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TAC09 French-Goal Listening fluency (LR) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 25 of 98 12 March 2009 at 10:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all,
A long time between drinks. Well to update the journal. I've slowed up on the listening reading over the past few weeks. I'm simply not enjoying it at the moment so it's come to a virtual halt. I've still managed to complete Contes de la Becasse by Guy de Maupassant and I'm halfway through Combray by Marcel Proust. But I'm not at the grand heights of L-Ring which I've been doing over the past few months. However I've had this strong desire for more visual studies. I find my myself watching episode after episode of Simpsons or South Park up to 6 episodes a day. It seems the most natural thing for me at the moment so I'm gonna go with it. I enjoyed reading the short stories by Guy de Maupassant. Some of the stroies were sad and depressing, some were suspensful and some plain funny. It was nice for a change to not to have to read some grand novel with endless character development and big themes on a big scale. Most of the audiobooks ran in at 15 minutes per story. They were all interesting in their own way. Almost all of his short stories are available for free on project gutenberg and there are a number of them available as audiobooks. I will most definetely be reading some more of his work. So over the past week I've just about watched 2 seasons of South Park. This is not hard work for me at all as you can imagine. This is the second time I've run through these episodes. Let me tell you it has been so satisfying for me to be able to understand as much as I do. I sometimes forget that I am watching in French. This doesn't mean that I understand 100% but hey... I watched a French film just yesterday. To put it plainly 'it sucked'. I only continued to watch because of my studies. The film was called 'Love Me if You Dare' and I think the title in French is Jeux d'enfants. Basically a boy and girl begin to play a game of dare and they pass back between them a toy when the dare is complete. They get older, they fight and fall in love at the end. Lots of fancy tricks with cameras to dazzle you and fast-paced delivery but ultimately it leads to boredom. It was vaguely in the same style as Amelie but fails horribly in comparison. It just tries too hard to be quirky and ends up being insulting to the audience. This film may be the biggest stinker for TAC09. We'll see! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6451 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 26 of 98 18 March 2009 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello and good luck with your TAC challenge. Check Un crime au paradis (2001) maybe you'll like it. Also Delicatessen.
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| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 27 of 98 19 March 2009 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reineke thankyou for your suggestions. I'm always looking out for French films to track down. I read that Delicatessen is by the same director as Amelie and was shot some time before, so I will be interested to see it.
I watched Belle De Jour the other day by Luis Bunel. This seems to be a pretty well known film as I see it everywhere. When the credits came up it was presented by Martin Scorsese so I thought 'ahhh that's pretty interesting'. It also stars Catherine Deneuve as a much younger lady then she is now. It really feels like a French film in a Spanish directors hands. I think some of the humor didn't really appeal to me. At the time it may have been more shocking but it didn't have a strong effect. Essentially the film is about a young wife who does not have sex with her husband but has violent sexual fantasies and eventually works in a brothel. It is a piece of voyeurism that makes us wonder why this women who has everything has these desires. All in all I enjoyed it to a degree but I didn't enjoy the comical lengths the director went to in order to show the fetish's of men. I think this was a very Spanish touch of the director. All in all I would watch a film by Godard, Truffaut, Bresson or Rohmer any day instead of this but that's just me. As for my studies (if you can call them that) I have continued along with watching cartoons in dubbed French. I have knocked off 2 seasons of South park and a season and a half of Simpsons in two weeks. I've dabbled a bit with listen-reading but nothing noteworthy. Currently I am looking at studying either Dostoyevsky or George Sand as my choice for L-R. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 28 of 98 23 March 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all, I was coming to a little dilemma concerning my studies (in a way). I had seen all the French films I had stored on my computer and the dvd's I had with me. Usually I would just ask my brother to borrow some films as he has a large collection of films from around the world. I've learned about lots of great directors and films through dvd's he has lent me. He unfortunately is on the other side of the world. So to sum up; no more films and I couldn't possibly afford the prices they charge for films here, and of course they don't stock any french films in the video stores. But I just remembered they have an alliance francaise here in Dublin. I did some searching on the net and apparently they have a mediatheque that has thousands of books and comics and some films you can borrow for a yearly fee. I"m going to go this Wednesday to find out if they have a decent film collection. I really hope they do. As for my studies I have started L-Ring La Mare Au Diable by George Sand ( who is acutally a woman). If any thing from my studies of French using L-R I've had a small taste of what is French literature. I'm still yet to read Balzac, Camus or Dumas but I've read Verne, Maupassant, Zola, Flaubert, Proust, Hugo, Stendhal and a few more. I think thats something to be very proud of. A year ago I didn't even know half of these authors. Of course I've only touched on only a small portion of their work but I hope to do a lot more over the course of this year. So even if I fail to learn French I still felt I have gained and learned something along the way. How about you out there? Have you tried L-Ring any of the famous Frenchies? How did it go? Still watching plenty of Simpsons everyday. There is a particular word that Homer uses a lot which i'm not familiar with. I think it could be a profanity or mean damm or something similar. It sounds like 'pinesse' but pinesse doesn't look like a french word. He says it A LOT so I would like to know what it means. Can anybody help me? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5960 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 29 of 98 23 March 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
I hope someday to watch The Simpsons in French - Lord knows I have the English versions memorized already. No idea about "pinesse" - do you know where your episodes were dubbed? I am forwarding a cached link to an article which may be of interest to you which discusses the differences between the dubbing done in France (where even Homer is required to speak "proper" French) and that done in Quebec (where I understand joual may have been used for Homer and other of his ne'er-do-well buddies). http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=%22www+omnivore+org+jon +orwell+caste+htm%22&d=75689043099682&mkt=en-CA&setlang=en-C A&w=95ab70d,4bce45b6 Edited by Spanky on 24 March 2009 at 12:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 30 of 98 24 March 2009 at 1:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow so there are two different dubbed Simpsons in French out there.
