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My Adventures in French (TAC15) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| redflag Senior Member Australia Joined 3842 days ago 123 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French | Message 137 of 163 11 February 2015 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My sincere condolences, Mohave.
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| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4007 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 138 of 163 10 March 2015 at 2:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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Redflag – Thank you.
s.mann – Your post disappeared from my log with the forum difficulties, but I really appreciate your thoughtful and kinds words! --------------------------------------------------------- After being gone a month, we are finally back home! Although I do something in French everyday, I’m still not back into my full study routine as there is so much to catch up on after being gone a month (particularly with a few hours notice). There seems to be so many up and downs in learning a language… I love my French, but it’s starting to feel like a never-ending journey! Always words that I don’t know when I read, or something I don’t fully understand when listening, or today, when trying to speak at a French-learners’ meet-up today, spoke like I didn’t know a word of French – or at least botched up some fairly basic things. So frustrating -- and yet, I was just thinking the other day, that perhaps I saw a small improvement in my listening skills. Anyways, more good days than bad days,and this is a marathon, not a sprint I just need to figure out how to push through this to get to the next level!! Do you get frustrated at times on this journey? Anything I can do different to push through this? Finished Reading: Nothing since the last update. I started reading L'Homme Aux Circles Bleus - Fred Vargas, but after 77 pages, I was still having trouble getting into the story. I love policiers. Maybe I will pick this back up as I would like to read Vargas. Currently Reading: L’Ímmoraliste par Andre Gide. Andre Gide (1869-1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947. Excerpted From Goodreads: "In The Immoralist, André Gide presents the confessional account of a man seeking the truth of his own nature. The story's protagonist, Michel, knows nothing about love when he marries the gentle Marceline out of duty to his father. On the couple's honeymoon to Tunisia, Michel becomes very ill, and during his recovery he meets a young Arab boy whose radiant health and beauty captivate him. An awakening for him both sexually and morally. The Immoralist is a literary landmark, marked by Gide's masterful, pure, simple style." I feel a little dirty/icky reading and enjoying a book with such an appalling character, and I imagine in 1902 the book was quite scandalous! Thanks to kanewai for recommending Gide. Watching Since the last update I finished the last episodes from: Engrenages Saison 5 Fais Pas Ci, Fais Pas Ça Season 1, and Buffy Contre Les Vampires Saison 1 Pimsleur IV – Completed Through Leçon 19. I really like Pimsleur 4 a lot Exercises Grammaire en Context Intermédiaire - I am only on Chapter 9 of 15 -- behind goal. I do need to focus some more on this as in today’s speech session I made quite a few grammar errors that I should have cleaned up a while ago! Language Exchanges I have completed four sessions since the last update. Three with my language partners went well, but as I mentioned above, I totally bombed today! Flashcards The jury is still out whether I will continue with this. The dialogue on PMs log was interesting 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 139 of 163 10 March 2015 at 2:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like your update.
It sounds like you're doing great. The jury comes in and goes out on Flash Cards for me. It seems like other reading and listening and other activities where you cover more words per minutes have to be more effective, but I'm still doing them. Trying to ramp down instead of give up. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 140 of 163 10 March 2015 at 10:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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The frustration you describe is very normal; I call it the intermediate plateau. You know the basics but you still have a ton to learn and often it feels like you're not progressing and at times even going backwards. In my experience, there are two main cases:
1. You actually are making progress, but you don't see it. There are ups and downs, but the general trend is upwards. Things seem fast at the beginner stage because you're learning basic and important language every day, but once you're past that, it gets slower. I think the Pareto Principle applies: once you've learnt the 20% of the language that makes up 80% of speech, you start to learn the other 80% that makes up the other 20%. With the higher amount to learn and its lower frequency, progress feels slower and the things you learn are harder to retain because they're not being constantly reinforced. 2. A genuine plateau. This has happened to me at the "high intermediate but not quite advanced" stage, and tends to indicate that something is missing or out of balance. Maybe not enough input, or not enough output, or not enough study, or not going out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself enough in your input and conversations. Your case sounds like number 1. I think you're doing everything right so you just need to keep it up :). I was in the same situation with French for a while but I just kept going and eventually I noticed that I had improved a lot. I didn't follow the discussion on PM's log (I must've missed it, I'll catch up) but the great flashcards debate comes up every so often. Personally I find them very useful as long as they're an accessory to study and not the main focus. They help with what I described above, reinforcing words and expressions that you want to remember but don't come up quite enough in reading and listening, or that you want to be able to use as well as just understand. I had a proper plateau at one point (number 2 in my descriptions) and adding in flashcards was the main thing that got me past it. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4007 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 141 of 163 11 March 2015 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Luke - Thanks so much for the words of encouragement!
