vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 25 of 52 07 March 2008 at 10:17am | IP Logged |
Merci pour l'aide guillon. I've found out a way to record live streams from French TV, so I've been recording those and I will put them on DVD sometime, so I want have to watch TV in English. Mainly I've just been recording a music channel because I liked the music, I just have to make sure I check the channel ever once in awhile since they put some American music with the French music and I already listen to enough american music.
Edited by vanityx3 on 07 March 2008 at 10:26am
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 26 of 52 09 March 2008 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
Lately I've been downloading things instead of studying, which I'm not happy about, but it is actually something that must be done. But I will start my studies soon enough.
It is absolutely necessary that I learn to hear and understand the conditional and plu-perfect. I can understand them on paper well, but in listening I haven't had enoug exposure. I'm going to study this extra hard in FIA when I get there along with the subjunctive, because I know these are weak points in my listening skills.
I've also decided that I would like to learn two French accents, one that I will use regularly and one I will use for fun. I really like the tone of Gérard Dépardieu's voice, so I'm going to watch some of his movies and try to imitate his tone and the way he pronounces his words for my normal accent.
My other accent I want to be something more unique and not often learned by a language learner of French, I lke the Marseillais accent a lot, so I think I will try to learn this accent for fun. Maybe I'll just go for a Marseillais accent with the same tone and timbre of Depardieu.
Edited by vanityx3 on 09 March 2008 at 6:50pm
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 27 of 52 10 March 2008 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
I really think English is messing up my French study. I can't really explaing why I think this though. But I think if I could have one solid week of me studying French and not hearing a single word of English spoken, I could learn so much faster.
For instance whenever I finish watching FIA for a few hours or so, and studying along, I'll be thinking in French for awhile as long as I don't have English distracting me, which if English is distracting me it slowly hinders my thinking in French.
I have gotten better about this though, for now I can think and French and English being heard in the background, but I can think in French much better if French is in the background or nothing.
It's times like these where I wish I had a vacation home at the beach where I could lock myself up at with all my provisions I need and study French for a week with no English interference. But such is only a dream.
Edited by vanityx3 on 10 March 2008 at 5:44pm
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 28 of 52 11 March 2008 at 11:52am | IP Logged |
next time I watch a French movie, maybe I will listen to a short section and try to write different sentences that I hear. Perhaps this could help train me to hear individual words even better, although no always easy with eliasons.
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 29 of 52 12 March 2008 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
Been trying to shadow the FIA videos just a bit. I will say things after the the character says them, and I'm using a blind shadowing method since I have no transcript for the movies; which I actually enjoy not having transcripts. I trying this shadowing thing just so I can be able to repeat more words back after they've been said, possibly increasing my listening comprehension.
Mintgreennova wrote me some things to help me with casual and slangy French
mintgreennova wrote:
- Ne doesn't really happen in casual speech. "Je ne l'aime pas." is "Je l'aime pas."
- "J" followed by an "s" turns into "ch". This was the most obvious when I first arrived in France. The first day I came home I asked my host mom "What the hell does CHAYPEH mean, and why does everyone say it ALL THE TIME?!?" Turns out CHEYPEH was "Je ne sais pas." You'll hear alot of "Chwee désolé, madame" or "Mais chavais pas!"
- the "re": for example, "être", if followed by a consonant is usually pronounced "et".
"Il va être dans le magasin." = "Il va etdans le magasin."
-All non accentuated "e"s. Forget about 'em. I have never even heard someone actually say "Serrait." It's actually "srait." And contrary to the opinion of foodies everywhere, France doesn't have the best "petits pains", it has the "l'meilleur p'tits pains".
-Il = Y "Il n'est pas là" is transformed to "EEay pas là." Only said in half a second.
- "a"s and "u"s are also sometimes dropped, but not as much as the "e"s. But like in the video "Une fille quivfaire une connerie." or "Tu as vu le film?" "Tas vu le film?"
-And one last weird thing is what I'll call sigh words. Sometimes French people inexplicably decide to not finish their word and sigh instead, leaving you to interpret what syllables were to follow and complete the phrase. I can't really explain it, it's not exactly just a sigh, because their mouths are still slightly closed and it produces a sort of whistl-ey siffling sort of sound like the air is coming from between their teeth. I know it sounds mad, but I swear it happens all the time. Like this morning I took 5 minutes trying to figure out "je m'en f*sifflewhistlesound* until I realized it was a lazy "Je m'en fou." Je m'en fou, indeed. I believe this post alone justifies adding another cactus to french in the language ratings. ;) |
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I've had some expierience before with this but not much. For instance ce n'est pas is always pronounced like c'nest pas, the c sound sounds like an s sounds at the first part of snail.
Edited by vanityx3 on 13 March 2008 at 8:12am
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 30 of 52 13 March 2008 at 8:15am | IP Logged |
I've been going to sleep with La fille sur le pont on at night and I leave it on repeat. I thought this may help me get used to the faster rhythms and faster speech of casual French. It does seem to work, I seem to understand more than I did a few days ago when listening to casual speech.
Found a good website to help me slang and casual french
Edited by vanityx3 on 13 March 2008 at 11:41am
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 31 of 52 16 March 2008 at 8:12pm | IP Logged |
I've finally found my lost mp3 player. So now I can listen to French much more throughout my day, in between classes and such.
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vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 32 of 52 18 March 2008 at 8:09am | IP Logged |
I've went through 42 of the FIA video's so far. I've been using the FIA audio also ,that drills you on speaking. I think I'm planning on after finishing the videos going back through the more difficult one to give them extra study. I've done this a bit while going through, I've watched some videos more than once.
I'm able to understand informal French a little better now, it doesn't seem so fast. Classroom french seems much slower now almost like I'm hearing English.I can normally pick out individual words easily.
I may test myself on how well I understand by watching Hiroshima mon amour. The french is really clear in the movie, even though there are times where it is spoken with a Japanese accent for a few lines. I've only seen the first part of this movie, so I'll be able to see how much I understood afterwards.
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