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French, Russian, Greek, Hebrew (TAC 2015)

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13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
Light
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4423 days ago

30 posts - 42 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 13
27 December 2014 at 8:52am | IP Logged 
Learning materials, tools (and resources) on hand

Assimil New French With Ease
Assimil Using French
Living Language Complete French
Lingvist.io
FLTR
Living Language Russian: Complete Course - The Basics
The Internet
The Library (very close to home, too!)

I'm going to have to decide on what else to use because I'm limited in what I currently have for Russian (suppose I could go with Assimil there once I'm acquainted with the language), and I haven't decided on a method to use for either Greek or Hebrew yet. I was thinking the new Living Language courses might be a start, and they are quite inexpensive. Suggestions are more than welcome!

I've been studying French sporadically the last couple of years, never devoting enough time to really learn. I've had times where I was interested and times where I was not. My lack of action doesn't match the serious attitude I have about learning French. I guess it's harder to maintain when I'm not desperate to learn a foreign language.

I got Assimil NFWE and did devote about 10 days in a row to it. I fell off the horse, and only now am I starting readjust my focus. I can really only study with a book when I go to the library, so with the holidays I have been using Lingvist for under a week, which I plan to keep up. I will return to the library before the new year.

As for Russian, Greek and Hebrew, I figure if I throw another language in there the extra study time may have a psychological impact on me. I'm not going to be studying all the languages at once.
I will start with Russian (before Greek and Hebrew) since I already have a Living Language book for it I bought a long time ago. It's a language I've wanted to learn for a while, but I've always made French priority. Thinking I would get to a certain level before I tried my hand at Russian. I have to be honest, I think it was a mistake. French is my main goal, but I need to build good habits. Adding Russian will give me some fresh study time, giving me more hours, and may build good habits. Say I don't feel like studying French one day, then I will study Russian instead -- and I still get study time for the day. See what I mean?

Anyhow, I wish you all the best in your language endeavours!

I signed up for an Individual log as I don't know if I will stick to this (logging) yet. I may join another log, but as of yet nothing is set in stone.

Edited by Light on 27 December 2014 at 8:59am

1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4907 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 2 of 13
31 December 2014 at 7:15pm | IP Logged 
What an interesting combination of languages! Regarding Greek and Hebrew, are you studying the modern or classical varieties?

Regarding French, I think working carefully through NFWE is the best thing you can do. Lingvist will be a nice support, and once you're up to about lesson 30-40 of NFWE you should look at some listening practice. L'avis de Marie would be a great place to start, because she speaks farily slowly, and there is a transcript for each podcast. Of course, the listening practice on Lingvist is good, too.

And, hey, join the French TAC team for the lulz. Following other people's logs is good motivation to keep learning yourself!

Edited by Jeffers on 31 December 2014 at 7:16pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Mohave
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Mohave1
Joined 4005 days ago

291 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 3 of 13
01 January 2015 at 1:38am | IP Logged 
Best of luck for a successful 2015!   I am also learning French. I really had good luck with Assimil - both
French Without Toil and Using French. Also, I added Pimsleur French - which I was able to borrow from the
library (otherwise it can be pretty expensive). It helped me with pronunciation and automaticity, and was a
nice complement to Assimil. I wished I had started to incorporate native materials even earlier than I did. I
imagine being in Canada you should have good availability of items in your library!
3 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5164 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 4 of 13
01 January 2015 at 11:36pm | IP Logged 
Good luck with your languages, it's a nice combo. You're right about adding a new language for when you're done with the previous one. I started doing this and never stopped! j/k It just happens that I study each of my languages for nearly an hour every day but after this hour I can't do that specific language anymore due to burnout but I'm still ok about doing another one, so I attempt to make a good use of my time.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Light
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4423 days ago

30 posts - 42 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 5 of 13
07 January 2015 at 4:47am | IP Logged 
Jeffers wrote:
What an interesting combination of languages! Regarding Greek and Hebrew, are you studying the modern or classical varieties?

