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Komma’s Log: Fr (TAC 15), En (TAC 15 | ||
Tags: Activating a Language | Advanced Level | Anki | Self-Study | College/University | Assimil | English | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Komma Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4057 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish | Message 17 of 21 12 April 2015 at 9:52am | IP Logged |
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*sigh* It's been a while again. I've been very busy with Easter and starting the new semester
at University where I'm currently doing my Bachelor thesis. French I haven't been doing much lately, but I signed up for a French course. It's a double course with 3 hours of French a week (maybe a bit disadvatagous that it's only one 3h lesson and not two 1,5h lessons, but I'll see). I'm very curious whether this course will be good or not. I didn't like the Spanish course at university. There was a native speaker which is good, but as I didn't understand much it was hard to follow sometimes and we only did exercises from the book and so. I could do that at home as well. With French however, I understand it better and maybe i learn more of the course that I could not learn at home (as pronunciation. Which is better to have a native speaker correcting one. I'm not sure how many students will be there though.. and whether there is much time for speaking.) What I did What I have been doing since the last entry is Assimil. I listend+read (/shadowed) lesson 1 and 2 and started with lesson 3. I also got a copy of vocabulaire progressif niveau debutant. It might have been a bad idea to get the beginner book as I seem to know much of it. I only had the table of contents to judge and there were some topics that we hadn't discussed at school. I haven't really worked with the book though. Plan for next week - first lesson of the university course. no idea what we will do there. - Assimil: lessons 3-5 plus repeating 1 and 2 (I always listen to all the previous lessons before doing the next) - Grammaire progressive intermédiaire: chapters 1-3 - Vocabulaire progressif débutant: chapters 1-2 English I haven't been studying actively, however, I read a few papers on topics I work with in my bachelor thesis. It's always frustrating to read them and see that I have so huge problems with them. It's just the combination of scientific English and the fact that the content is mostly new. I need to understand both the language and the content and this is hard and I get carried away so easily. Plan for next week - reread the papers. I have to understand them anyway and I might analyse some scientific phrases. But understanding is more important - read: A first course to Electrode Processes. I don't need to read it completly next week. Just a bit. - advanced grammar in use. start. (I just saw it being available in the bib. I hope it still is when I go there. - flip through and read a few paragraphs of Swan's practical English usage. I kind of like the book. - what I actually do all the time: watch tv shows. This is not really learning to me. I love watching them and English sounds so much better. I'm currently watching Sabrina the teenage witch and might continue with Friends when I finished it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 18 of 21 12 April 2015 at 2:48pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, Komma, good to hear from you again.
Well, I wouldn't see it as a a pure disadvantage that your class is 3h long instead of having two shorter ones. While I am mostly sceptic about classes (to your example: the pronunciation tends to be hurt by the classmates more than helped by the teacher usually, from my experience), it could work as a sort of immersion if the teacher is good and knows how to keep the class alive and totally in French. I find that it matters less in such classes whether or not the teacher is a native speaker. More important is their teaching skill, which is a rarer quality. I wish you good luck and 3h long immersion sessions every week. I know most people favor the approach of smaller doses more often but I find the large doses very useful. Who knows, perhaps you'll like the 3h long stays in the language even more than the usual structure. Do you already know the curriculum and the course you're gonna follow in the class? About the voc. prog.: You might not be that disappointed in the end. The contents are not that different for all the levels, after all the topics are pretty wide. With this series, I have often found it useful to use the levels "below me" as well as there were always good exemples, at least one interesting sentence per doublepage and refreshing review of what had been catching dust somewhere deep in my brain. And it is always an option to go through two (or all three) levels at once, so that you get a more complete image of the topic. I wish you a pleasant week and not that much worries with your bachelor thesis. You'll surely through the creating process successfully. Do you write it in German or English? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Komma Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4057 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish | Message 19 of 21 03 May 2015 at 8:50am | IP Logged |
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Again it's been some time since my last entry. This time though I haven't been doing
