Thinking of giving up entirely. (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Thinking of giving up entirely.
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24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3912 days ago
153 posts - 174 votes

Speaks: French

Message 17 of 24

18 November 2014 at 7:30pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

Thank you to everyone who has responded to Tyrion101. Just a couple of quick thoughts.

- It's totally possible that Tyrion101 can understand lots of things one day, and then feel like a hopeless idiot the next. This is pretty much the story of my life—even today, I have days where my wife says something really simple to me and I just don't understand it, and days where I can discuss fairly complicated things in detail without making any particular effort. One of the key "emotional skills" of language learning is somehow managing to live with this variation without becoming massively frustrated or discouraged.

- Please try to avoid "dog piling" on other posters, especially in the Advice Center, which is supposed to be a safe space for beginner questions (among other things). It's perfectly OK to say "Maybe you're over-estimating your skills" or "This would be a lot easier if I had a good idea of your level." But please try not to be the third or fourth poster who says something like that in a single thread—once or twice is enough to get the point across, and any more starts to feel a bit like a dog pile.

That pretty much sums it up. One day I can listen all day and understand EVERYTHING then the next its just gone in a puff of smoke. Usually it seems to happen when I realize I have no idea what half of these words mean. As for what I read, I try to find things or authors I have read in English a bunch of times. I started with Jules Verne's 5 Weeks in a Balloon(I'd never heard of it before, but I'm familiar with how Verne writes). When I get stuck on a word I generally use the "french/french" dictionary on my kindle only when that fails and after several times of seeing it I highlight it and when I'm in a position to next time I look it up in a French English dictionary. Some chapters I've been able to read quite reasonably , others seems I'm looking up every other word. My next plan is to read the Harry Potter books in French, I'm sure at least the early ones will be a fairly easy read compared to Verne. Edit: I also read sports articles on RDS.

Edited by Tyrion101 on 18 November 2014 at 7:31pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5008 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 18 of 24

18 November 2014 at 9:59pm | IP Logged

Well, such fluctuations in your level of skills are pretty normal. However, if you
move your median upwards, even your lowest days will move as well. What often helps is
getting to more difficult things or just those you aren't used to. Listening to
audiobooks? Time for tv series. Only crime series or sci-fi? Have some history drama
or a family aimed show. And so on. The harder things you get used to when practicing,
the easier will the real conversation with natives feel.

Some ideas of useful books to practice everyday language:
1.Harry Potter, despite the magic related vocabulary.
2.Sookie Stackhouse novels despite them being too romantic for many readers (but I
think they are the best of the genre and balance the romance out pretty well with
blood)
3.Surprisingly Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois Musquetaires, it is perhaps a slightly
formal language but still much closer to everyday speech than many more recent
authors.
4.Erik l'Homme, writing for young adults but far from boring. And full of the normal
language an average learner like me had to get used to.

And I really think you could do with a tv series or two.
3 persons have voted this message useful

Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3912 days ago
153 posts - 174 votes

Speaks: French

Message 19 of 24

18 November 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged

Thanks, I've decided I'm not going to let a couple of bad days just destroy my love, after all I was quite willing to listen all day to French back when I knew not a single word. So with that remembrance I decided to keep going.
4 persons have voted this message useful

Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6702 days ago
9078 posts - 16473 votes

Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

Message 20 of 24

19 November 2014 at 12:29am | IP Logged

One soul saved from the brink of disaster...
8 persons have voted this message useful

garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5206 days ago
1468 posts - 2413 votes

Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

Message 21 of 24

19 November 2014 at 10:56am | IP Logged

Good stuff. I've considered simply giving up more than a few times, and even taken breaks from languages at various points, but sooner or later I always come back. I always find it useful to remember my original reasons and motivation for the language, and look at my progress in the long term rather than just from a few bad days.
3 persons have voted this message useful

rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5235 days ago
881 posts - 1812 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

Message 22 of 24

19 November 2014 at 1:19pm | IP Logged

garyb wrote:

Good stuff. I've considered simply giving up more than a few times, and even taken breaks from languages at various points, but sooner or later I always come back.

If you replace the word languages above with cigarettes ...
3 persons have voted this message useful

rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5235 days ago
881 posts - 1812 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

Message 23 of 24

19 November 2014 at 1:20pm | IP Logged

patrickwilken wrote:

emk wrote:

- Please try to avoid "dog piling" on other posters,

Good advice.

It's not every day that I get learn a new word in English. Interestingly, I only seem to need one repetition to learn new English words, and 100s for German. ;(

Here's one for ya. :)

"Pseudofolliculitis-barbae"

EDIT: Added link

Edited by rdearman on 19 November 2014 at 1:21pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3912 days ago
153 posts - 174 votes

Speaks: French

Message 24 of 24

19 November 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged

Would like to report in again, and anyone who is thinking about it, Lang-8 seems like a decent community, with people genuinely trying to be helpful, it also seems to be fairly active as well.

3 persons have voted this message useful

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