vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 41 of 52 02 April 2008 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
I found a really great way to make passive knowledge into active knowledge.
My method I started today consists of making worksheets dealing with a particular grammar point you have mainly only passive knowledge of. Today I have been making worksheets for Verbs + à/de + Infinitive. I get French sentences from actual French authors by using an online French only dictionary.
Once I get all my sentences I'm going to delete all the à/de's after the verbs and mix up the sentences some so they aren't in the same order I wrote them. I'm going to go over these worksheets I've made using scriptorium writing down the sentences in a notebook and saying them out loud at the same time. I haven't decided if I will make an answer key or not, I may just make myself relook up things if I forget.
One thing about this method that I like is that, while you are making the worksheets, it actually forces you to learn the prepositions before infinitives correctly.
Edited by vanityx3 on 02 April 2008 at 1:09pm
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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 42 of 52 04 April 2008 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
Got the FIA textbook 2 in the mail today.
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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 43 of 52 06 April 2008 at 12:55am | IP Logged |
I've been shadowing the FIA videos some today, I've noticed that some of the people in the videos naturally speak faster than others, for instance Mireille speaks a lot faster than her dad. When I shadow I try to time the words I say, so I say them at the same exact time as the characters. Shorter sentences are usually easier for me. Sometimes, especially with longer sentences of 15 to 20 words, it gets really hard to shadow in this way, but I keep working on it.
I've noticed I sound a lot like the characters when I speak French. I've learned a lot about French phonetics when I had French classes and also learning on my own.
Things I'm still working on and that slow me down are mainly things that deal with informal French conversation. Things like dropping the re off the end of words, learning how French words are slurred together when spoken quickly. For instance, je vais almost never pronounced like je vais, two seperate words, but like j've (one word). This is even more common when using indirect objects.
Je vais vous prêter une autre voiture becomes, j've vous prêter une autre voiture.
Edited by vanityx3 on 06 April 2008 at 12:55am
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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 44 of 52 06 April 2008 at 2:15pm | IP Logged |
I'm going to use scriptorium today use the FIA texts. The professor mentions to do it for at least 15 minutes, so I will make sure to hit that mark.
I'm hoping this will help me just with being able to create my own sentences quickly and smoothly. I'll give an update later.
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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 45 of 52 08 April 2008 at 8:04am | IP Logged |
Still working with the scriptorium, somethings seem to stick in my mind better than others and I'm learning new things actively. Other things don't seem to be sticking, I wonder if I should do each sentence twice in a row or do a whole page and then do it again. Maybe I will expieriment some.
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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 46 of 52 16 April 2008 at 3:33pm | IP Logged |
Today I took the French Placement test at the University I will be attending. I was given advanced placement in French. This gave me a sense of accomplishment.
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BGreco Senior Member Joined 6385 days ago 211 posts - 222 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish
| Message 47 of 52 16 April 2008 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
Congrats. I have to take the AP test next year...that should be fun. :-p
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