vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 17 of 52 14 February 2008 at 12:00pm | IP Logged |
Things have been going really well. I'm really starting to understand what methods work well for me. I'm learning many many new words of passive vocabulary, which is my goal right now. I'll work on making them more active a little later.
My goal right now is to be able to read and understand Madame Bovary with very little help from a dictionary within the next 2 months. Once I feel I know 99% of the words in Un coeur simple, I'll probably move on to Le Rêve, then Madame Bovary after that, that's my plan right now.
My only reason for not wanting to start Madame Bovary to early, is because I want to read and understand it with very very little dictionary help
If anyone has any advice on particular things that are encountered in Madame Bovary that aren't encountered as much in the literature I'm reading currently, you can let me know. What is Flaubert's choice of Vocabulary in Madame Bovary; does he use slang? or is his French pure and formal?
When I last actually looked through Madame Bovary, about 6 months ago, I do remember seeing passé simple in the 1st and 2nd person plural, which I hardly ever see when reading, and also le subjontif imparfait is used by Flaubert, which I also rarely encounter.
Edited by vanityx3 on 14 February 2008 at 12:03pm
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 18 of 52 16 February 2008 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
My Le petit Larousse Dictionary came in the mail today. It's a wonderful French only dictionary, with many pictures. I've started reading some Victor Hugo lately, Notre-Dame de Paris. I haven't read very much but Victor Hugo's style of writing doesn't seem too complex.
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 19 of 52 17 February 2008 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
In really enjoy reading Jules Verne. I've never read any of his works until today, but I enjoy his style a lot.
French runs through my head quite a bit now. I'm able to think in sentences, mainly shorter ones. But every once in awhile I'll think of a longer one. I'm now able to thnk in French and have distractions around me and it not be a hindrance.
Since last week, I've been spending most of my time learning passive vocabulary to which I plan to make it active at a later point.
I came up with an idea the other day to ask myself questions in French and then come up with appropriate responses. I may try that sometime.
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 20 of 52 22 February 2008 at 10:40am | IP Logged |
Lately my french study has gotten slack. I've been unable to make time to study. It's my fault though. It's been really cold where I'm living, and I think that has a part in it, in that I just want to be warm in under some covers. and reading a book is hard that way.
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 21 of 52 03 March 2008 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
I've started watching some FIA videos, they are really funny and GREAT for learning to hear and speak french. It makes learning French so enjoyable.
I'm going to try to get through as many of these as I can this week while I have school break, and then I'll pick and choose which ones I need to study more. I'm going to use these videos to prepare for a French Interview I may have to take if my French placement test goes smoothly.
Edited by vanityx3 on 18 March 2008 at 7:54am
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 22 of 52 05 March 2008 at 10:17am | IP Logged |
I've gotten through about 15 of the FIA videos. I've gotten to a point where I realize I'm going to have to watch the videos more than once now. When doing some reading of older posts about FIA it seems that most people start having to watch the videos more than once at around videos 13-15. I try to speak along with the professor as much as I can when listening along. I seem to be thinking some French sentences pretty well such as, ça fait trois jours qu'il pleut. etc. Sometimes I pause the tape when the teacher will show a phrase I find particularly tricky to say, some common French sentences are tongue twisters for me, evne though they wouldn't be for a native French.
Vous pouvez si vous voulez, is an example I had to work on a little to pronounce smoothly.
I will usually do this by asking myself what a certain word means, and then making up a frnech definition for it.
Going back over a few videos I've listened to already. Video 13 is where things get much harder, sentences are longer and faster. It's been taking twice as long to listen to the tapes at this level because I need to stop and rewind a few times to hear what their saying before I am hearing and understanding it well.
Edited by vanityx3 on 18 March 2008 at 7:54am
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 23 of 52 06 March 2008 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
I've been acquiring audio for FIA today. I'm going to burn them to a CD when I get enough. I've realized the audio will help me a lot with understanding, the drills are really good and don't feel like drills too much.
I've gotten to the point where passé composé and l'imparfait are used in conversation. I may decide to skip ahead some sections to study le subjonctif, I think knowing le subjonctif throughly will be really helpful.
A really exciting thing for me, is a lot of times now when I listen to French, as long as I understand the words then I can see what is being said in my head. Like the actions and pictures. This is exactly what happens when I listen to English, I only see pictures not words. So now French is becoming the same.
It's now like:
French---Picture
instead of before
French----English words translation------Picture
Edited by vanityx3 on 06 March 2008 at 7:50pm
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guilon Pentaglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6135 days ago 226 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Spanish*, PortugueseC2, FrenchC2, Italian, English
| Message 24 of 52 06 March 2008 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
It looks like you have really been making progress lately, I'd like to encourage you to go one step ahead.
If you don't mind taking my advice, now you could use what is called authentic documents, for instance, you could
subscribe to a real podcast (I like very much "Les grosses têtes" from RTL) and listen to it while commuting or
walking on the street, but turn the volume as down as possible so it gets somehow mixed up with the
environmental noise.
Another idea I could suggest is watching videos of "Florence Foresti" on youtube, a French comedian who imitates
French as spoken by several women from different social backgrounds.
Those two activities might be a little harsh at first but if you are persistent you will undoubtedly be rewarded. I
hope this helps.
Edited by guilon on 06 March 2008 at 8:48pm
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