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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5582 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 6 08 July 2011 at 5:33am | IP Logged |
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I've made several logs before, but they usually fizzle out at some point because my
goals are not well formulated and I didn't consistently study. But now I'm enjoying two more months of summer off school (I go to University by the way), and I really need a motivational tool to keep me studying until I get back to school in late August. Hopefully on those lazy days of mine, the thought that I didn't update this log will shame me into studying lol. I plan on studying French and Spanish for this summer and beyond, although this log will mostly document my struggle to learn French over the summer. For this log, I am going to confine the goals for each language in what I can cover from today until September 1. I'm going to try and update this log every day or at least every couple of days with summaries of what I've been studying, my reactions to the languages or my studying material, and questions about French and Spanish. In accordance with custom, here's my background with the languages, my goals, and how I'm going to learn them. Background: French- I've never studied French before. The strange pronunciation and writing system always intimidated me. Most of my friends at university are studying French (and German too strangely) . Besides that, I recently read a book about the history of French language, but otherwise I have no prior experience with the language. Spanish- I've studied Spanish for a couple of years now. I studied Spanish all through high school (except Senior year) and this last year at college. I hesitate to say what level I am in Spanish. I'm somewhere in the Intermediate or B1-B2 range. In high school I studied Spanish like how I studied Math; I would try to cram all the material twenty minutes before the test and promptly forget the information by the next day. I didn't really notice the gaps in my knowledge of Spanish in the first year or two of doing this, but by the third year I was still making basic mistakes that only an absolute beginner would make... About two years ago I discovered this site and the posters here helped me to understand different studying techniques, etc. So last year I spent most of my time outside of class studying Spanish grammar to catch up to the other students. For the most part I've succeeded. Only now, my teachers tell me that I have an impressive grasp on grammar, but my vocabulary is lacking. I've tried to study since then, but I feel like I've hit my plateau and I feel like nothing I've been doing recently has improved my Spanish in any noticeable degree. Goals: I'm going to separate my goals between short term and long term goals. French: 1. Short Term- Between now and September 1, I want to advance to an A1 level or at least get a thorough foundation in the language. 2.Long Term- I plan on being a historian, and French is one of the languages where most great histories are written. My goal is to become fluent so that I can do research in France and keep up to date on French scholarship in the field of history. Learning French would give me a big advantage over other historians. Spanish: 1. Short Term- I want to get over this plateau in my learning. I'm taking a Spanish writing class this semester, so I want to continue to improve my knowledge of Spanish grammar and phrases. 2. Long Term- I am particularly interested in Spanish and Latin American history, so I need to become fluent in the language as well. It would also open doors for me as a future teacher, so I have both a personal and a professional interest in learning the language. How I am going to learn: French: I've bought several books, but I'm going to focus on using French Now! by Kendris and Kendris. It's a large book that supposed to act like a textbook either for school use or for individual studying. Obviously I'm using it for independent study. Looking through the book, the authors try to incorporate a lot of vocabulary very early on without putting nearly as much effort into explaining grammar. I don't particularly mind that because my knowledge with Spanish grammar should help me to infer a lot of basic French grammar and I don't plan on heavily studying French grammar until after I'be built up a pretty good foundation. I also look to this site: frenchmusicblog.com for news on French music. I'm not sure where I stand on passive listening, but enjoying the music of my L2 has to at least keep up my interest in the language, right? Finally, French pronunciation bewilders me. I've been looking at this site (http://www.languageguide.org/french/grammar/pronunciation/ ) for pronunciation guides and basic grammar.I don't trust the English equivalent sounds they give with French sound so I usually listen to their recordings several times and record what sounds come to mind. Spanish: I recently bought this book The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice by Gordon and Stillman. Just flipping through the book right now, the book seems to be of really good quality. The book comes with a CD and has references to websites for more listening practice. The book is mostly geared towards intermediate students but it goes through the basics as well. Most of the book is in Spanish while the only time the authors use English is to explain a particular grammatical concept. There are cultural notes spread throughout the book that are all in Spanish and the book includes multiple lists of vocabulary that every Intermediate student should know by now. Hopefully by finishing this book by the time school starts I'll get out of this rut I'm in. Well, that's enough for tonight. I'll post my first update tomorrow. Au Revoir and Adiós! Edited by Icaria909 on 08 July 2011 at 5:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6531 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 6 08 July 2011 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck on your French studies! I actually started learning French over the summer a few years back; now I'm tackling Russian as my summer challenge.
