|
 |
Trickypig conquers mediocrity | ||
Tags: French | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| trickypig Newbie United States Joined 5601 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French | Message 1 of 4 10 April 2010 at 2:04am | IP Logged |
|
OK, after about a year of dabbling with French and several other languages, it's time for me to get serious! Hopefully, logging my progress can help me do that.
I was inpired by EMK's post about starting a "30 day challenge", so thanks for the inspiration! I first started learning by going through the Pimsleur and Michel Thomas courses, which I loved. I thought they were a great introduction but definitely don't take you as far as they promised. I like that they are very structured and easy to follow - I felt a sense of accomplishment and felt that I spent my time learning, rathing than trying to figure out how to learn. However, once I ran out of lessons, my progress basically stopped. I tried doing some reading, using flashcards, listening to podcasts, browsing through grammar books, etc. However, I either spent all my time looking for resources rather than actually using them, or when I actually was doing something, it really didn't seem like it was sinking in or leading to any perceivable progress. And then there was some pretty severe wanderlust... So, as I currently stand, I have a decent understanding of french grammar and a fairly sizeable but basic vocabulary. I can read fairly well, with most words either being familiar, guessable cognates, or understandable from context. However, phrasing and word order seem more difficult. I often find sentences where I understand every word, and get the gist of the sentence, but where the word order seems "wrong" or confusing to me. My speech is ok, though I still feel like my pronunciation is pretty bad. For some reason, I just can't get it. WIth every other language I've tried, (the most "different" being Arabic) it seems like I can get pretty close fairly quickly, but not with French. I'm hoping some more practice, and a lot more listening will do the trick. I think I also need more practice speaking when not listening to a recording. My worst skill for sure is listening. I'm pretty horrible at it right now. I guess this makes sense, since Pimsleur and Michel Thomas are focused almost entirely on speaking and not listening. This is where my focus will be for now. So my goal for the next 30 days is to spend at least 30 minutes a day listening to French. In specific, the current plan is to listen to the RFI Journal en Francais Facile every day. It is 10 minutes long, so my plan is: 1. Re-listen to the previous day's recording, hopefully understanding it better than I did the day before. (10 minutes) 2. Listen to the new recording by itself, (no text) trying to understand as much as possible. (10 mins) 3. Go through the text of the recording, taking note of things that I missed or misunderstood when listening, and copying down any vocabulary that I don't understand. (about 20 mins?) 4. Listen again, keeping an ear out for the new vocabulary words. (10 mins) 5. Review all vocabulary words/phrases with an SRS in my free time. (free time) So, that's the plan for now. Let's see if I can do it for 30 days, and I hope it will result in some real progress! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| trickypig Newbie United States Joined 5601 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French | Message 2 of 4 10 April 2010 at 2:09am | IP Logged |
|
OK, I didn't really have any extra time until just now to write anything down, so I'm currently on day 5.
So far, I've stuck to the plan pretty well. I've gone through 5 daily broadcasts from RFI, listening to each a few times, and writing down about 25 words/phrases per day and putting them into an SRS. I can already tell that I'm understanding a little more on the "first listen" to a new broadcast each day. Total time logged so far: about 4 hours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| trickypig Newbie United States Joined 5601 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French | Message 3 of 4 12 April 2010 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
|
Day 8
Total hours: 10 Kept up ok with RFI broadcasts, added new vocabulary to SRS. I'm understanding more of the RFI broadcasts, and especially of the excerpts included that are not from the RFI journalists (and therefore not in the transcripts). I've also started going through the Living Language book French 2: All the Way. I'll add vocabulary from this as well. The specifically do a good job of explaining specific phrases, false friends, etc. I also experimented a little with the "Gold List" method and hand-wrote a few phrases/sentences in a journal. However, I'm pretty skeptical about this method, so I'm not sure if or how I will keep it up in the future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| trickypig Newbie United States Joined 5601 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French | Message 4 of 4 14 April 2010 at 8:47am | IP Logged |
|
Day 10
Total Hours: 12 Two more RFI broadcasts. Read a bunch of L'Hote by Camus - definitely going a lot faster than when I first read it a few months back. Downloaded an iPhone app from Babbel. Took forever to download, and I'm not sure how long it's going to last. All of their exercises seem so trivial, I never really feel like I'm learning anything from them... Also started watching Persepolis in French with no subtitles. Not picking up as much as I'd like, even though I can get the gist of the story from the video alone. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
