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Finished Pimsleur French After 8.5 Months | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6271 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 43 04 April 2008 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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I finally finished Lesson 30 of Pimsleur French 3 today. It took me 8 1/2 months to complete all three levels of the course.
I started doing one lesson per day at the beginning and moved on when I was able to do 80-90%. As I moved through the lessons, it would take me longer to get 80-90% right. I had to do lessons three or four times a day, and sometimes for two or three days before I could move on. Even then, I found I couldn't answer the prompts reviewing previous material. So, I started repeating lessons until I got less and less wrong, eventually only allowing myself to miss ten things, then five, then three. I tried all sorts of things to try to remember. One time I did a lesson nine times in a row in 4.5 hours. Other times I tried breaking the lesson into ten minute segments and repeating just the ten minute segments over and over. Also tried doing them first thing in the morning, last thing before bed, listening passively while doing other things, and listening to them as I feel asleep. Nothing seemed to work any better than anything else. By the time I got to lesson 1 of Level 3, I still couldn't answer the prompts reviewing things from previous lessons. I just sat there unable to come up with the words. I was so frustrated, especially after remembering a review someone gave of Pimsleur French saying "by the first lessons in level 3, the words were rolling off my tongue". I didn't think I was a perfectionist, and didn't want to be, but enough was enough. I thought being middle aged was part of the problem, but I refused to give up. I decided, I will keep repeating a lesson, and not move on to the next lesson, until I get a lesson 100% correct. I figured I either know it or I don't, and if I don't, I won't move on. I also included the following conditions. 1. In order to be considered 100%, I had to answer everything, before any answer was given, even when they would say "listen and repeat" first. I felt if I knew the material in long term memory, I should be able to give all the answers before the speaker. To be able to say something a few minutes after they tell me the answer with the "listen and repeat" prompt only showed that I could recall it short term, so that wasn't acceptable. 2. I had to get 100%. For example, if I said "la" instead of "le", or left out (or added) an "a", even one time, it was considered less then 100% and I couldn't move on. 3. Although I could repeat a lesson as often as I wanted, when I felt I was ready to test myself for 100%, I could only try if it had been at least two hours since I had last done the lesson. I figured it was easy to remember a mistake I just made and immediately repeat the lesson to get it right. However, in order to prove I learned from the mistake long term, I had to remember the correct way two hours or more later. 4.The lesson had to be completed 100% in one sitting. I could not, for example, do the first 10 minutes and then come back later and do another ten minutes, etc. 5. If I made a mistake at any point, even in the last minute, the entire 30 minute lesson had to be repeated. One time after repeating a lesson many times, I tested myself and made one small mistake. When I tried again, I made one small mistake but in a different place. I tried a third time and made a mistake in yet a different place. It took me one more try to get 100%. Another time I got about 28 minutes into a 30 minute lesson and made a mistake so had to repeat the lesson later to get 100%. Today on Lesson 30, I got to within twenty seconds of the end of the lesson. On the second from last phrase of the lesson I said "ce n'est pas", instead "je ne suis pas", so had to repeat it later to get 100%. Did testing this way cause extra pressure? Yes. But I figured you always do worse under pressure so if I could do 100% under pressure, I would remember it better. Did all this help? Yes, I was now able to answer things form previous lessons as well as figure out new things or at least come pretty close. It also seemed my listening comprehension with regards to French podcasts increased in the past couple months, despite listening to them less because of all the time spent on the Pimsleur lessons. Did it get boring at times doing so much repetition? Yes, sometimes, but I just used it as an opportunity to practice my pronunciation. I am not fanatical about sounding like a native or having a perfect accent, but I do want my pronunciation to be as good as possible so I can be understood. Naturally, this caused the lessons in Level 3 to take me anywhere between two days for a couple of them, to as long as eight days for a few. Most took between four and six days to complete. At one point I even tried to move on after only making one small mistake, but it kept bothering me, so I repeated the lesson again once more time and got 100%. I stated Pimsleur in July of 2007 and have over 500 hours of study into this 45 hour course. I never missed a day. I normally did the lessons 1.5 to 3 hours per day but some days for 5 hours. In no case did I ever spend less than 30 minutes in a day doing a lesson. In addition I also watched all 52 videos of French in Action, one per day, at the beginning of Level 3 of Pimsleur. I also listened to French podcasts and songs from the beginning of French Level 1. Near the end of Pimsleur, I figured all I did was memorize rather than learn. It also seemed I forgot more than I remembered. However, I tried a couple other French audio courses I picked up from the library to see which one I want to do next and found I was just zipping through the lessons. I also found sometimes when people will say a sentence to me in English, I will automatically translate the entire sentence into French. I realize I spent a lot of time on Pimsleur just get a basic intro into French. I know I would not be able to hold even a basic conversation, simply because there is so much more to learn. My experience with Pimsleur does show me that there comes a point where the the extra effort is not worth the return. In other words, if you can get 40% of a lesson in the first pass, 30% more in the second pass, and 20% in the third pass, but it then takes fifty more passes through the lesson to get the last 10%, it probably isn't worth it. I just need to find where that point is. I also realize I have held myself back by doing Pimsleur this way. However, I needed to prove to myself that I will not quit just because the going gets tough. Now that I have, I am hoping to take a more fun approach and see where that takes me. Edited by fsc on 06 April 2008 at 2:12am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7026 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 43 04 April 2008 at 9:37pm | IP Logged |
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That's great! Congratulations on your progress. I'm impressed by your dedication to the language.
Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6403 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 43 04 April 2008 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
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Good job!
Just out of curiosity how well do you understand the FIA videos, because from what I saw of Pimsleur, it didn't teach many words at all (to me at least). mais n'importe quoi, I'm glad you enjoyed it. J'espère que vous aimez toujours apprendre le français. Edited by vanityx3 on 04 April 2008 at 10:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 6048 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 43 05 April 2008 at 12:14am | IP Logged |
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Wow! I am utterly impressed. What dedication! It almost sounds masochistic the way you would repeat the whole lesson after 28/29 minutes out of 30 just because of a single gender mistake. I would really hope that it payed off. You're the first person I know who has gone through all three levels in one shot! How many words do you think you know now (excluding those you learnt from your podcasts and other sites/books)?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Javisst Newbie United States Joined 6243 days ago 35 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian, Swedish | Message 5 of 43 05 April 2008 at 2:15am | IP Logged |
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Congratulations!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6957 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 43 05 April 2008 at 9:05am | IP Logged |
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Congratulations! You appear to have set yourself very high standards and such single-minded dedication is very impressive.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6953 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 8 of 43 05 April 2008 at 9:27am | IP Logged |
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I am _very_ impressed by your dedication. If you took that approach with FSI French, you'll be fluent for sure.
Congrats! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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