French Now! seems like a good book. I remember seeing it in the bookstore and thought it was quite comprehensive. I don't know whether there are many speaking exercises, but if spoken fluency is one of your goals (rather than just reading/writing), you will need tapes that make you talk back. Also, there isn't a French Now! Level 2, at least none that I've come across. If you're looking for some additional pronunciation practice, the FSI has published a complete course on that, available for free here. It's boring, but works if you survive it. The FSI also created the French Basic Course, which I used to great success (also tedious, but effective). These are used to train government officials, so you can trust that they work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5582 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 6 09 July 2011 at 5:35am | IP Logged |
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Well French Now! was a bust. I sat down with the book after spending an hour updating
my iPod with the CDs that came with the book all ready to learn, only to find out that the CDs are only used for the few exercises at the end of the book. So there's no audio for the first couple hundred pages. Maybe I can salvage some value from the book by using it as an exercise book later, but still.... After fuming at having spent $30 on French Now! I rummaged through stacks of language books and found an old course I haven't looked at in a while. It's called Complete French and it's from the Teach Yourself series. The book has three CDs as well but at least the audio can be found throughout all the lessons. The book is split into 12 units with each unit containing around 5 smaller sections to study. Today I went through the first three sections of Unit 1. It wasn't all that difficult, but I was a little surprised that one of the sections was devoted toward teaching French toasts (like à la tienne Françoise!). Unless the French enjoy making toasts at every meal, I'm a bit surprised to have encountered a lesson like this so early in the book. Oh well, at least they do focus on the basics. Thanks 236factorial for the idea to look at FSI for more practice. I'm definitely going to be using those in the future, especially the pronunciation course. More often than not, I spend a lot of time working on pronunciation before I advance very far with grammar and its great getting more Audio courses to work with. Good luck with Russian! I tried tackling it last year but I ended up walking away after it proved too difficult to beat... I was at work for the rest of the day so I didn't get to explore my Spanish book as much as I would have liked beyond just speed reading through the first chapter, but tomorrow I'll have more time to give it the attention it deserves. Until tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5582 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 6 11 July 2011 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
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French:
I went over another section of in Complete French. I'm almost done with the first unit and I now know maybe two dozen French words. That's so great because now I know 24 times more French words than last week lol. Although I can recognize all the words, I'm still having trouble pronouncing everything. Even now, I look at "bien" in French and I want to say it like bien in Spanish. So remembering all the various pronunciation differences hasn't been easy. I'm considering putting down Complete French for a week to plough through that FSI pronunciation course so I don't have to constantly re listen to my audio to remember how to say the word correctly. Spanish: I continued to work through the first chapter. The first chapter is just devoted to the present indicative tense; so pretty basic stuff. Going over all the irregular verbs was a blast (sarcasm alert). I think most people would disagree with me on this, but I much prefer studying grammar over vocabulary. Oh well... Tomorrow, I'm going to spend more time plugging words into Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5582 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 6 13 July 2011 at 5:34am | IP Logged |
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French: I finished the last two sections from the first unit of Ultimate French and I
feel as if the program is going to slow for my taste. So, I'm planning on running through the FSI Pronunciation course. I made my through the introduction and parts of unit 1 today. The course says a full time/active student should finish the course in 3- 6 weeks.That's perfect because I should be able to finish the course then by the end of summer! Spanish: I reviewed chapter 1 again from The Ultimate Spanish Review. I'm really enjoying going over everything, except I am weary of memorizing all the lists of verbs they say I should know. The list itself is great because it gives me a pretty good idea of what I should be studying, however, there are no examples given with each word and I'm afraid I'm going to not understand how to properly use these words in a sentence. They try to include these verbs in the exercises that follow the lesson, but they only cover a few dozen of the words they list. I'm still memorizing them though. So far though, I've spent more time plugging the words into Anki then studying them... I'll have to fix that tomorrow! Edited by Icaria909 on 13 July 2011 at 5:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5386 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 6 18 July 2011 at 3:58am | IP Logged |
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Icaria, the Ultimate French from the Living Language series is pretty solid. The first few units are a little slow, but then it picks up and gives you a pretty solid foundation. A lot of libraries have the series, so it might be worth checking out if the Teach Yourself book isn't turning out to be your style. =)
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