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Spanky’s Romulan 18 months of French | ||
Tags: French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 119 30 June 2012 at 7:15am | IP Logged |
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What follows is intended to constitute an ongoing account of my re-booted French
language learning efforts over the next eighteen months in support of my fresh commitment to strive regularly and mightily against the all-but-impenetrable French language and finally to either: (a) defeat this wretched beast, or (b) blow out a mental grapple grommet or filbert flange in the process in a cataclysmic battle so fraught with heroism, self-sacrifice and the occasional car chase that epic poems will be written of it. My ability currently is approximately at the CERF level of “I suck”, which oddly is exactly where it was when I first joined this site years ago. I am hoping to give myself, as a nice cadeau for x-mas 2013, a significantly-increased ability with the French language. As incentive toward that goal, if I have not become “comfortable” with French (either moderestly semi-profluent or, alternatively, at least at an advanced inter-basic fluficient level) by the end of the coming 18 month period, I hereby irrevocably undertake that I will give up any continuing self-delusion that I am capable of learning another language and leave this wacky yet endlessly entertaining and informative site 4ever (which would constitute a real hardship for me as I like this place). Additionally, in the possible event of failure, I commit that in place of poking around any further with language learning, I will instead take up French mime lessons and will agree to no longer communicate orally with humans* again for a five year period, communicating henceforth only via emails, the internet, miming and through angry notes written in crayon (which would constitute at best only a moderate hardship for me - to be perfectly honest, I am sort of looking for a way to work toward this goal in any event as humans kinda creep me out). (*However, animal communication will still be fair game. I can communicate with dogs through a mixture of sub-verbal sounds and some measure of telepathy, and I can whisper to cats, though sometimes this disgruntles them and I am frequently asked by their human companions to stop doing this.) Edited by Spanky on 03 January 2013 at 8:49am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 2 of 119 30 June 2012 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
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(To be completed on December 25, 2013, or such earlier date as may be warranted,
should the outcome become obvious and inevitable prior to that date) Eighteen month wrap up Check one: ___ I have, contrary to the expectations of the Vegas bookies, become comfortable with the awesome French language and accordingly I am very pleased to claim victory. Yeah!!! ___ Having failed, pretty much as expected, to have become comfortable with French (even aggressively taking advantage of every ounce of wiggle room inherent in that vague phrase), I hereby agree in my continuing discomfort to stand by my irrevocable undertaking not to communicate with the human race any further in any form of oral communication for the next five years. Frankly, this will mostly be a relief to my family who could use the break from my usual inane chattering, though they will come very soon to hate the outrageous mime antics. Talk with you humans again in five years. Edited by Spanky on 30 June 2012 at 7:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 3 of 119 30 June 2012 at 7:20am | IP Logged |
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JULY 2012
Total time this month (to date): ----- Since I am apparently not otherwise using this post, I will use it to dump links to things I would like to check out in the future http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/ierverbs.htm notes re: conjugation of –IER verbs http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/erverbs_irreg.htm irregular –ER verbs http://phonetique.free.fr/index.htm Edited by Spanky on 24 September 2012 at 8:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| freakyaye Senior Member Australia Joined 4838 days ago 107 posts - 152 votes | Message 4 of 119 30 June 2012 at 12:49pm | IP Logged |
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kick ass and take names Spanky.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 119 30 June 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
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I'm torn, I really am. On the one hand, I want you to become awesome in French. On the
other hand, the mime thing would be pretty hillarious. Bon courage ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 6 of 119 01 July 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks freakyaye, I have both ass kicking and name taking scheduled for the first six or
eight weeks, and then lethargy and disinterest for an uncertain period of time following that, at least if history repeats itself. emk, it is in large part seeing the progress you made in your log that convinced me to give this another go and that learning French might actually, through lots of work, be possible. So let it be partially on your head in the event I fail and yet another mime (my anticipated mime name will be "Peepo the Confused Mime") is released unto the world. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 7 of 119 01 July 2012 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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Started working through some of the beginner level "audio lab" stuff on
french.about.com. Understanding oral french without the benefit of a text or transcript is by far my weakest skill, and the random oral list of numbers is needed practice for me. beginnner audio lab dialogues random oral numbers more numbers more numbers 20-69 more numbers 20-69 even more 0-69 Edited by Spanky on 01 July 2012 at 5:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 8 of 119 01 July 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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Started up with something very light from the RFI site that had previously been on my
list, L´affaire du coffret, a very elementary audio/transcript piece set as a mystery to be solved: L´affaire du coffret “It all started one morning, when I woke up in a hotel room with the mother of all headaches….” Been there before, so this seems of interest, plus it is mostly in English, so that’s attractive for me. Some initial prospect of car chases and international intrigue and such. Started today with episode 1 - Bienvenue à Paris. Very short pieces - hardly a meal, more of an amuse-bouche. Qui est Nadia? Presumably I will find out if I stick with it, planning on one very short unit per day. Something new for me from the first exciting episode: “laisse tomber” - drop it? I see from a wordreference.com thread, it is or can be equivalent to forget it, drop it (as a conversation item), et cetera: "Ne t'inquiète pas. Laisse tomber" "Don't worry about it. Let it go." wordreference thread Edited by Spanky on 01 July 2012 at 6:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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