|
 |
Spanish with a Lil’ Bit of Japanese | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 9 of 20 27 November 2008 at 9:26pm | IP Logged |
|
I was looking for Firefox add-ons today since I found a bunch of French stories over at Wiki that I wouldn't mind reading. I was hoping for something like Rikaichan (which is super-convenient), but the closest I could get was gTranslate.
One add-on that I discovered today and loved is Kanji-lish. Since I do a lot of reading online in English anyway, the effortless kanji practice is really nice, especially combined with Rikaichan for readings. Sometimes I think the kanji they pick is odd, though. It sometimes pick rare/archaic kanji rather than a more commonly used one for certain words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 10 of 20 28 November 2008 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
|
I finished another half a CD of Michel Thomas French and an episode of French in Action. I attempted to Listen-Read the first two chapters of Harry Potter et le prissonier d'Azkaban to gauge my progress, but it was awfully frustrating with my current grammar and vocab level (although I did manage to get a few words like hibou and menton (thanks to the descriptions of his cousin Dudley) to stick, so not a total loss). I'm going to try it again after I finish with MT and a few more lessons in Assimil.
To help me get in the mood for studying studying French, I've been eating a lot of galettes de Bretagne that they recently started selling at a nearby shop for the Christmas holidays. It brings back a lot of memories of the time I spent in Rennes, and recently I've found myself missing the other type of galette (the savory, crepe-like kind) and have been considering making some myself. I still remember eating one with smoked salmon and I think some crème fraîche that was just out of this world. I'm pretty sure I bought a postcard that has the recipe on how to make the batter; maybe I should start concentrating on how to read recipes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 11 of 20 30 November 2008 at 11:16am | IP Logged |
|
I officially finished CD5 of Michel Thomas last night, and now I'm not sure if I should plow on straight to CD6 or wait for the direct/indirect pronoun thing to sink in some more. Although it's similar to Spanish, it has always tripped me up there as well, so I don't want to rush it. I should probably find some sort of grammar practice online before moving on.
I also watched two episodes of FIA between yesterday and today. I'm at the part where they're talking about jobs and how some French last names are based on it, and I couldn't help but feel geekily excited when Mireille quotes Assimil's "My tailor is rich" when asking about Robert Taylor's last name. This morning's episode featured the phrase "métro, boulot, dodo." It just so happened that the podcast I listened to today from One thing in a French day was on that topic, so it was a really nice coincidence. Couldn't have planned it better if I tried! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 12 of 20 11 January 2009 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
|
I've been sick, so the French thing has slowed down a bit the past couple of weeks. I haven't advanced much with Assimil, although I've been good with reviewing it using SRS. FIA is going a bit better, although I was kinda disturbed by Robert's constant jealousy and decision to stalk Mireille. I've gotten to the part where he gets invited to her family home for dinner, and I've noticed that I've been able to follow along a lot less the past two episodes. It's a bit disheartening.
On the upside, in my quest to find other sources for French input aside from French radio (which has a tendency to play mostly English music), I found this wonderful page with what appears to be recent TV episodes posted online. I'm really enjoying the cartoon Kaput et Zosky, and I wish I could find other similar shows somewhere. I was looking for something similar to Sesame Street as well, but I didn't have much luck. I haven't really tried to watch any other shows on there yet; the rest look really cheesy, to be honest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 13 of 20 19 January 2009 at 2:56am | IP Logged |
|
Recently, I was able to buy a copy of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun from my local library for 50 cents each. I read the first one the same day I got it, and it has reignited my enthusiasm for French. The mostly warm weather enjoyed throughout the book was a nice change from the snow that has been falling outside for days. It was almost like getting a mini vacation. It also reminded me of the French's obsession with food (which has me convinced that they're distantly related to Filipinos somehow).
My boyfriend thinks my family is crazy because of things like my parents going really out of their way for super-fresh chicken (as in you pick which one you want, then they kill it, pluck it, and then wrap it up for you to go), or we think nothing of driving for over an hour for the closest decent sushi buffet. Then I remember that this is the same boyfriend that would never have thought of trying something like Greek food or sushi rolls with actual raw fish (if he would have considered it at all) before we started dating--and I can't help but think that maybe it's not that the French (and the Filipinos) are all that obsessive about food, but that it's Americans in general that have an odd hatred towards eating due to our nation's obsession with dieting. My French studying continues to be centered on passive learning as I continue to watch French in Action mixed with episodes of Kaput et Zosky. I wanted to mix in some music as well since the listening to French radio thing isn't really working out too well with all the English songs they keep playing. I decided to try out YouTube and check out some bands/singers; I really liked Kenza Farah and Soha. French gangsta rap was just plain weird to me, though (though I really tried to like it at first; it's like talking--but with a beat! Then I started wondering if the grammar might be as bad as the average English rap song, and then I didn't feel so bad about moving on). On a completely different note, thanks to this particular blog, I now know how to say things like "Go get dressed. It makes me sick to see you hanging around naked all the time" in French. Dunno when that'll actually be useful, but still a tempting one to add to my SRS. Edited by MmeFleiss on 19 January 2009 at 2:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 14 of 20 22 January 2009 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
|
I've started doing new lessons of Assimil again the past couple of days rather than just review; hopefully I can keep this momentum going and not get stuck in another lesson where the vocab gives me a lot of trouble. Lately I've had to force myself to get through my daily French in Action video, probably because it's been a bit slow lately plot-wise. Today's episode where they talk about luck and gambling wasn't too bad, however.
