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Old-school English learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4289 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes  Speaks: French*, English | Message 1 of 23 02 July 2013 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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I tried using an SRS, but I didn't like it at all.
I might start a "paper" SRS, but I'll most likely stick to paper flash cards. I'll be very busy with college-related work this summer so I might not make much progress, but I'll do my best. TODAY: I watched/listened to 4 episodes of the Mentalist. I reviewed 110 words on Memrise. I reviewed paper flash cards for 45 minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 23 03 July 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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In addition to watching a TV series, I'd add in books as well, but not just any books. Current popular bestseller mysteries and "chick-lit" have lots of dialog and are great for language learners. Don't overlook comic books/graphic novels either. This can give you synergy as the words you hear in the TV series come up again in your reading and vice-versa. It helps to make them stick better, at least for me.
Also, I recommend that you have a look at sites for English-speakers who are learning French like French About.com and French Blog- Transparent Language, for example. I often use these "reverse" language learning sites and blogs in my learning because the difficulties that TL speakers have learning my language are often very enlightening to me in how to express myself in the TL. The sites are very useful to learners of the other language. Twitter can be a great help as well in language learning. You don't have to tweet yourself in order to follow. You'd be surprised what you can learn in 140 characters or less. Good luck with your studies and, if you need help, just ask! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 23 03 July 2013 at 11:52am | IP Logged |
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If you dislike the SRS, there are other options: wordlists (like the iversen's), goldlists, just writing down examples, vocabulary books (there are some quite advanced available for English learners, even though you might be past those as you are watching the Mentalist), many ways to work with a dictionary etc.
And reading is totally awesome, I agree with iguanamnon wholeheartedly. I can't see anything so old school about your log :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4289 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 4 of 23 04 July 2013 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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Well, I'm mostly going to use resources that have been around forever. I don't own a smartphone, and SRS/the internet are already "old" technologies.
Moreover, I'm still unsure about using an SRS for many reasons. I do like Supermemo, but I thought it was possible to generate reverse cards automatically. Thank you for your advice, iguanamon. What books would you recommend? I always have trouble finding books that I like. I will visit About French regularly, and I'll make flash cards out of their lessons. I was a bit busy today so I didn't get the chance to spend much time on the computer. I lost track of how many episodes of The Mentalist I watched. I'll post what I did since last week: LAST WEEK (UP TO NOW): I watched 18 episodes of The Mentalist (no subtitles in any language) I watched 1 episode of Weeds (with English subtitles) I added 962 words to my Memrise account, and I've been watering them. I reviewed around 200 "old" words that I started studying in March. I need to re-learn some of them. TODAY: Currently watching Episode 20 of The Mentalist. I listened to American music for over two hours today. I reviewed some of the words I re-learned yesterday. I also need to get rid of some of the flash cards which are slowing me down. I'll be very busy tomorrow, but I'll make sure to review the words I wasn't able to memorize today. Edited by Melya68 on 04 July 2013 at 2:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 23 04 July 2013 at 2:51am | IP Logged |
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Obviously, if you don't like a book, you won't read it. I need to know more about what you like to read. For conversational aspects I recommend mystery novels and comic books (BD). Since you like The Mentalist I suggest Mentalist Fan Fiction. Fan fiction is relatively short, conversational and relative to whatever drama TV series in which you may be interested. Obviously, it's not the highest quality writing, but if you're enjoying the TV series you might enjoy reading some fan written stories.
The advantages of fan fiction are: price- free; conversational language; native speaker written intended for native speaker audience; and you can print them to pdf and read them easily offline- in your situation that won't help you, so you'll actually have to print them physically- still cheaper than buying books. Many French novels have been translated to English. One of my favorite French-speaking authors is Amélie Nothomb. Since I don't speak French, I read her works in English, Spanish or Portuguese. I'm just using Amélie Nothomb as an example. If you have some favorite modern French novels try searching for the translations using wikipedia to search for the author and that will lead you to the translation title in English. You might also try Mystery fiction wiki click on "Random Page" until you find something you like. Some of the works are translated and they're all free and legal. Like I said, doing both reading and watching a TV series helps to reinforce vocabulary in a different way than flashcards and srs. I'm not anti-flashcard or srs, I just think people can become too obsessed with them and the process (creating cards) can end up more important than the results. Moderation is the key. You want to control the cards, not let the cards and their creation control you. Hope this helps, and Good luck! Fanfiction- Qu'est-ce que c'est? (wikipedia en français) Edited by iguanamon on 04 July 2013 at 3:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4289 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 6 of 23 04 July 2013 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
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I usually don't read books, but when I do, most of the time I stick to non-fiction.
I do like spy stories though (Alex Rider, Cherub...). I read Harry Potter in English a long time ago and didn't understand much at the time. Most of the books I read when I was younger were English/American books translated into French. I've always read spy stories and detective stories. I can convert PDF's into mobi files with a program for the Kindle. The conversion takes a long time, but it's usually very readable. Thank you for all your advice! Edited by Melya68 on 04 July 2013 at 3:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4289 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 7 of 23 05 July 2013 at 1:22am | IP Logged |
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TODAY:
I listened to music for around 2 hours. I watched 3 episodes of The Mentalist. I reviewed all the words which I learned yesterday. I will review the other words tomorrow. Some unfortunate things happened today, and I will most likely be forced to quit learning Chinese. I need to focus on English from now on as I have little time to invest in language-learning. I'm still looking for good books/comic books. Suggestions are, of course, welcome. Edited by Melya68 on 05 July 2013 at 2:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4289 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 8 of 23 05 July 2013 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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I watched two episodes of The Mentalist, listened to an audiobook for 40 minutes and reviewed vocabulary for around 45 minutes.
I also listened to music for 15 minutes (every minute counts, right?) I'm pretty happy with my progress so far. 9.45 P.M.: I'm currently watching S2 Ep5 of The Mentalist. At the same time, I'm reviewing/re-learning more old vocabulary. One of my projects is to copy-paste all of the good articles I find on French About in order to make an e-book for my Kindle. At the moment, I have no intention to use Memrise for English anymore. Edited by Melya68 on 05 July 2013 at 9:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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