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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6308 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 25 of 43 13 February 2008 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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How important is the future and imperfect subjunctives? I could probably recognise them from context, but is it worth actually learning them?
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| rodYon Pentaglot Newbie Croatia Joined 6140 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Serbian, Croatian*, Latin, French, English Studies: Italian | Message 26 of 43 14 February 2008 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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well, future subjunctive is not important at all because it doesn't exist:) afaik in any language, future is comprised within present subjunctive. in latin there were 'problems' so it had periphrastic active..
as for subj. impf., it isn't useful in spoken, but rather in texts (formal, archaic, philosophical..). why not learn it and be able to use it? it isn't that hard nor demanding, if you know passe simple, you'll have no trouble making subj.impf. forms. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| 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 43 14 February 2008 at 8:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
You can do well with a passive knowledge of imperfect subjunctive, because it is rarely spoken and only written in really formal situations. Most times it is replaced by passé du subjontif in spoken and writing. You can also get really far with only a passive knowledge of passé simple. For instance, in America most students aren't required to write in passé simple until they start a Master's Degree in French. But they have no problems reading passé simple. By the way, normally you'll only see passé simple written in 1st and 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural. Here's some links with some uses and rules posted by native speakers: Subjonctif Imparfait Another about Subjonctif Imparfait Plus-que Parfait du Subjonctif Good discussion of how French has changed in last 150 years, if Any Look for the Native speakers reponses, you'll find a lot of useful information. Edited by vanityx3 on 14 February 2008 at 8:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 28 of 43 14 February 2008 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I checked my university holiday schedule some time back. Apparently, it will run for about 2 months and a half. So I'd like to plan out in advance my language studies throughout the holidays.
Herewith I pose a question, and some accompanying facts: Assuming that I devote at least 6 hours a day to French, how fluent may I be by the end of 2 and a half months? 1. I'll be using a combination of the Listening-Reading (shadowing-reading), Heinrich Schliemann (memorization of choice texts) and Professor Arguelles (rotation of languages, to keep interest, specifically Japanese-French) methods. 2. I'll be doing things at a highly concentrated pace (i.e. Nothing like in classrooms where you can sometimes sit back and relax) and focus. I have the ability to do this; the feeling is like when you're attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation, and become so engrossed that you completely forget about the outside world for a while. 3. When I tire of French, I will switch over to Japanese and study only that before returning to French. (It is to be noted that I will be doing something along the lines of 1.5 hours of French per 2 hours of Japanese study.) 4. I will not be perusing any wordlists, as the materials I use have already provided them. If a meaning to a word is so very needed, and only if it is really crucial, will I then resort to a quick search in an Internet dictionary. (This is an adherence to Professor Arguelles' tips as found in his writings.) 5. I will switch between writing exercises (I've already bought a thick notebook to write in already, but it's still on my shelf), typing-memorization exercises (and this is because I type far faster than I write, and this will help me when I'm trying to memorize and reproduce long texts), pronunciation exercises (the Le Petit Prince audiobook said to have excellent pronunciation, and FSI; and I'm willing to devote lots of time to acquire a near-native/native accent), listening exercises, and grammar exercises. (And if I'm too tired, I'll watch some news or movies in French, :P) 6. I have no teacher, so the only way I will know something is correct is by checking immediately everything I write/speak against the actual correct French in the books/texts, and speaking only what I have as audio materials; and I'm adamant about that last bit, as I do not wish to have a substandard accent. (I will add to the list my thoughts as I see necessary; in a way, it's a reminder note for me as well.) -------- Now, assuming that I do 6 hours of French, every day, for a month, I would have done: 6 hours x 30 days = 180 hours. If the trend continues for 2 and a half-months: 180 hours x 2.5 = 450 hours. To be more realistic, let's say I manage to absorb only 4 hours out of 6, and this continues for 2 and a half months: 4 x 30 x 2.5 = 300 hours. ------- So, with ideally, and at least, 300 hours of study, would this have sufficed to put me at a level of near-complete fluency with French? Edited by ryuukohito on 14 February 2008 at 6:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6157 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 29 of 43 15 February 2008 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I'd just like to clarify something; you said you would like to do 6 hours of French a day, but you also said you want to do 2 hours of Japanese for every 1.5 hours of French, right? So that would be 8 hours of Japanese + 6 hours of French = 14 hours a day? Is this right? And if so, is it sustainable? It's truly admirable, but even Professor Arguelles averages 9 hours a day... As for how far 300 hours of French would take you... well, working purely in terms of numbers, FSI says it takes 600 hours to become fluent. Professor Arguelles once said you have to budget an extra 50% for review, so presume that is 900 hours. I don't know how many hours you have done so far, but presuming you were at zero (which obviously you're not) that would make you half fluent by FSI's calculations or a third fluent by the Professor's calculations. This is purely numerical, though, and doesn't necessarily reflect your personal skills and aptitude. It might very well be possible to become basically fluent in 300. Edited by rob on 15 February 2008 at 3:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6431 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 30 of 43 15 February 2008 at 3:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Doubtful; all of the time estimates I've seen for becoming fluent (even 'basic fluency', much less 'near-complete fluency') are significantly higher. Basic reading and conversation may be possible in that time scale, but fluency would surprise me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6462 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 31 of 43 15 February 2008 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
For this bit you may also want to use http://www.corectme.com, if you are writing something that you can't compare to the textbooks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 32 of 43 15 February 2008 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I think it's honestly possible, and I'm willing to invest the time. If I may share with you my experience: When I began studying Japanese, specifically kanji, I timed myself and averaged about 10-12 hours a day. (Of course, the sessions were cut up, into 1.5/2 hour sessions. In between, I'd go out, go watch a movie, call a friend and hang out, or something to that effect -- but I made sure that I held to the quota, and would not sleep unless and until I hit that 10-12 hours of language study per day.)
With all due respect to Professor Arguelles, I must differ: the learned Professor began studying languages intensively around the age of 30. (This is what I understand from what he had written about himself in one of his threads.) By that time however, he already had work and other priorities to commit himself to. I gather that that must have taken away some of the time he could have used for study. On the other hand, I am still a university student. During the holidays, I do not have any work commitments of any sort. So rather than letting my hours go to waste, I would like to think that studying languages is a brilliant way to invest my time and energy :) (Also, if I am not mistaken, given the choice, Professor Arguelles would have studied more hours. I recall faintly his having said that he once, or a couple of times, during those free days, studied from the moment he woke up, until he slept.)
I've had very little experience with French so far, at most, amounting to 5 hours or so, so I'm more inclined to say that I'm starting from zero, really. 600 hours however, seems to be a lot of time, but that'll be okay. Basically, the 300 hours should at least suffice to give me a solid grounding in French, right? Then during the usual university sessions it's just a matter of spreading the hours out (1 to 2) per day to reach fluency and the ideal 900 hour fluency 'ceiling', I think. But still, if anything, I'm hoping that the 300-450 hours would already suffice in the attaining of fluency, because I'd like to think that Heinrich Schliemann's method might help somewhat with this. (In that, the memorizing of sentences from whole books internalizes grammar and gives you a cache of ready-made sentences to draw and modify from.) I've been using the memorization technique with Japanese; and really, it's helped with making sentences flow off my tongue.
Thank you for the link! Edited by ryuukohito on 15 February 2008 at 5:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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