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Inhaling Belgium | ||
Tags: Belgium | Super Challenge | Living abroad | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 17 of 116 24 May 2013 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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droom van morgen, maar leef vandaag. Having found that on the back of a camping-car on the Belgian motorway, I decided to make this my personal motto for the next weeks of transition between the old and new life. After another trip to my future Belgian home I have now returned to my French studies, just enjoying the first of numerous future holidays. I spent incredible 7.5 hours on my vocabulary and on "Grey's Anatomy" today and feel great with that. I still consider my poor comprehension of spoken French to be caused by both lacking vocabulary and lacking training, so I hope the current method will work. However....Yesterday I realised that I'm really horrible in speaking as well. Again, I took my dog with me, and it's true what people say - the presence of dogs and kids make contacts easy. I felt so overwhelmed by all those people making friendly (at least I hope so..) comments about my dog, barely being able to respond. So I will add some production of French (writing, talking) to my studies, though not giving it highest priority. I am still convinced that this will improve automatically with increased exposure in Belgium. Being halfway through with my "Lernkrimi" as well, I spontaneously purchased Dan Brown's "Inferno" in French yesterday. Reading this book is quite an ambitious challenge for me. In the past twenty years, I've only read four books in French: 1) "Le petit prince" (standard high school literature for French classes), 2) "Le petit Nicolas" (dito), 3) a book of Enid Blyton's "Le club des cing" series, 4) a children's book, "La vengeance de la momie", telling a story about tomb raiders in the ancient Egypt. Only children's literature so far. Therefore, "Inferno" means a huge step for me. I hope that this book is a page-turner like its predecessors, and motivates me to keep up, despite the tiring breaks when I have to look up a word. My fear is that it's too much of a page-turner, making these breaks really, really painful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 18 of 116 26 May 2013 at 11:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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About two weeks ago, I explained very explicitely my methods for vocabulary learning.
Forget everything I wrote. On Friday night, the "Sprachenlernen24" software crashed completely, and I have given up on it. I can't repeat that enough: Never ever buy this software. So far, I have also been using Memrise. I still like its advantages, but meanwhile find it too inefficient to proceed with it. Even though I love my physical flash cards with the nice wooden box, and the freedom to learn outside, I don't really see myself to handle more than 10'000 flash cards in future. Therefore, finally.....Anki. Also me. I spent some time playing with this software, and really like it, as it matches my personal needs quite well. So I will finally end up using this software as my primary tool for vocabulary learning. Well, wait another two weeks before trusting this to be a permanent decision... I've also just hit an interim goal! I already mentioned that I am reading a "Lernkrimi". This little book is destined for German A2-level learners of French, with four crime short stories and a glossary in the annex. Having read about half of the book so far, I discovered that I indeed understand most of the words in the text, except for those in the glossary. I have therefore pushed myself to learn those 300 unknown words (I created a course in Memrise to accomplish that task), and have just completed that. This now leaves me with the very convenient (and so far: first-time) situation to have a book that I can continue to read without any break. This is my present for myself: to be able to sit outside and relax while exposing myself to French. Looking at the weather forecast, unfortunately, this automatically means that I am to put this book aside for now. But that's just fine, as I have now Anki to play with^^ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 19 of 116 26 May 2013 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Another milestone!!
Since my first post, I have been listening to French for 1'000 minutes. Primarily, I spent this time watching Grey's Anatomy. I assume that without subtitles I would have understood only very little. Beside the videos, I also listened to the radio, to RFI as well as RTBF. I guess that I understood about 20-30 % of the content. Also listening to audio training material contributed to my listening practice, primarily the Berlitz material, but also podcasts freely available in the internet (Écoute online) and Youtube ("Listen to French"). The speaking speed of the training material is much slower, and I currently understand about 80-100 %. I think I'll continue this practice, as I find this a nice mix of easy, challenging and interesting material that keeps me motivated. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 20 of 116 27 May 2013 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Never trust the meteorologists^^ But good news indeed! Quite unexpectedly, I could spend one and a half hours in the garden today, reading my Lernkrimi, in bright sunshine....what a pleasure! I could read one complete short story without break, how awesome. And I am proud to have finished the first 100 pages of the book. In addition, I went through the first page of "Inferno" and can't wait to continue! While having understood the summary on the back of the book surprisingly well, I can't really confirm this for the prologue. But then, having already read all other Dan Brown books, I could state this for most of these prologues. I think they are just meant to be incomprehensible, so I don't worry too much. I am curious how I can handle this book on the long run. Going through that page, looking up unkown words, transcribing interesting phrases took me ages. It was fun, though, but I am worried how much I will really understand without doing this. Well, the vocabulary will come eventually... And I have fallen in love....with Anki. It's addictive like a computer game, which I really hadn't expected. I've already learnt tons of new words and phrases, and just can't stop.... The past days were pretty intense and really focussed on my French studies, and I am a bit sad that the following days will be more busy with other stuff, keeping me from continuing my studies with the same intensity. Nevertheless I'll try to hit my next milestones - finishing season 3 of Grey's Anatomy, or - if again the weather forecast turns out wrong - finishing my Lernkrimi. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 21 of 116 28 May 2013 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Suzie,
