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TAC 2009: Spanish, French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 33 of 120 05 January 2009 at 2:38am | IP Logged |
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4 Jan.:
I just finished up my SRS reviews for today. Apart from that, I also finished Unit 12 and intended to spend time starting Unit 13, but ended up spending more time on French. I watched episode 12 and reviewed episodes 4 & 5 (again, watching each one twice). I plan to keep this up until I catch up to where I am currently in the course (so, advancing at a rate of one episode a day, it will take me six more days to catch up). At that point, I'm not sure. I may slow back down to one episode a day and try to squeeze in the Phonology course, or I may continue at this two/day pace. I'm really anxious to get a feel for the structure of the French language, and as I've decided that (until I finish Platiquemos) FiA is going to be my only source of study for French, that means I am really anxious to get through the course and see my improvement upon repeating it :) I feel like outlining a simple French schedule for myself: French in Action: go through the course twice. The first round merely watching each video twice, trying to comprehend as much as I can, and the second round also going through the book and answering the questions and reading the readings. FSI Phonology: at some point during the French in Action course, I would like to go through the Phonology course once or twice to try and really get a handle on French pronunciation (something that really has me baffled right now, one example on my mind after tonight's studying is remembering how to pronounce un vs. une). I need to figure out how the French 'r' is pronounced! Is it an uvular trill? FSI French: Once I finish with Platiquemos (hopefully some time near the end of the 2nd or the middle of the 3rd runthrough of FiA), I want to shift my focus to FSI French. However, until I finish Platiquemos I will continue FiA with the same intensity. Once starting FSI French, I would like to continue FiA, perhaps at a rate of one video per day, and start watching French TV shows and films. Edited by Crush on 05 January 2009 at 2:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 34 of 120 07 January 2009 at 8:38pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not exactly sure what has happened each day since I've last written in here, so I guess I'll just break it down by language rather than by date.
Spanish: Finished unit 13. This unit turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought, although I think it was mostly because the drills in the second half were very gender/number intensive, and of course in English all I hear is you, yours, mine, this, etc., whereas the Spanish response they were looking for was tú/usted/ustedes, el/la tuyo(a), el/la mío(a), este(a), etc., which made things complicated. On a happier note, a day or two ago I started to notice a few more things that I seem to have at least partially internalized, such as when rushing through longer responses and mismatching the gender between an adjective and a noun it sounds really awkward to my ears and feels funny coming out of my mouth. Not that I don't still make those mistakes (I make plenty of them!), but it's starting to feel more natural. I've also had a few more audio conversations over at busuu.com, and my conversational skills are absolutely awful. I don't think I would be so bad talking to someone face to face, but that's just speculation. I've also been trying to keep up with my SRS reviews, but none of the new words (and a few of the old words) are really sticking at all. I've had probably 10 or 15 cards that I've missed EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last 2 weeks, and a few more that bounce back and forth, that I'll remember one day but forget the next. I have been so busy with all the studying with Platiquemos and FiA that I haven't had much opportunity to actively work on fixing it though. French: I've reviewed up to video 9 and watched up to video 14, tonight I should be able to do video 15 and review videos 10/11. I'm beginning to wonder if it won't be until I start watching the videos for the second round that I notice I have any real sort of comprehension. I also wonder if I would just be better off looking up words I don't know. For the most part I can the new words they are introducing, but sometimes even with the explanations in the textbook I am baffled. I really really want to start getting to pronunciation, but I have a pretty full plate as it is. I'll have to try to squeeze in maybe 30 minutes a day for the Phonology course and just take a few days to finish up each unit. Take care everyone! EDIT: Also, as there really isn't a lot of information on how to use FSI/Platiquemos, if you are curious, the method I have been using for Platiquemos is as follows: First, I go through the full unit without looking at the book once or maybe twice, if I am away from home and don't have access to the book. After that, I look at the book and read the grammar notes and whatnot and look up any words that I had trouble hearing what they were. After this, I go through each section one at a time and repeat the drills until I get everything right (for shorter sections, <5 minutes or so) or until I only miss one or two things but feel confident with the material (for longer sections). After I've gone through the entire unit like this, I repeat the unit one last time just to make sure I have everything down pat. Oh, and I put sections that still give me trouble even after repeating a bunch of times into a playlist on my iPod and review them again after I've gone through the entire unit. Usually when I come back to them I only have to listen to the section one or two times before I'm able to get everything correct. I don't know if this is the best or most efficient method, but hopefully it's not that bad! Edited by Crush on 07 January 2009 at 8:50pm 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 35 of 120 13 January 2009 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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Hi Crush,
