htdavidht Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4621 days ago 68 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French
| Message 1 of 5 14 February 2013 at 10:52pm | IP Logged |
After a while I am taking back the study of French, This time going to try to archive goals using the CEFR descriptions as a checklist. Working with this document:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/elp-reg/Source/Key_re ference/EAQUALSBank_checklists_EN.pdf
I ready know many of the phrases and words use on this videos, so with a little effort I think I will archive the listening level A.
Now the checklist and the links to the material to study for Listening for level A:
LISTENING
I can understand simple words and phrases, like "excuse me", "sorry", "thank you", etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMqRIwJE1d0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-om07bwk5YE
I can understand the days of the week and months of the year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDK3GRGRu8 (days of the week)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF1T6tYaii8 (monts of the year)
I can understand times and dates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJhf1tOyjkU (times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YekhmjYuEx8 (dates)
I can understand numbers and prices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywIWYKamyCY (numbers 1 -100)
I can understand basic greetings and leave taking, like “Hello”, “good bye”, “good morning”, etc.
I can understand simple personal questions when people speak slowly and clearly. (e.g. What’s your name?” “How old are you?” “What’s your address?” etc.).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbIJIsBbxiM
When listening to a conversation, I can understand words and short sentences, provided that people speak very slowly and very clearly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3zVVwrRWJA
I can recognise my flight number in short, clear and simple messages at international airports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRBtogkhb_o   ;(airport vocabulary)
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htdavidht Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4621 days ago 68 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French
| Message 2 of 5 25 February 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
Couple days ago I get to register on busuu.com this website offer courses on languages plus the community option. So far it is being great for me as I am picking up a lot of vocabulary. A friend of mine recommended me this website, he is learning Russian, at the beginning he told me this website is great and he is learning a lot, recently he told me he feel like stuck, so I guess this website doesn't do much more than basic level.
I also keep watching my videos, and am planing in going another round to my FSI files, probably this week.
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htdavidht Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4621 days ago 68 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French
| Message 3 of 5 28 February 2013 at 8:16am | IP Logged |
Giving Updates:
the busuu website still working fine for me as vocabulary tool, there is some stuff i still don't understand about the website, and about 25% of the classes are locked to premium members only.
I have done a couple of movies, I am looking forward to have my first real French movie, no a doubled one.
Also most of my online time to learn languages I am spending learning Japanese. I blame this one to this website, I read somewhere on this forum someone talking about Japanese and now I am learning some of it.
I don't really expect to learn the language, I am taking it more like a memory game, to see the gana or the kanji and recall the sound and the meaning. For this matter, this is the first time I approach a language as a game/challenge, and this is a pretty new idea for me.
I have being into the modern pop Japanese culture, for example manga, ninjas and sushi... but never before care to actually learn the language, so now that I am learning the gana, I feel I can figure them out for a lot of words I ready know, even though I don't know the kanji for them, yet.
For example the Japanese word for ninja is "shinobi" And I ready know this 3 ganas. Another example i know the gana for "katagana" (written system) so I think I can figure it out the gana for "katana" (sword).
There is also some stuff I don't understand, for example to refer to Japan I sometimes hear the term "nipon" but it turns out that it actually is "nihon" (the real gana pronunciation), so I am thinking the 'p' pronunciation is a silly mistake, why we have not fix it yet? also: where the word "japan" comes from????
And that is my update on learning French.
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htdavidht Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4621 days ago 68 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French
| Message 4 of 5 04 March 2013 at 6:28am | IP Logged |
I just got my first French book. Piked it up from a community college books sales.
"Cours de langue et de civilisation francaises III" G. Mauger, edition 1971.
I really exited about this book, I have not find a single word in English yet, it is totally produced on french, as long as I can tell. It basically have some short essays talking about some topics like history, culture, tales, and so. Then come some blocks about vocabulary, grammar, some exercises... and so.
It is clear to me that this book is way over my level, but I just don't care. I need now a dictionary. The reading of it is also a guessing game, so I will skip that part to don't mess me up with it.
About the other topics, the busuu website is giving me vocabulary only, I love the part that they have audio for all the words, plus audios using the words in sentences. I have found zero grammar on it, except what is leave to intuition. The friend who recommended me that website is just not using it at all, I can tell, because there is an option to friend people and track their progress and stuff.
As basic as this vocabulary is, I think I need it and I feel I doing great progress with it.
That website also encourage me a lot to engage in interaction with other members, they have tools to write down stuff and to review stuff other people write down. Also, they have chat options. But I think my french is not that good for that, i don't feel confident to produce text on it, and I don't think i can hold a conversation more than 3 basic lines.
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htdavidht Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4621 days ago 68 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French
| Message 5 of 5 09 March 2013 at 1:22am | IP Logged |
Some days ago the busuu website cut down the features to about 40% of what I use to have, they want me to buy the premium... so i no longer using that website.
I keep working on my vocabulary, mainly trough youtube videos.
I also Just finished to watch Le Roi Soleil, it is a musical comedy thing about the life of Luis XIV, link below. I am happy that I was able to understand about 30% of what they say. I also read video comments understanding some 90% of them, and read some wiki entries about Luis XIV, historical events, places, also some entries related to the musical... understanding some 70%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v24v-60CQKs&list=PL19E202A57C 077910
I am really satisfy with this results. Still my level of producing material is really low, I can do the basic greetings, and ask some basic questions. So far I have not being able to produce any written sentence that doesn't have a mistake.
Some days ago, about 2 week, I did Le Petit Prince, another musical... my levels of understanding where not as good as with Le Roi Soleil, I would like to come back to it when my level improve a little bit more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C4Xq7134BQ&list=PL0084DCFB30 B3A086
Le Petit Prince is on the list of books I would like to read in French.
I have not decided what I should watch next, found couple of links I think are interesting. Here they are so I don't loose them. If someone have more recommendations, they are all welcome :)
Don Juan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0bOtEvpn_o
Notre Dame de Paris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihRozXPcfsw
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