Spanish & French Log - 2009 (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Spanish & French Log - 2009
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numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6787 days ago
856 posts - 1226 votes

Speaks: English^C2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

Message 114 of 126

29 November 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged

Buttons wrote:

The FSI figure you quoted is correct but this is for class contact time only and does not include the expected hours of homework which then comes out to approximately 1080 hours. I have been trying to find my original sources but not having much luck at the moment. There are a few threads on here too (ie on HTLAL but they quite old now) that discusses this. I will endeavour to keep digging and will post any found links the next time I log on here.

Oh right, the homework. That must be it. So 1080 it is, with their methods. I'm planning to reach about 600 and then start a new language (Dutch). I hope by then I'll be able to read books in Italian without much trouble and start posting on some forums or something, to work on my fluency. But not so much explicit study anymore.

Buttons wrote:

I really admire you if you can get through so much grammar. I find if I try to attempt too much grammar in one go, I get burnt out pretty quickly. But also find doing grammar work very effective for language learning too. Are you somebody who enjoys or doesn't mind doing too much grammar?

Well I had plenty of frustration with French grammar, never could get a handle on it. So I thought I hated grammar. But then I started out with this textbook, which I liked quite a lot. I also do it at a completely different pace to what we used to do in school, I get through a chapter in 3-4 days. I also do it very thoroughly, I write out the whole lesson on paper and do all the exercises exhaustively. But whatever the reason, I don't mind it.

The way the book is it has one chapter for every new grammar topic, so chapter 20 right now is on the subjunctive. I'm actually having trouble with this tense, but the others were presented very clearly. I also had a very, very helpful head start thanks to Michel Thomas, meaning I learned many of the conjugations without doing any writing.

So it looks like I'm on track to get all the grammar in place and that should enable me to read with minimum frustration. I know some people advocate just reading and listening without doing any grammar explicitly, but doing what I do I'm hoping to skip the whole frustrating phase of grammar standing in the way of understanding. And it seems to be working, I quickly went from reading something in the paper where I could understand only some of the words to only missing some of the words. Making out the sentence is rarely a problem anymore.

So now I have faith in this method and I want to start grammar heavy, with Michel Thomas and then a textbook, in a new language as well. I also did Pimsleur in the beginning, and I've been doing some passive learning (tv, reading) on the side. There is some kind of a balance there between your level of understanding in a language and the ability to learn the grammar. Obviously if you don't have the former you're not gonna make much sense of grammar instruction either.

Buttons wrote:

As for learning vocabulary, I tend to read with a dictionary quite a lot and I have found that this technique works reasonably well for me so far. But I like to read and find sitting down with a book and dictionary for half an hour to an hour, pretty relaxing anyway. I definitely recommend it, especially in the long winter nights :0)

I rather resent looking stuff up, I prefer not to. Of course it gets rather annoying to miss things in a book (I'm reading a novel) so I have to bite the bullet from time to time. I don't have a paper dictionary at all in fact, I just use wordreference.com.

Buttons wrote:

And I definitely recommend learning French, it's a great language. Although I am probably biased!

Yeah there's something special about French, je ne sais quoi :)

Buttons wrote:

Anyway, sounds like you are doing really, really well with Italian :0)

Well I haven't quit yet, that's a good sign! And there's no doubt I'm getting more out of it than I ever did out of my high school French classes, I can actually form grammatical sentences!
2 persons have voted this message useful

numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6787 days ago
856 posts - 1226 votes

Speaks: English^C2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

Message 117 of 126

29 November 2009 at 10:37pm | IP Logged

Buttons wrote:

If you don't mind me asking, which grammar book are you using? I have been using the Practice Makes Perfect range. The Spanish set are fantastic but for me, the French version isn't quite so well explained or laid out.

I'm being sloppy when I call it grammar, because it's an "integrated" system as they dutifully explain in the preface of the book. Basically it proceeds chapter by chapter by grammar topic, but it also teaches the uses of grammar constructs and accompanying vocabulary. The succession is nice and sequential, so that they don't use things they haven't taught yet in the explanations and so on. So essentially it teaches "the language", albeit with a heavy grammar focus. But no "situational learning" (how do I introduce myself) or phrasebook style stuff. It's quite old school, from the 70s (which shows sometimes when they talk about buying a color tv :).

If you go to the Guide part of this site, to the Italian page, it's the book recommended there. All in Italian (which again is a reason why you have to understand some of the language first), from an Italian publisher. :)

Buttons wrote:

No, I don't understand how people do not do any grammar work when learning languages either. For me, doing grammar is an essential part of learning a language. On the other hand, I appreciate polyglots can spot patterns in languages a lot easier than what I can.

I guess it might be a bad experience from school or something. Grammar can be quite grueling after all, if done "right". But maybe some people have a beef with grammar instruction for other reasons too. I'm certainly looking forward to that "supervision" when I go on to other languages and the grammar just unfolds before my eyes without any effort on my part. :)

Buttons wrote:

Wow, you have found what works for you with regards to learning languages really quickly! I only wish I had as much luck when starting Spanish!

Yeah, I guess the advice I picked up was good. I didn't like Assimil quite so much, but the other stuff really checked out. I did worry a lot about what I was doing and all that stuff, but as it started to come together I managed to put that behind me.

Buttons wrote:

No, please don't ever give up! Sounds like you have worked out really quickly how you learn languages and you are progressing in Italian at full speed! It would be a shame if you allowed it all to go.

One day, I hope to learn Dutch so when that day comes, we'll have to organise a Dutch on-line chat via Skype ;0)

Dutch too, you're a real dynamo! (Although technically we could talk already, albeit in boring old English :D)

How do you find learning two languages at once?
2 persons have voted this message useful

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