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TAC ’15 French Spanish Celtic Adv Study

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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sctroyenne
Diglot
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739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 113 of 336
31 December 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged 
Another book is tempting but I already have so many grammar books. I'm trying to see if
a library nearby has it as it's not very cheap on Amazon (not bad on Amazon.fr but
shipping will bring the price up). Whenever I went book browsing in France I would
always consider it against others and I would always take the others.

I feel like the non-English boards could be revitalized if rules for being on topic
were relaxed a bit. By the time you get there all discussions on language learning are
already exhausted so it feels like you're artificially recreating discussions in French
that have already taken place in English. Also, there are no sub-fora. For me, an ideal
French learning community would have the following:
  • Sub-fora with categories based on level
  • : People will mostly sort
    themselves but at the more advanced levels there would need to be standards on
    spelling/grammar (maybe run forum posts through Lang-8 first though that would cut down
    on the spontaneity of discussion a bit). There needs to be a place for beginners to
    practice but if a forum is mostly made up of questions about basic grammar/vocab and
    other beginner topics, I find advanced learners and natives get turned off.
  • Study
    groups
  • : As I stated in my post above groups based around materials we're using for
    learning can be motivating as well as provide a place for activities/exercises that
    would normally have to be done in a classroom or with a teacher (written responses,
    discussion questions, etc). For written responses, there could simply be a group on
    Lang-8 and there could even be audio discussions - either live through Skype or pre-
    recorded.
  • Book club/movie club discussions
  • : We're all reading, watching
    movies/series and absorbing other media, right? So let's talk about it in French.
  • "Off topic" boards
  • : A place where we can just "shoot the shit" in French
    (pardon my French). We could talk about our interests, questions we have about French
    culture, even news and politics. I don't think we'd need to worry about flame wars as
    long as the flaming is in French and doesn't get too personal. Maybe one of the
    problems of the French-only board is the total lack of controversy which inspires
    discussion.
  • Native speakers
  • : The holy grail for French learners - actual native
    speakers to converse with. They would need some incentive for participating and I think
    one of the main obstacles for getting native French speakers to "mingle" with learners
    is quality of discussion. I've noticed that attempts on Reddit to get discussion groups
    in French only get overrun with the same old beginner questions, bad grammar, Skype
    requests, etc if they're not moderated closely. I find it's the same problem with
    Meetup groups. As long as there's at least some filter for quality discussion then some
    natives might gladly participate and may even browse over to beginner/intermediate
    discussions to help out. If there's also a way for them to get feedback on the
    languages they're learning that might help as well.

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emk
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2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
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 Message 114 of 336
31 December 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
Native speakers: The holy grail for French learners - actual native
speakers to converse with.


Et ça, c'est le problème avec le forum français sur HTLAL : on peut y parler avec une dizaine de francophones (soit des vrais francophones soit des étudiants avancés), et c'est tout.

Mais trouver des francophones, ce n'est pas si difficile si on cherche ailleurs. On peut en trouver sur lang-8, bien sûr, mais aussi sur tous les sites français : les journaux, les blogs, même les sites comme Topito. (Et merci de m'avoir parlé de Topito.)

Alors, si vous voulez lancer des discussions intéressantes sur le forum français, je vais y participer. Mais il serait peut-être plus facile de trouver des francophones ailleurs.
1 person has voted this message useful



sctroyenne
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Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5389 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 115 of 336
02 January 2013 at 7:46am | IP Logged 
Je songe à lancer une petite campagne de recrutement sur On Va Sortir parmi mes
anciennes connaissances. Les sorties en anglais sont très populaires et en tant qu'une
des rares Anglophones sur ce site j'étais pas mal sollicitée pour ces sorties. Je vais
voir si quelques-uns d'eux aimeraient rejoindre la communauté des apprenants de langues
étrangères sur Internet.

I got a $50 Amazon gift card and I'm torn about how to use it. I'm considering getting
an Alliance Française membership again in order to use their library which would affect
what I would order from Amazon. For now I'm concentrating on the books I already have,
kicking off the Tadoku challenge with Le rouge et le noir, which I set down and never
picked up again last year even though I was enjoying it.

I'm also slowly making my way through a popular fanfiction, Harry Potter and the
Methods of Rationality. There have been several attempts to translate it into many
languages but French is the most complete (Russian and Czech are pretty well-covered).
It's pretty interesting and it's nice to have bilingual texts.

Later on I'll discuss my "Harry Potter method" I've worked out for Spanish. The first
book has been translated into Irish but I'd really like an audiobook.

1 person has voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
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justpaste.it/Kerrie2
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1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 116 of 336
02 January 2013 at 3:58pm | IP Logged 

Are you going to start a new log for 2013 or use the same one?
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sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5389 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 117 of 336
02 January 2013 at 8:48pm | IP Logged 
I think I'll just use the same one. Maybe add some links at the front as a guide.
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 118 of 336
02 January 2013 at 11:12pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
I think I'll just use the same one. Maybe add some links at the front as a guide.


Okay, I just wanted to add a link to your log in the team thread. :)

1 person has voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5389 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 119 of 336
14 January 2013 at 7:45am | IP Logged 
I'm back! One of the main reasons for my absence is that I used my Amazon gift card and
got a Kindle! I'm pretty much in love with it, especially with my ability to load a
French dictionary and get instant pop-up definitions. With regular books I'd underline
words and phrases as I read and then I would feel guilty for not looking things up. But
this totally eliminates that bottleneck. Now need to work on using the note/highlight
feature to actually export stuff that I can maybe use for Anki (though that would be
tiring to do for all vocab - Learning With Texts is still better for this - it would be
awesome if they had some kind of version for Kindle). I finished Le Rouge et le noir
and went on to re-read L'Etranger (it's been a while and my French wasn't as good then)
and moved on to La chute, also my Camus. I'll be reading his essays shortly. I also
started reading Stefan Zweig, which a lot of people liked in a French literature forum,
starting with Lettre d'une inconnue which was beautiful. For commuting I started Le
Seigneur des anneaux and Le Guide du voyageur galactique to counterbalance all the
bleak, depressing literature I'm reading. There's a local French lit book club which is
reading Le Père Goriot for beginning of March so that's queued up as well. Some Hugo is
in the pipeline as well but not sure when. I have a little reading ADD for the moment
so I plan on killing off shorter works on weekends and tackling bigger projects during
my commutes. I think by the end of this year I'll be well-versed in literature.
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
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United States
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1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 120 of 336
14 January 2013 at 1:36pm | IP Logged 
Good luck! I have my copy of Le Seigneur des Anneaux right next to me ready to go in my bag when I leave for my
commute to work. French literature will come in due time.


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