I'm glad your enjoying French in Action. How are you enjoying the little story of Mireille(sp) and Robert? It's really an incredible amount of work that they put into this production. I've run through FIA three times now, though I never went back to review. The last time I ran through I found I understood most everything. I think in combination with your other studies you should pick up all the missing words in time. I go back now and I'm quite astonished at how simple it seems, which means I've made a real improvement. I would suggest just sitting back and enjoying the story the first time around. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 36 of 120 13 January 2009 at 11:44am | IP Logged |
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Adrean,
thank you very much for the comment. Right now as I am going through the current episodes (around episodes 15 or 16) I find my comprehension dropping realllly low, but that's what I seem to have heard all around the board so I'm hoping like you said the missing words just fall into place the second or third pass over. But I am finding the story really interesting, especially now that I am out of the classroom and those annoying students! Anyway, as it stands I don't know what is going to happen with my TAC. I just got asked to leave my apartment last night, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do, find a place to stay or something. But for the next few days or weeks or months I have no idea whether or not I'll actually have a place to stay and whether or not I'll have a place to continue my studies. I'm going to try to keep up my Spanish because I have spent a lot of time and work on it and it's something that I care about a lot. Beyond that, who knows. I'd like to keep up with French too, but without a place to stay/computer to watch the FiA episodes and do the FSI exercises, I'll have to try some more creative ways (maybe L-R). Well, take care everyone and good luck with your language learning! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 37 of 120 30 January 2009 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
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I have been trying to keep up my Spanish but it's been going a lot more slowly. Today I just finished FSI Unit 16. However, I have started working on creating more vocabulary lists and have written down about 2000 new words.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 38 of 120 02 March 2009 at 8:53pm | IP Logged |
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Well it's been almost a month and yesterday I just finished Unit 20. I'm getting more comfortable writing in Spanish but speaking it is another story... I also read my first Spanish book (El ano de nuestra revolucion) a week or so ago and now have a few more that I am going to start reading through, mostly as a supplement to my vocabulary lists. I didn't bother using a dictionary as I found that I was familiar enough with most of the words to understand the general idea of what was happening, but didn't really know enough about the clitic (I think this is the correct word) pronouns to understand a lot of verbs that I had a definition in my head for.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 39 of 120 07 April 2009 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
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Yet another long month with very little (or so it might seem, I suppose) going on. I managed to keep up (for the most part) with my vocabulary lists, meaning I am now regularly running through about 1500 or so words, and as of today just finished Unit 23 in Platiquemos. I wish I had more to say, but really not much has been going on apart from struggling to do the Platiquemos lessons regularly (I don't have electricity, so keeping my MP3 player charged is really my biggest challenge, as I enjoy the Platiquemos course quite a bit) and keeping on schedule with my wordlists, which hasn't been so difficult. In any case, I've fallen far behind on my TAC goals (I wanted to have finished Platiquemos by now), but it was largely a side effect of some unexpected hurdles (and major life changes) life threw my way, so I suppose I am proud simply of the fact that I have still managed to continue learning Spanish despite how difficult it has become :)
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5869 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 40 of 120 17 May 2009 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
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Another month has gone by, and I'm glad to say I've started to get a little more focused again. I just started Unit 30 yesterday and am currently reviewing CD 5 of MT French (I've gone through all 8 CDs of the foundation course and am going through it a second time) and on lesson 22 Pimsleur which I think I will be quitting pretty soon, as I shift my focus to French in Action and perhaps El Nuevo Francés sin Esfuerzo.
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