garyb - Thanks so much for your sage words. I'm glad to know that this is a "normal" part of the experience. Your first paragraph hit the nail on the head in terms of what I am feeling. I greatly appreciate you outlining your thoughts on the two main causes - that was incredibly useful, and I am sure I will refer back to that post frequently! I appreciate you sharing that you think I am on the right course based on your experience and that I am not leaving anything big out. it is always nice to have that confirmation. After I thought on this a little more, I think I was letting my frustration get the best of me. Where I made the errors are something I knew I needed to clean up - I think I was just embarrassed that I hadnt dont it yet... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5207 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 142 of 163 11 March 2015 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Glad you appreciated my thoughts. I've seen and read about plenty other people having similar experiences too. After the beginner stage, things stop being linear and there are a lot of ups and downs, where it seems like your ability changes massively from one week or day to another. You seem to understand and speak well one time, then the next time you feel like a beginner again. I'm not sure why it happens, and I don't think it can be avoided; there are some obvious variables that affect your ability like how you're feeling (awake or tired, relaxed or tense, etc.) but probably also a lot of less obvious ones. I used to get frustrated about "bad days" but now I'm usually a lot more relaxed, I just let them happen and I try to look at my progress over a longer term.
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5476 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 143 of 163 11 March 2015 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've been following along with Mohave's frustrations and your feeback garyb.... It's been really insightful and useful to read. I'm not sure i've experienced exactly what Mohave describes, as I'm almost certain a handful of French learners on this forum are overtaking me/have overtaken me with my French ability lately as I perhaps have over-utilised easier materials, which is fine, but it means the 'intermediate blues' as described haven't hit me as hard as others...yet. Although it's weird some nights I can follow much of the dialogue with something I'm watching, other nights I dont' even count what I watch as i just can't follow it too well at all- perhaps this is the ups and downs beginning. All in all I just wanted to jump in and say thanks for the useful info garyb and Mohave. And Mohave, keep it up, you're doing great! PM 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4007 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 144 of 163 11 March 2015 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting thoughts here PM! I suspect because you spent more time with learning materials, and therefore learned things to a higher level, you probably will have less frustration/shorter period of time in this intermediate plateau. Kanewai had an interesting discussion on the SuperChallenge thread on the differences between his learning approach between French and Italian and how he rushed to native materials with Italian vs a longer learning period with French. It made me think about the timing of when I want to start learning Spanish. I believe most of the advice here is to add native materials as soon as you can. I have certainly had fun and accomplished personal goals (To be able to read French literature) -- and when you really think about it, looking up a couple of words every page or two, is a small price to meet my goals. I listened to NipLife Podcast (Quebec) for the first time today, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I understood - so, while frustrated at times, I do believe the Super Challenge and the incorporation of native materials has made a big difference for my French --and I've had a lot of fun with it! The other thing I can honestly say is I really underestimated how much time it was going to take to learn French to a high proficiency. You hear of many who achieved fluency in months, but I've been at this very regularly for nearly two years. I understand now that this is going to take many years more to get where I want, and I do think that is also a source of my frustration -- trying to figure out if I'm a slug. Having said all this, I look forward to continuing to read your log and to see as you incorporate more native materials and your experience!! PS As always, thanks for your encouraging words, thoughts and support! Edited by Mohave on 11 March 2015 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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