I have already writen a long post when you started this awesome log but there was one of the site-crashed-while-I-was-posting bugs (which always make me angry :-D ) so I waited a bit. I really love your log. Have you decided to move in Belgium after you got a job opportunity or did you just want there and searched based on that? I am not that surprised you ended up with Anki, I love it as well. Memrise has got some advantages and disadvantages (I have already writen enough about why I loved the Beta and I hate the new Memrise) but Anki can be used offline and is much more flexible. And if you have a smarphone or a tablet, I really recommend that Anki app. It is expensive at first sight but it is worth every cent. Listening to tv series is a great tool. It helped my listening comprehension greatly and, secondarily, it influenced my speaking positively as well. Just when you are comfortable with the French subtitles, gather the courage and make the leap. Turn them off. At first, it may be unpleasant, you may even panic "Oh no, I don't understand enough!" as I did. But after not that long, you will most likely improve really fast. I watched dubbed Grimm and now I am watching La prophécie d'Avignon which you might really like since you enjoy Dan Brown. And it was made by a Belgian tv channel. Your reading will surely go up a few levels during Inferno, practice and fun make wonders. I really admire your energy and courage to change you life so much. You're a great inspiration. I'm looking forward to reading more from you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 22 of 116 28 May 2013 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Cavesa,
Thanks for your kind words. I am nearly blushing a bit^^
I think it was a bit of both....I have quite specific ideas about the field I want to work in, and there are only a few opportunities all over Europe. I applied for three jobs, the one in Belgium, one in Germany, and one in Finland. But actually I only found the Belgian job advert because of searching specifically on Belgian websites. If this hadn't been the case, I would have missed this opportunity completely. I only actively searched the web in my favourite countries, which would have included the Netherlands, Switzerland and UK as well. For the rest, I just relied on networking...So I finally end up in one of my favourite countries, with the job of my dreams - what a combination! Thanks for the proposal of the Anki App! Currently I do not have any smartphone (belonging to a shrinking minority), but I might consider getting one - that will depend on the Belgian telecommunication system. If I decide to join the 21st century, I'll think of your advice. Having screened the forum for opinions on Memrise, I might have crossed yours as well, I guess. I found numerous complaints about Memrise. Never having seen the beta version, I liked the current format as well. For me, it just felt a bit inefficient. Lots and lots of repetitions of French words were a bit tiring, especially for the ones that were easy to learn. I think it might be of some help if I would learn a language with really unkown elements, like Finnish, Japanese, or Czech^^ In those cases, I could imagine that tons of repetition might be of some help. But as Anki can deliver exactly that as well, why choose an inferior system...
Now that's quite a useful tipp, many thanks! First thing I do after moving to Belgian, is to search the stores for this series. Maybe as soon as I feel confident watching TV with less and less need for subtitles. There is still so much unkown vocabulary so that I hardly believe I would understand anything of value. But you convinced me - I'll finish the current season with subtitles, and then dig into the next half season without this safety net. Knowing that season very well, I would not get lost anyway. If it doesn't work, I can then change back to subtitles until I have more fundaments... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 23 of 116 30 May 2013 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
Yesterday, I went looking for a rental object in Belgium. I always think that choosing the right place to live is one of the most difficult decision you can take. If you do not have an endless budget, you always have to decide very quickly on what you would be fine with, and which would make you very unhappy on the long run. I am not good in taking those decisions.
Not this time, Suzie.... But it was quite some satisfying day for my French, as I could figure out about 50 % of the conversation between the relocation agent and the estate agent. Of course, the vocabulary used was quite limited, but I'd learnt before that the Wallonian dialect quite differs from standard French, and was happy to find out that it's quite comprehensible. For me, it was also the first time to listen to a Flemish guy speaking French, and I really enjoyed it. Speaking Dutch myself, and having had intense contact to Dutch and Flemish business partners in the past years, I know the Dutch accent when they speak English (and love it), and it was adorable to have heard this in French now. I was happy to realise that I will come across this lovely accent very, very often in the next years.... And in addition, I found "my" radio programme. Being extremely picky on the music I want to listen to, I am preferring "speak-only" channels, with news, documentaries etc. RFI is always a good option, but of course, I prefer a Belgian one, focused on more local stuff. In Wallonia, this seems to be the case for "la première" of RTBF. So, I could add some listening practice during my four-hour drive through Belgium. Sometimes, if I focused, I could easily understand several minutes en bloc. That was quite some day! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4230 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 24 of 116 31 May 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Now, with May finally ending, it's time for a first summary of the status of my goals.
As intended, I didn't do any Dutch this month, and I neither focused on English, except for some entertainment reading of some pages of an Elisabeth George crime novel. I would have to get up now, and to search the book to check on the exact number of pages, but being too lazy to do that, I'll summary my French instead: 1) Words: 2183 of 6900 new words learnt; 31.64 % of the total target Wow. However, as mentioned before, there may have been a lot of repetition of forgotten words, hidden deeply somewhere in my brain. But anyway, I should really change priorities in June. 2) Phrases: of 223 of 6000 phrases learnt; 3,72 % of the total target. My phrases are a weird mix of transcripts from grammar training, Grey's Anatomy or Inferno. I don't have any rule when to include a phrase for learning. I just take those I find interesting, either language-wise or because of their meaning. I don't take the memorising that seriously. I just make sure that I translate those phrases from time to time. 3) Text book/exercise material pages: 6 of 1443 pages studied (corresponding to 0.42 %) I have a little calender with French exercises - of 1993.... 4) Reading: 111 of 30'000 pages read; corresponding to 0.37 % Of course, primarily my Lernkrimi, and one page of Inferno 5) Listening : 1261 of 30'000 minutes listened (corresponding to 4.2 %) 6) Writing: 42 of 300'000 words (corresponding to 0.01 %) 7) Conversation : 72 of 20'000 minutes, 0.36 %. I had these conversations primarily with myself.... My target for June is to slow down with the vocabulary learning, replacing it with some further reading and a bit of writing. I won't do any artificial talking exercises, knowing that this will become an important part of my life from July onwards. The 6 week challenge has been a huge motivation, resulting in awesome 84 hours of training, which is an amazing sum, as I had worked full-time until last week. I'm a bit curious on the developments in June, hoping for a similar progress. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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