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| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 1 of 8 24 January 2008 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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With trepidation, I am putting a study plan in place to revitalise my knowledge of French. I don't want to start off with excuses (setting myself up for failure) but I do need to plan carefully for time management.
* Until the end of June, I'll be working every weekday (excepting school holidays) from early morning until late afternoon. I can squeeze in a little study time during the day. * Until early April, I have a night class once a week. It will take up a lot of my evenings and weekends reading, studying and writing essays. The final exam is sometime in late April or early May. * In early May, I will (hopeful) start another night class. It may even be two nights/week, as it will be a full year course condensed into one semester. * In July, I hope to start yet another course (this time during the day) which will overlap with the linguistics course. So...my resources are: * FSI French Phonology textbook and tapes * FSI Basic French textbook and tapes * Pimsleur Language Program - French * Schaum's Outlines French Grammar * Langenscheidt's Jiffy Phrasebook French * Collins Robert French Dictionary I'm also hoping to find my missing Living Language CDs. My first goal: * This weekend, make a plan to (a) focus on correct pronunciation and (b) recall my lost grammar knowledge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 2 of 8 25 January 2008 at 7:15am | IP Logged |
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Here is my initial plan. I won't plan beyond the end of my current night course until I try this schedule and can evaluate how it works (or doesn't).
Stage One (Until late April/early May, after final exam in literature course) * Passive listening - Have French language TV or radio as background when not able to study French actively, yet not performing tasks that required intense mental focus. * Active listening - At least 15 minutes a day (ideally 30-60 minutes), practise with language tapes. * Reading - Two of my course texts were originally written in French. I will attempt to find French versions and read along with the translated copies. (The other four books were written in English, German, Russian and Italian, so it may be a little harder to find French translations.) Supplement with French newspapers, etc. as time permits. * Flashcards (vocabulary) - A couple minutes, several times a day. * Grammar study - At least a couple hours on Friday evening or Saturday. Edited by Kary on 25 January 2008 at 7:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 3 of 8 26 January 2008 at 6:49am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday, I had an unexpectedly short work day, so I had some time to try out different methods. What I decided:
(a) Schaum's French Grammar will make a good reference, but it's not as useful to guide study. The very first section uses a large vocabulary to demonstrate basic concepts about the definite article. Many of the words are not priority words (including at least a couple that I don't even use in English). (b) I wasn't able to locate an international French TV channel and found the Quebec channels very difficult to follow (especially the caffeine-driven morning shows). The national channels are better. My best option at this point seems to be children's programming - a lot of repetition and clear, slow speech. (c) Pronunciation must be my focus. So, I will bump up my requirement to a minimum of 1 hour daily practising with language tapes. I will use the FSI French Basic as my base and supplement with other sources. (d) For my literature course, I found 4 of the 6 texts for this semester available in free translations (and all 6 of last semester's texts). It is unlikely that I will have time to read all in French, before the end of the semester, but I will make an effort to read passages as I review. Newspapers with be my better choice for daily reading. So, in summary: * Passive listening - (Daily) Mostly children's French programming; (weekly) supplemented occasionally with more difficult TV, radio, music, films, etc. * Active listening - (Daily) FSI French programme 1 hour daily; (several times a week) supplement with other language programmar - Pimsleur (I only have a 8 lesson set) and various online sources. * Reading - (Daily) newspapers and online material; (weekly) short passages from my literature course. * Flashcards (vocabulary) - A couple minutes, several times a day. * Grammar study - no set schedule at this time. Grammar is the easy part for me, so I'll formally start after my literature class is over. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 4 of 8 26 January 2008 at 9:39pm | IP Logged |
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Today's status:
* Passive listening - At least a hour of French TV, but not with focused attention. * Active listening - Two repeats of FSI French Phonology, Chapter 1, Part 1. (I find the vocabulary in Pimsleur very basic for understanding, but very difficult for speaking.) * Reading - A small section from Robinson Crusoé and some short online news articles. * Flashcards - Not at all. Tomorrow I'll start recording my voice while working on the FSI course. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 5 of 8 27 January 2008 at 10:21am | IP Logged |
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This will be my last post until next Sunday. I decided to focus ONLY on the FSI courses (Phonology, then Basic Vol 1 and Vol 2). I will still attempt to integrate the other activities (reading, listening to tv, etc.), but will not track the time spent for these. My goal is to complete one unit or chapter per week.
FSI French Phonology Chapter 1 - Feb 3 Chapter 2 - Feb 10 Chapter 3 - Feb 17 Chapter 4 - Feb 24 Chapter 5 - Mar 2 Chapter 6 - Mar 9 Chapter 7 - Mar 16 Chapter 8 - Mar 23 Chapter 9 - Mar 30 Chapter 10 - Apr 6 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| PolyglotNZ Pentaglot Groupie New ZealandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6147 days ago 71 posts - 91 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, German, Mandarin, Japanese Studies: Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Russian | Message 6 of 8 27 January 2008 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, you are well organised! While doing the FSI courses, don't be discouraged if it takes you longer than a week
to finish a chapter. The first chapters may be easy, but as you progress through the course, you'll notice that your brain might need a little bit longer for the structures to sink in properly. This may happen in the middle of the course or during the last couple of chapters. Don't panic then. Just keep learning or take a break from the course and use something else and then come back to finish it. If you take a break, make sure you are taking a break from the course and not from learning your target language! Good luck with your studies!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanityx3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 331 posts - 326 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 27 January 2008 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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Good Luck with your studies. I've been studying French for about 2 years now. It's a beautiful language and has great literature. If you need any help on any french concepts or grammar you can pm me and I'll try to help.
Here is a great French news site: RFI Radio France Also if you can spare a little money a good French book is, L'étranger by Albert Camus. The grammar in the book is less tricky than most French novels, because passé composé is mainly used throughout. I bought this book off amazon for pretty cheap. Edited by vanityx3 on 27 January 2008 at 7:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kary Groupie Canada Joined 6092 days ago 85 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 8 of 8 03 February 2008 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions.
I've "completed" the first chapter of FSI French Phonology, although I'm still not happy with my pronunciation of the introduced sounds and will continue to review it. Of course, I didn't study every day in spite of my good intentions. On the day of my night course and for two days after, I was too tired and disorganised to squeeze in time to study. So, when I wrote the chapter test I only obtained 86% the first time (but 100% on repeating it). My problem area was with hearing new (not previously introduced) sentences and retaining them in my memory long enough to process them. By the time I worked out the initial part of the sentence, I had forgotten the last part. I've started on the second chapter and it's definitely harder to "hold" the new sounds in memory. So, this may take longer to complete. That's fine as long as I'm making progress. The good thing about the phonology course is that it is forcing me to speak, which is my biggest weakness. I want ever utterance to be perfect - which, of course, is impossible. I'm seriously considering working with a tutor once I get to a point where I don't feel completely tongue-tied in front of someone else. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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