I am certain that i'm watching the French dubbed Simpsons because of what the article said about Apu and Carl having the only none French accents in the show. I thought it was stange that Carl has the foreign sounding accent he does. There is no explanation for it. Overall I think that the voices are done very well in the French dubbed Simpsons and it would be interesting to compare an episode with a Canadian one. I also thought this bit was interesting.
Edited by Adrean on 24 March 2009 at 1:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 31 of 98 25 March 2009 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all,
I've recovered some motivation over the past few days for my studies. Espicially with regards to listening-reading. The L-R subject has come up elsewhere on this forum and I feel I'm in a good position to say that it is definetely a method that works as it's been my main method of study for quite some time. Why shouldn't the method work? You literally are hearing hours upon hours of your target language uninterrupted. You may also hear hours of dialogue on the radio or tv or in movies but with L-R you have a translation in front of you which is ALWAYS more literal then film subtitles and less frustrating then watching T.V or listening to the radio because of what you miss. Since I have begun to L-R my listening comprehension has improved ten-fold. Why? I believe it's because the very basic words, tenses, pro-nouns, adjectives etc. etc are repeated over and over and over until they become second nature to you. Anyway the talk is endless over L-R but I stand by it vigilantly. As for my studies I have Listen-Read La Mare Au Diable by George Sand and La Logeuse by Dostoyevsky. Both were enjoyable in their own way. They weren't overly long, only 2.5 and 3.5 hours respectively. I read and listened to Dostoyevsky only in French without English. I followed along with the story very well and I don't believe I missed much. I made a small list of completely unknown words or words that keep reappearing which I'm not familiar with the meaning yet. étourdir émouvoir indicible remémorer cauchemar qui sentait ses yeux se voiler adoucir amants aveugle l’hôte achever prêts à jaillir de sa poitrine contredire railler Jadis I am prepping myself to tackle another grand piece of literature which may or may not be Les Miserables at some point soon. Maybe next month. Today I became a member of the Mediatheque at alliance francaise. I was frankly dissapointed with their DVD collection but the nice french girl told me there is a high turn over rate with DVD's. Here's hoping. Their VHS collection is excellent but that doesn't help me very much. Today I borrowed Therese Raquin (I didn't know there was a film version) and Triple Agent by Eric Rohmer. I also look foward to borrowing and reading my first Tintin and Asterix in French very soon. They also have a large literature section, some audiobooks (on cassette), magazines and animated books. So all in all not bad for €40 a year. Edited by Adrean on 25 March 2009 at 10:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6172 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 32 of 98 30 March 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
Been very much in the mood for French cinema over the past couple of days. I enjoyed Delicatessen very much which was recommended to me by Reineke. It was an excellent way to spend an hour and a half. The film itself looked very good and was interesting enough. I normally don't go for 'black humor' type films but this one was done very well and wasn't wanky. I watched Therese Raquin which was faithful to a certain degree to the novel which I read last year and really enjoyed. The film was shot in Lyon and brang back memories when I was there 3 years ago. Of course not everything was potrayed as I imagined it whilst reading the book but I think the actors they chose were excellent. I would of liked the film to be more sinister as it was in the book but o well... The last film I watched was Triple Agent by Eric Rohmer. This is a fairly recently made film. There was loads and loads of dialog in the film which was really good. The film was based on a true story. The film is basically about a group of exiled Russians in Paris who refused to be communists. There are called the whites. It focuses on a married relationship between a Greek woman and a Russian. I really enjoyed this film, the settings, appartments, the clothes and Paris itself all looked really pretty. I'm going to watch another Rohmer film tonight called Lady and the Duke. Besides these movies I've been doing a little L-Ring. I just about finished Combray by Marcel Proust. I've really struggled through this one. It's only 2 chapters, one of them nearly 6 hours, so it's hard to find my place. The person reading the audiobook has a very good understanding of how to read this particular book and her voice is really appropriate. I also picked up a book of Guy de Maupassant called Le Horla et autres contes cruels et fantastiques at the mediatheque. It's a bit of a collection of his more ummm.. more supernatural stories. All are very interesting. I'm just flicking through and picking stories out at random and reading them in French. Very satisfied with how much I understand. O yeh a little Simpsons in French and that's it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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