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Learning French

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17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 9 of 17
28 June 2012 at 12:49pm | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
Motivation is really the important thing, isn't it?

I personally have a couple of tricks for boosting motivation:

1) Put a single-page, full-year calendar on your wall, and cross out every day that you
study in red. Try to get a nice, long line of unbroken red. This idea is thanks to
Seinfeld, who once wrote jokes every single day.

2) Find things that are really fun. At beginner levels, this probably requires a lot of
creativity, but maybe LyricsTraining or cool music would be a great start.

3) When all else fails, find things which are both fun and brainless.

4) And the brutal yet amazingly effective one: Once you have the ability to carry on a
rudimentary conversation, try to have some people with whom you interact solely in
French. This is how Benny Lewis the blogger does it, and I can personally testify that
it's an incredible source of motivation.

As khatzumoto at AJATT points out, you can't really rely on naked willpower and hard
work, not all the way to fluency. You need some combination of deeply-ingrainted
habits, an environment full of your TL, and an awful lot of tempting fun.


Thank you for your advice :) Yeah, motivation is really important. I don't like doing
things which seem to put me to sleep. I'll try to do things which will interest me. I
get distracted easily and this causes problems for me when I try to learn French.
1 person has voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5474 days ago
2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 10 of 17
28 June 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged 
happycheeks wrote:
Thank you for your advice :) Yeah, motivation is really important. I
don't like doing things which seem to put me to sleep. I'll try to do things which will
interest me. I get distracted easily and this causes problems for me when I try to
learn French.


Falling asleep is only good when it's a result of stuffing your brain with French. :-)
"Help, my brain is full, must nap now!" It's a strange feeling—one minute I'm watching
TV in French, and the next I desperately need to sleep. It's not boredom; it's
more like a laptop shutting down just before it runs out of power.

If you fall asleep out of boredom, find new materials as quickly as you can.

A good article on AJATT about exploiting your weaknesses while learning languages:
No Fun, No Good

Also, don't get too frustrated by the radio, TV or movies. It's fun to leave them on in
the background, and it will definitely do you a lot of good in the long run. But it's
not like an hour or two a day of incomprehensible radio will magically teach you
French. :-)

If you want to learn by soaking up lots of French (my favorite method, certainly,
because I'm lazy, but not my only one), you'll need a couple of things:

1. Text or audio where you understand at least 80% or 90% of the content. You can
either do this by picking out easy stuff, or by using a parallel English text to
temporarily boost your comprehension of harder materials. (Assimil and
Listening/Reading work great for this.) And feel free to look up interesting words.

2. Very consistent practice, preferably every day. Input-oriented methods tend to give
you a boost for a day or two, which fades quickly unless you reinforce it.

2 persons have voted this message useful



happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 11 of 17
28 June 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
happycheeks wrote:
Thank you for your advice :) Yeah, motivation is really
important. I
don't like doing things which seem to put me to sleep. I'll try to do things which will
interest me. I get distracted easily and this causes problems for me when I try to
learn French.


Falling asleep is only good when it's a result of stuffing your brain with French. :-)
"Help, my brain is full, must nap now!" It's a strange feeling—one minute I'm watching
TV in French, and the next I desperately need to sleep. It's not boredom; it's
more like a laptop shutting down just before it runs out of power.

If you fall asleep out of boredom, find new materials as quickly as you can.

A good article on AJATT about exploiting your weaknesses while learning languages:
No Fun, No Good

Also, don't get too frustrated by the radio, TV or movies. It's fun to leave them on in
the background, and it will definitely do you a lot of good in the long run. But it's
not like an hour or two a day of incomprehensible radio will magically teach you
French. :-)

If you want to learn by soaking up lots of French (my favorite method, certainly,
because I'm lazy, but not my only one), you'll need a couple of things:

1. Text or audio where you understand at least 80% or 90% of the content. You can
either do this by picking out easy stuff, or by using a parallel English text to
temporarily boost your comprehension of harder materials. (Assimil and
Listening/Reading work great for this.) And feel free to look up interesting words.

2. Very consistent practice, preferably every day. Input-oriented methods tend to give
you a boost for a day or two, which fades quickly unless you reinforce it.


I do have a nap after I study. I have a mindset of I have to study french the boring
way such as learning from French books. :P
1 person has voted this message useful



happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 12 of 17
29 June 2012 at 5:17pm | IP Logged 
28th June thursday

Today, I listened to more of teach yourself french while I was going to college
and I listened to it while I was on the train. I also looked at french phrases on busuu
on my ipod touch. I went on lyrics training and listened to a few songs. It was useful. I
can't remember what else I did.

Edited by happycheeks on 30 June 2012 at 12:53am
1 person has voted this message useful



happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 13 of 17
30 June 2012 at 1:33am | IP Logged 
29th June Friday

I listened to the french radio for more than 20 minutes. I don't understand everything
but I want to listen to the sounds and become use to it. I played a game and I had to
guess which word matched to the french word. It was fun and I enjoyed it. It was
reviewing french words and matching what English word it goes to. Tomorrow, I'll be
doing more of that. :) I went on the unilang website and I found lots of resources for
french. Tomorrow, I'll be listening to more French radio and I'll play more of that
review word game. I may not be doing a lot but I don't want to bore myself to death by
listening to teach yourself french audio for 1,000 times or review grammar rules etc.
If language learning is boring then I won't have much motivation and I won't enjoy it
and I won't learn much. When I'm interested, I want to learn more. I liked a page on
facebook which is in french. It's a page with that troll thing xD It makes me happy
when I understand most of what is written in the funny picture.
1 person has voted this message useful



happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 14 of 17
01 July 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged 
30th June Saturday

I listened to more French radio for about 30 minutes. I could understand a few words and
the speed they spoke in was normal for me. It wasn't too fast. The aim of listening is
for my brain to adjust to the sounds. I reviewed words on quizlet. The grammar words
were my - mon (m), ma (f) and mes (plural) and so on. I used anki but I don't like it. I
prefer quizlet because it has the sound of the french word too. For some reason I need
the pronouncation of the french word too. I done this for about 10-20 minutes. I watched
videos and reviewed conversational phrases such as hello, how are you and goodbye. I
repeated the word after.

Edited by happycheeks on 01 July 2012 at 12:35am
1 person has voted this message useful



Mareike
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6166 days ago
267 posts - 323 votes 
Speaks: German*
Studies: English, Swedish

 
 Message 15 of 17
01 July 2012 at 6:01pm | IP Logged 
I have a sound in anki, but you have to inlude it on your own. I meen you need a audio file. I add sentences from my textbook into anki and cut the mp3 file.
Did you try memrise?

Do you know sharedtalk and lang-8?
I'll prefer lang-8, if you're a beginner. I think it's easier to write a short text.
If you chat or speak, you'll have a problem with the speed.
You couldn't look up so many words, because your partner wait for a reply.


1 person has voted this message useful



happycheeks
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4649 days ago
57 posts - 59 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 16 of 17
02 July 2012 at 12:24am | IP Logged 
Mareike wrote:
I have a sound in anki, but you have to inlude it on your own. I meen
you need a audio file. I add sentences from my textbook into anki and cut the mp3 file.
Did you try memrise?

Do you know sharedtalk and lang-8?
I'll prefer lang-8, if you're a beginner. I think it's easier to write a short text.
If you chat or speak, you'll have a problem with the speed.
You couldn't look up so many words, because your partner wait for a reply.



Yeah I have tried memrise. It's a good website. I've heard of lang-8 but I haven't
tried it. I know shared talk too.


1 person has voted this message useful



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