I also watched about an hour of French TV. Unfortunately, the site I like to go to appear to have stopped posting Kaput et Zosky, so I was forced to watch one of the sitcoms. On the upside, all this French input must be doing me some good, because I listened to the podcast One Thing in a French Day after a huge break, and I was amazed by how much I could understand without having to look at the transcript (I was too lazy to look them up). I got my hands on Synergy Spanish today, so I decided to use it for review so that I don't forget my Spanish too much. From what I could tell from skimming through it, the things covered appear to be way below my level, but I really like the fact that I can use it for ten minute or so for review and have it be a complete lesson rather than me trying to figure out which portion of a long audio file I stopped at last time. I probably should be doing some review for Japanese as well, like perhaps attempt to restart Heisig again. I remember trying it out a few years ago and getting really annoyed at having to write and keep track of all those flash cards. Now that I have access to a virtual deck and to other people that have come up with alternate keywords to the entries that totally did not work for me, I think it may be doable this time. The motivation for that is a bit low, though, since I don't plan to go back to Japan for quite some time and my next two vacations make French and Spanish much more useful (I should probably brush up on some Italian as well while I'm at it, but I have a feeling my brain would hate me if I decide to add that on). I've been looking over the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies website since they have lovely and short video dialogues for all the languages that I happen to be studying. I noticed that they have a few languages posted up there like Mongolian and Lao where learners don't have much variety when it comes to materials. I was thinking that maybe I should start a post similar to the Our Own Assimil thread where native speakers could translate the video transcripts into English (or whatever other language they want, I suppose) so that more people could take advantage of this wonderful resource. I've translated a couple of the Tagalog ones already (Which in some ways was a lot harder than when I'm doing translation with my weaker languages; I've never really had to translate one to the other before since I either think and speak in one or the other). I think I might hold off until I translate a few more dialogues, however. The languages available are (In order from top to bottom on the list of languages in the left-hand side of their webpage): English (for children), German, French, European Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Indonesian, Filipino (Tagalog), Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Arabic, Turkish, and Japanese. After you click on your language of choice, the video files should be the green links on the left-hand side under the letter "D." For German, the first (and I think fourth) links are for Germany, the second is for Austria, and the third is for Swiss. For French, the first and third links are for European French while the middle one is Quebec French. For Mandarin, the first and third links are for standard Mandarin while the middle link is for Beijing Mandarin. For Arabic, the first and third links are Egyptian while the middle is Syrian. Edited by MmeFleiss on 22 January 2009 at 2:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 15 of 20 24 January 2009 at 11:39pm | IP Logged |
|
Unfortunately, the website showing Kaput et Zosky stopped airing it, as mentioned earlier. On the upside, they've uploaded a bunch of other cartoons on there. Les minipouss made me want to kill myself, reminding me just how dumb 80s cartoons can be. Les mondes engloutis and Air Académy, on the other hand, look pretty promising.
I just realized today that I have less than ten episodes left before I finish my first round of FIA watching. I really wish it was longer just so I can put off having to watch it all again from the very beginning. The first few episodes are just so slow. Classes started yesterday; I hope it doesn't slow down the French thing too much like it did last semester. Edited by MmeFleiss on 24 January 2009 at 11:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MmeFleiss Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5986 days ago 58 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish | Message 16 of 20 30 January 2009 at 11:35pm | IP Logged |
|
I really enjoyed today's episode of FIA. You can never go wrong with any discussions involving cheese, as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately, I ran out of Air Académy episodes to watch, so my TV watching has been limited to 500 euros plus tard. I've never realized before that it was possible to create such a boring home makeover show. I occasionally watch some on cable, one of which involves redoing a room or more with a budget of 1,000 USD. They usually come out with some really radical changes that you can't believe they managed to make within that budget. The French version seem to consist mostly of creating shelves and painting walls. I realize that materials probably cost more in France, but maybe they should've put this into consideration when they came up with this show and either raised the budget up to 1,000 euros or got their hands on more interesting designers. On the upside, thanks to this show I can now whip out the phrase "Pas mal, non?" without having to think about it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