Regarding French, I think working carefully through NFWE is the best thing you can do. Lingvist will be a nice support, and once you're up to about lesson 30-40 of NFWE you should look at some listening practice. L'avis de Marie would be a great place to start, because she speaks farily slowly, and there is a transcript for each podcast. Of course, the listening practice on Lingvist is good, too.

And, hey, join the French TAC team for the lulz. Following other people's logs is good motivation to keep learning yourself!

There's a bit of a tug of war in my mind regarding the modern languages and older counterparts. I have an interest in studying the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible in the original languages. Moreso the New Testament, while I'd love a little bit of hebrew I can really see myself taking greek to a good level. But the price is steeper than that of the modern languages, and I'm not sure what I get for it. If need be I could see myself dropping hebrew altogether, but there's a real possibility I could get a leg in sometime this year. Basically I still have a lot of decisions to make regarding those two, but it's certainly no coincicence that they are both biblical languages.

Thanks for the suggestion L'avis de Marie, I've come across so many french resources since I got interested in learning it, and this is something I can say I haven't seen before. I should mention I have a ton of audio and transcripts from a couple subscription periods I've been through with NewsInSlowFrench.com (I haven't actually put this collection to use.)

I also rushed through Michel Thomas Foundation in the past, and have surprisingly retained quite a bit if prompted to recall it. I don't think a whole lot of it has really been activated on a level where I can just speak freely though.

Oh, and you have swayed me, I'll join the french TAC team. I do enjoy hanging around the forum when I have time, I just never realized how great this section was.
1 person has voted this message useful



Light
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4423 days ago

30 posts - 42 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 6 of 13
07 January 2015 at 4:53am | IP Logged 
Mohave wrote:
Best of luck for a successful 2015!   I am also learning French. I really had good luck with Assimil - both
French Without Toil and Using French. Also, I added Pimsleur French - which I was able to borrow from the
library (otherwise it can be pretty expensive). It helped me with pronunciation and automaticity, and was a
nice complement to Assimil. I wished I had started to incorporate native materials even earlier than I did. I
imagine being in Canada you should have good availability of items in your library!

Surprisingly most if not all of the french content in my library is children's books. Of course, children's books are perfect for language learners!
1 person has voted this message useful



Light
Newbie
Canada
Joined 4423 days ago

30 posts - 42 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 13
07 January 2015 at 4:54am | IP Logged 
French

Out of laziness, I've been sticking to daily Lingvist use as of late, going through 200 cards in 30-40 minutes depending on the night. I've done reading and listening exercises on Lingvist sparingly.

I finally ventured elsewhere last night (in addition to Lingvist), and did some memorization of conjugations seeing as I have avoided doing so for a long time. The only conjugations I had burned into my memory were for irregular verbs like ĂȘtre, avoir, aller, and faire, and of course I know some words in multiple tenses without really knowing the rules. Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of practice writing or speaking.

I have signed up for lang-8, as of now I'm not sure how much I will use it. How highly might you users of lang-8 recommend it? Is there a better solution for getting corrections on writing or perhaps speaking?

I need to get back to NFWE, but I think I'm going to get the important cojugations out of the way as it may help illuminate the text of Assimil for me, that I'll be able to recognize how to use different verbs as I read.

I have a parcel to pick up. I ordered in a number of illustrated books from the Let's Read series published by Barron's. Each book is 32 pages long, and it has text in french and English. I'm not sure how much text is actually in these books though, but I might give the series a review when I'm through with them.

Edited by Light on 07 January 2015 at 4:55am

2 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4907 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 8 of 13
07 January 2015 at 8:42am | IP Logged 
If you need any help with Biblical Greek, I can help.

I haven't consciously done much verb work in French, although I have always meant to. What are you using for your list of verbs to learn?

Great to see you've joined the French team! Come on over to the team thread http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39852&PN=2 and post a sign up there. (Ha! Signing up isn't as easy as you thought!!)


1 person has voted this message useful



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