earlier, and later. About.com gives a bit more explanation:
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