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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6807 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 30 13 May 2007 at 6:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I have decided to learn French. My Spanish is now at a pretty high level, therefore I feel "safe" studying another language. I chose French because it is a key language in international politics, which I have always been interested in.
Yesterday I began using Hugo "French in 3 Months", and altogether, worked for 1 hour 20 minutes. Things I did well: * pronounciation - nowhere near as hard as I feared it might be. Nasal sounds if a vowel occurs before m or n seems to be a general rule. Also, I more or less have the vowels sorted. * verb conjugation - this seems to be fairly simple too, albeit I did start with "avoir" which is irregular, but no problems. Things I need to work on: * noun gender - a common problem. Unlike Spanish, there aren't as many clues, so it has to be learned properly. I did a few exercises on du/de la/des etc. and whilst I got the noun gender wrong, I did apply the right rule to that mistake. Hey, half right! All in all, not a bad start! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 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 2 of 30 13 May 2007 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, nasal vowels are quite predictable. They occur when there's a vowel before m, n, mm or nn and it's not immediately followed by a vowel. E. g. "son" and "sont" are pronounced [so~] but "sonne" is pronounced [son]. The kind of nasal vowel is determined by the vowel. There are three or four kinds of nasal vowel, depending on the region: a + n/m/nn/mm: as in "France" o + n/m/nn/mm: as in "sont" i + n/m/nn/mm: as in "Tintin" u + n/m/nn/mm: as in "lundi" or the city name "Dunkerque" This last nasal, the U one, is pronounced like the I one in many regions of France. As for noun gender: there are two possibilities. I like to associate words with a picture involving either a male or a female indicative of the gender. Others have recommended that using the Memory Palace method, you create a special section or a special colour that indicates gender. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6953 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 3 of 30 13 May 2007 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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May I suggest adding the videos of "French in Action" to your study materials?
This thread describes how to access the FIA videos from outside North America. As for memorizing gender, I find memorizing words in context, instead of just from a word list, helps greatly. I try to use adjectives which are sufficiently different in the masculine/feminine forms to avoid confusion. For example, I might remember "une belle pomme" and "un beau verre". What I actually do now, though, is just to make sure to remember the appropriate definite article along with the noun. Speaking out loud helps a lot, here. So, to me I think more "lapomme" means "apple", rather than the two facts "pomme" means apple, and "pomme" is feminine. If you learn the two together, by saying them out loud while studying, "le pomme" will just sound horribly wrong, because it's not what you've been studying. As for the using a memory palace to remember gender, my understanding is that you divide your city in two, say along a major north-south street (or use two cities you know very well), and every mnemonic for "male" is in the west half the city, and every "female" noun has its mnemonic placed in the east half. Edited by dmg on 13 May 2007 at 10:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6807 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 4 of 30 13 May 2007 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks guys, some great tips that I will definitely use.
Today I worked for 1 hour 15 minutes using exercises from Hugo French in 3 Months. Today I tackled negation (Je ne/n'....pas etc.) which was a lot simpler than I anticipated. I also looked at adjectives, and how to make them agree in number and gender, which whilst more complicated than Spanish was not as bad as I feared. I then had a go at verb conjugation on some exercises on regular er verbs. I also noticed my first "interference" from Spanish, when I accidentally wrote "escuchar" instead of "écouter". Silly me :) Things I did well: * Mastered the nasal sounds and negation of verbs. * Got to grips with adjectives, and understand how to make something feminine or plural. * conjugated verbs accurately with correct endings in spoken French. Things that need more work: * I need to work on the spelling. For instance, I wrote "ont" as "ent" because they have a very similar sound in spoken French. Not the biggest mistake in the world! * need to learn more verbs. I only know about three so far, so need more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7059 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 30 13 May 2007 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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FuroraCeltica, how do you like Hugo French in 3 Months? How large is the program?
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| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6807 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 6 of 30 14 May 2007 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||
Its very user friendly and logical. I have the 3 month course and also the advanced 3 month course. About 12 units in each, meant to be worked through at one unit per week, but I'm doing one a day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6807 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 30 14 May 2007 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today I did some more French in 3 Months. I did just under an hours work today, as I felt quite tired. I took this opportunity to review the previous two days work which was very useful, as I needed to slightly refresh my knowledge of making plurals.
Things I did well: * retained most of the knowledge learned in the past two days. * improved my pronounciation, it sounds much better today. * had the sense to review: with Spanish I sometimes didn't check back. Things I need to improve: * I am having difficulty prouncing the French word "ennuyeux", so if anyone could help me, let me know! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| breckes Triglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6741 days ago 84 posts - 89 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian Studies: Italian, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 30 14 May 2007 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
If you can pronounce "en", "nuit" and "yeux", you just have to put together these three words : "en-nuit-yeux" : "ennuyeux" ! Edited by breckes on 14 May 2007 at 6:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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