nothing. French Although not in the week I wanted to be done with the tasks, I did them except for Assimil. Haven't been doing that lately. I tried to do a bit of French every day which I only failed on Saturdays and on the last two days which I have met friends and actually did nothing at all. The grammar book is fun, but I tend to just flip through most of the tasks because I have the feeling they are too easy. I know I shouldn't do it, because I'm sure I'll still make mistakes there.. The vocab book also is good and has phrases and words I haven't heard about. I'm still considering to set up Anki, but this needs a bit more time to type the words in and using it with only about 20 words is quite useless.. I've already had 3 course lessons. As expected it is not very good. The teacher mostly goes through the book and we do everything in order. I could do this at home as well. It is nice to listen to the teacher though. Most annoying is the excercise of each lesson where we have to work in groups and do something and then we have to present it. This just needs about 30-60 minutes (depending on the task) to present the results as the teacher takes every wrong sentence and corrects it and makes suggestions how to say it in different words. Which is not bad, but very exhausting. Because, of course, no-one speaks a good french. (I didn't expect that, but still..) I will continue though, because I get credits for my chemistry degree (we have to do some soft skill stuff) And 3 hours is a VERY long time for a course lesson! It's exhausting. Learning on my own is so much better :D Plan for next week (I try to report more often and count my hours of learning because of the 6 week challenge where I signed up) - Assimil: lessons 3-5 plus repeating 1 and 2 (haven't done this since the last time) - Grammaire progressive intermédiaire: chapters 4-6 - Vocabulaire progressif débutant: chapters 3-5 English I reread some of the papers which I really needed at the moment and every time I read I understand a bit more. This is good :) I also watched tv shows, as expected. I did not read the Swan book and did not do grammar. But I now got advanced and 'standard' grammar in use. And as we have a nice activity running in the Advanced English team I'll do one double page per day of the advanced grammar (at least) Plan for next week - do a double page of advanced grammar every day. @Cavesa: We follow the course "Le nouveau taxi 2" and doing the last two thirds of the course. And you were totally right about the vocab. For the grammar though I think the intermediaire was quite right for me. The things that are taught in the basic course will be clear to me after finishing that one I think (and I don't want to buy it and then flip through the exercises because I'm bored.) As for my thesis. I think I'll do it in German. It's my first bigger work and I want to learn how to do this without also struggling with the language. There will be time to do that in my master thesis. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 20 of 21 03 May 2015 at 4:44pm | IP Logged |
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Congrats to continuing with your plan, that is inspiring! Completing quite all that
you had planned, that is something I constantly struggle with :-) "The grammar book is fun", that's the spirit! :-) What I love the most about them is the versatility. YOu take what you need and do other things later, no fixed order necessary. I recommend doing the "easy" exercises as well, one gets surprised by the mistakes and even just repeating what you know with an easy way to check, that can be useful. It's better to cover basic gaps as an intermediate than years later, from my experience. One feels less ashamed. Getting corrections is great, but I see what you find frustrating about the loooooong group work. I hated those in the last classes I attended (German, a few years ago, intensive class) and I think those should be banned in the beginner (and many intermediate) classes at all as you mostly combine your mistakes with those of others. And not everyone in class is usually fun to work on such tasks with. When you get someone with similar tastes to yours, who uses sense of humour etc, it is good. When you are with someone unpleasant, it becomes hell. But you get credits, yay! Le nouveau taxi series is used by some of the better language schools here but I didn't like it in a bookshop. It can work if supplemented heavily, which is exactly what you are doing, sure. I wish you lots of progress! I wish you lots of strength for the thesis :-) By the way, would you have any good German science website recommendation? I am not a chemist, even though I know some as a medicine student (probably more than an average philosophy student), but I am looking for some good German stuff. Documentaries, blogs, science and popular science articles... would you know any, please? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5474 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 21 of 21 25 August 2015 at 4:05am | IP Logged |
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Hi Komma,
Are you still learning French? Haven't seen you about for some time. Many of us (certainly not all) are now over at the alternative how-to-learn-any-language.org site. Catch us there! (or continue here if you prefer) :) PM Edit: I found you in the challenges section ! Edited by PeterMollenburg on 25 August 2015 at 5:31am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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