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Gary’s 2015 TACtivation: FR, IT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 105 of 187 09 April 2015 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Dans mon groupe actuel on fait un mélange de black et de doom, et je faisais aussi partie d'un autre groupe genre death progressif/technique mais on est maintenant "en pause" comme on le dit ( c'est-à-dire, probablement fini ). Donc je fais un peu de tout mais surtout les genres plus extrêmes. Oui je connais déjà Mogwai :) ils sont de Glasgow, pas loin de chez moi. J'aime bien aussi Mono, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, God is an Astronaut, Sigur Rós, et bien d'autres. Et il y a pas mal de groupes qui mélangent le post-rock et le métal comme Isis, Cult of Luna, Pelican, Agalloch, et quelques groupes français : Year of No Light, Alcest, Les Discrets...
I agree with that, it's just why that "first" note is called "C" that I don't really understand, would make more sense if "do" were called "A". But I suppose it just comes from two different arbitrary ways of deciding which is the "first" note. I know that A is the typical reference note for tuning forks etc., and of course the relative minor on the white keys starts with A. I missed this post last time:
I answered a similar question a few pages ago... Basically, it works both ways for me: I know Italians because I'm learning Italian, but also I started learning Italian in the first place because I knew Italians. Studying the language encourages me to spend more time with them, and spending time with them encourages me to study it more. If it weren't for Italian friends and community here, I don't think I would have even considered learning the language. And once you know one or two people you can end up meeting a lot more. There's an even bigger Spanish community here. It can be hard not to meet them: whenever I go to a party or bar there are usually Spanish people, and they tend to be open and sociable. This is just my experience in my city though, and I've had much less luck with meeting French people for example: I meet very few, and when I do meet ones who I get on well with, they usually aren't staying here for long. French tend to come for temporary study/work while Italians and Spanish tend to have more long-term or indefinite plans. So it really depends on the situation and the community, and for that reason I find it hard to give any particular advice. The Fluent in 3 Months blog has some good (if simplistic) advice on meeting native speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 106 of 187 13 April 2015 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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French progress! I've been speaking every day with my temporary flatmate, some days just a few sentences and other days much longer conversations, and I'm seeing the benefits. I've said before that I've felt there were a lot of gaps in my conversational/social French, and this is helping to fill them in.
I'm certain that regular conversation with native speakers is essential for my progress. My recent series/book choices and writing have also no doubt contributed. This is reassuring: sometimes I've felt that my French has reached a limit that could only be overcome with immersion, but actually it looks like I could squeeze out a lot more progress just by conversing a few times a week and keeping up the input. Obviously I'm very lucky with the current situation where I can do that at home, but in the future there'll always the tutoring option if I want to keep progressing. Overall I couldn't really have asked for more for my French trip preparation. The only thing is that I haven't had time for the pronunciation work I was intending to do, but all the conversation has probably helped to an extent. My theoretical knowledge of French pronunciation is already good so simply having an opportunity to put it into practice is helpful. And I'm speaking with a native, so I can hear and imitate the real thing in conversation. I'm supposed to be flying to France on Friday, but there's an air traffic control strike which may or may not go ahead, so there's a possibility of the flight being cancelled. If that happens then I might be able to go on Monday instead, but failing that I might have to cancel the whole trip. We'll see. As for Italian, I don't think I've made much progress recently as it's not been my priority, but I am feeling more confident speaking it, again because I've been using it in everyday conversations at home. And at my level I think confidence is one of the most significant obstacles for speaking. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 107 of 187 27 April 2015 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm back from France!
Great experience overall. Spoke a lot of French in hotels, restaurants, shops, and on the street. Almost everyone I spoke to in French replied in French, and even my mum, whose French is a lot more basic than mine, always made an effort and had a similar experience. This reflects my descriptions of previous experiences in France, where people in "service"/"polite" interactions (discussed a few pages ago) will happily speak French if you do. The times when I did get answered in English, it usually turned out that the other person wasn't French, for example with an Australian bartender and an Italian waiter. Again as per my previous experiences in France, I found people to generally be very kind and polite. There was one rude waiter in Marseille who was deliberately slow at serving us (and other customers) and pretended to not understand my French, but he was an exception. I didn't do loads of socialising, I was more keen on sightseeing and relaxing, but I went out a couple of evenings. Yet again it reflected previous experiences, that socially the French don't tend to be very open and prefer to stick to themselves, although of course I come from a culture that is very similar in that respect and I'm also not very good at meeting new people in bars and so on. I went to a concert in Nice one night then tried to talk a bit with the band (who were locals) afterwards; they were happy that I enjoyed the show but didn't exactly seem keen to have a proper chat. I did meet and spend time with quite a few new people, but mostly other foreigners. In Aix I got chatting with a group of Anglophones who were living there and a Czech woman who was travelling there, then at the concert in Nice I met a tourist couple and also chatted with the owner of the bar, an Italian. In the end I went back to the couple's hotel for a drink, and upon leaving I got talking to the receptionist. In French at first, then I found out she was Calabrian so we changed to Italian and had a long and interesting conversation about life, work, and family. My Italian felt decidedly rusty in these conversations, partly because I've been in French mode recently and partly because it was 4am so I was tired and not exactly sober. Again these experiences are similar to what happens here, and in a lot of places really: for foreigners it's much easier to meet other foreigners rather than locals. It would be unfair to single out the French here. On the last night I decided to go to see a comedy show. I felt a bit nervous as it seemed like an activity for "proper French speakers" only and I didn't want to be "caught out". Of course this is all just nonsense in my head, but it shows how much negative thoughts can affect you. When I arrived I had to explain that I had already booked my ticket, something very simple to do at my level yet I got completely tongue-tied between the nerves and just being completely exhausted at the end of the trip. It was the smallest theatre I've ever seen: a stage and a few rows of seats crammed into a tiny room, so a very "intimate" atmosphere and a not so pleasant surprise: audience participation! I was quite on edge for the whole thing between the uncomfortable seating and having to always pay complete attention in case an actor suddenly asked me something. It was a fun experience and a challenge, even if not exactly the pleasant evening of sitting back, relaxing, and having a laugh that I had hoped for. The most difficult part, as always, was handling situations without context, like when someone comes up to you on the street and asks you something. It's hard to process what they've said, and even harder to come up with the appropriate response. I'm not sure if this is a skill that you can really practise if you're not living in the country, or if it's just something that improves as your general listening and speaking levels increase. I did find it slightly easier than last time I was in France almost two years ago, but it's still tough. The obvious benefit of travelling to the country is being immersed in the language and being able to use it in real situations, but I also think the trip helped put things in perspective and give me a healthier attitude towards French and language learning in general. When you're studying outside of the country, you can start to lose sight of the original reason for learning -- communication -- and get caught up in perfectionism and frustration. It was nice going somewhere where my French had a real practical use: even if my accent, grammar and usage weren't perfect, it got the job done and gave me a great experience. I'm still keen to improve these things of course, but for healthier reasons (communication and appreciation for the language) rather than negative and unrealistic ones like feeling I need a certain level to feel adequate and be taken seriously. Plan from now is more or less to continue as before. The trip has made me want to keep going with French, but Italian is still the more useful language for me so it's going to be the main focus again, especially for output. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 108 of 187 27 April 2015 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm a mixture of jealous, impressed and inspired by your post. It sounds like a useful trip, and just the sort of trip to France I would like to take one of these years. This summer I will be in India, where I hope I have a similarly enjoyable experience.
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5478 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 109 of 187 28 April 2015 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sounds like a most excellent adventure you had Gary, with plenty of French learning opportunities that you
seemed to have made the most of :) Thanks for sharing PM 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 110 of 187 28 April 2015 at 11:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Glad you appreciated my account of the trip!
Here in the UK we're lucky to be so close to Europe, and it's something I don't take advantage of enough. France, Italy, and Spain are just a cheap 2 or 3 hour flight away. Even a long weekend would be useful and I should do it more often. I don't have much excuse for only visiting the countries that speak my target languages every year or two. India should be interesting! I have a few friends who have either been there or are going soon; I even know someone who's about to go there to teach English, and no doubt learn some Hindi as she's also keen on languages. Anyway, some media consumption updates: French TV and film: I watched a fair bit of French TV in the hotels. In particular, various silly but entertaining comedy series and movies: Un gars, une fille, H, Banlieue 13 and Les Kaïra (had already seen both of these, so good revision). I saw H a few years ago and didn't get into it, but this time round I enjoyed it a lot, probably because I could understand better. It's stupid but fun as I say, convenient episode length (<25 mins), and the language is quite informal and challenging. I've added it to my current rotation. I also saw some game and talk shows, not my usual thing but good for everyday language. Books: Finished Plateforme. I had mixed impressions. Very interesting exploration of the theme of sex tourism and its cultural/social/economic factors, but I felt that some of the sex and violence was just gratuitous. With Houellebecq you expect sex scenes that are more graphic than is strictly necessary, it's his style, but in this book I felt it went too far even for him. Plus the main character seems like a caricature of the rich-straight-white-ageing-cis-male archetype that is so fashionable to hate these days. It often felt like too much of a deliberate attempt at shock and controversy. Not his best work, but worth a read if you like him. Started L'homme qui voulait être heureux, a book that I keep hearing about. So far it's quite a fast and easy read with an interesting if stereotypical spiritual message. I had a look around some bookshops and saw that Musso and Levy both have new novels out. I might pick up one of these for my next read. Italian: watched Finalmente la felicità, a bit more Tutti pazzi per amore, and I've been enjoying Learn Italian with Lucrezia: great to find a Youtube channel that covers more than just the usual basics. Her videos are good for when I have a spare few minutes and I've learnt some useful expressions from them. Anyone know anything similar for French? Still reading Voci. It's a slow-burner but certainly an interesting one. EDIT: I also wanted to mention the output challenge. I've started planning out and working on a video, but there's no way I'm going to finish it in the next few days. I've had a busy month, especially with being away and with my living situation. I also still haven't finished the fairytale for last month, or done a count of all the words I've written since the start. I don't think I'll realistically complete the challenge, but I'd like to at least catch up with the monthly challenges. Edited by garyb on 28 April 2015 at 1:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 111 of 187 28 April 2015 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you for your recommendations, I'm more tempted to read something more positive like the one you mentioned than something like Houellebec.
I've watched Smartscube . It is quite easy to understand, so it's good practice for listening on the background. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3524 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 112 of 187 28 April 2015 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Your description of using French in France makes me wish I could take a trip too. It was very brave of you to attend a performance that required audience participation. But what a fantastic reward to interact and enjoy a "proper French speakers" show. Shows you how far you've come.
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