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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6932 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 7 15 January 2007 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I debated whether to list this one as progress or brick wall, because I have experienced a bit of both over the past 2 months. I have advanced to the level in German where it is hard to know just what to do next to improve, and French pronunciation, at least until recently, was still a brick wall.
Some time after my last update, a combination of work and the holidays made a complete mess of any study time I had, so I just quite for a couple of weeks. Now that I’m back in the swing of things I’m focusing back on French again. I did get my German back into shape enough to listen to the news, read popular novels and hold a conversation. When I refocus back on German study will consist of expanding my vocabulary. In the meantime, to keep in shape, I’m listening to the Tagesschau podcasts, shadowing Assimil German, and rereading a book called German Quickly. I did not do that much with French from last summer, thankfully I did not loss much, if fact the language seemed to sink in over the break. French pronunciation has always giving me a fit, so I started out by doing a review of French with the Penton series just listening a repeating. I covered all verb conjugations and just focused on pronouncing everything correctly. After that I turned to French in Action, but this time rather than re-watching every video over again, I have gone strait for the “assimilation of the text” audio files. The last time I watch FIA series-to-series, I had it phrase-for-phrase, so I wanted to shift gears to make a better use of time. My studies go something like this: I use RFI easy postcasts with a script as my first source for news everyday. After the 10 minutes of French, I then follow up with my usual English sources. I find that along as I keep up with the news, the vocabulary has a way of taking care of itself. I organized the FIA audio files with iTunes to create a series of playlists. Each day I try to at least 30 minutes worth audio randomize from a playlist. I promote or demote the files according to performance (sort of an audio Leitner Box). The randomized effect is really working, in part it helps keep the lessons boring, and it also keeps me alert to changes in the script. For example at one moment Robert and Mireille at just meeting in lesson 14 and the next moment Robert is having dinner with the Courtois’s in lesson 24. It is more effective than you would think. I graded the audio exercises by just starting with lessons 11-26, and then added lessons 27-35 (stopping just before the subjuctive). I’m only planning on watching the videos to clarify the advanced lessons. At some point in the near future I’ll start a detailed review of the workbook exercises. I’m using the Penton booklets and my Assimil French volumes as “on the go” exercises. I’m familiar with the pronunciation (except the last half of Using French, which I will review later) so I’m just using the books. Rather than focus on back translating, I’m doing an informal variation drill on each lesson. For example I might take every phrase in a lesson and change the subject to “Je” or “Vous”, or change the singular subjects to plural and the plural to singular. Or I might personalize a phrase to match my own needs. The focus here is to practice thinking in French rather than memorize the lesson. And in the evenings I diving into the real sources for entertainment, watching DVDs in French, reading French novels or listening to French music. Over all I can get 1-3 hours a day of using French, with only 30 minutes of actually study time per day. That’s 30 minutes of drills, and the rest of using French in place of English for things like news, movies and novels. The results are finally starting to pay off. I have also added Spanish into the mix. At the moment I’m just reviewing a couple of courses, reading and getting used to the sound of Spanish (apart from pestering other forum members with questions). Between growing up in the US, and French, Spanish is already a half known language, so I’m not anticipating too many problems. Once I rap up the FIA review in a few months I’ll turn full time to Spanish. Edited by Farley on 15 January 2007 at 4:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6943 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 2 of 7 16 January 2007 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
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John,
Are the FIA audio files simply audio versions of the video (but with exercises as well) ? I'd always had the impression that they were complementary but nevertheless different. (Unless of course I've got the wrong end of the stick) Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6932 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 7 16 January 2007 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
Andy, The audio cassettes or MP3 files actually represent “the course” the way it is intended to be used in an undergraduate course, the video is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are 50 audio lessons, one for each video lesson, that vary between 60-80 minutes in length. The first half of the audio is the “assimilation of the text”, designed as language lab work, and the second half is a hodgepodge of “presentation of the pattern", audio-lingual and dictation exercises, designed as homework. I say hodgepodge because they were obviously designed with the instructor in mind to assign specific exercises depending of on course needs. The heart of the lesson is really the “assimilation of the text”. The idea is that you watch each lesson, read the text, complete the audio exercises, and then complete the written exercises – and then the lesson should stick. I found that Dr Capretz conjugates enough verbs and asks enough questions in this section that it can stand by itself without doing all the audio style homework (he does a better job in the video sections covering structure). After you complete the build drills, you get a number of those, question & answer and you play the role of exercises. In fact even the audio-lingual drills follow the same format. Some of them are really tough and they leave me feeling as if I’m talking the taxi driver back in Paris (I think that is point). Here the way I’m using the audio is similar to the way I used the video last time, but this time work on pronunciation rather than listening comprehension. I should add that the last time that I watched the videos all the way through, I picked one of the 5 minutes audio sections and practiced pronunciation. I did a miserable job back then, but it seems to have had a positive effect because I found that after starting over at lesson 11, the audio was now suddenly manageable – in fact I’m making rapid progress. One final note, once I have tuned my ear and mouth to the sound of a lesson, I found that I can work my way through the text and work books rapidly even without the audio. The text and work books contain the full script of the audio. John 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7045 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 7 16 January 2007 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Glad to hear you are making progress. Is Penton the Learn French in Your Car series, or Immersionplus, or one of their other programs? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6932 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 7 16 January 2007 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Luke, It is the Learn in Your Car Series. It has a good coverage of the basics for French. It works well when you have limited time. John 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7045 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 7 16 January 2007 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I agree. I use Learn Spanish in your Car from time to time. It has good grammar translation drills.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6932 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 7 16 July 2007 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Here is a much belated update.
Back in February, I finished the 2nd semester of French in Action by re-watching the videos and going over the audio “assimilation of the text” at least once. I also completed the self evaluations in text books. Then I had an interruption, not enough time, and stopped for about a month. Somewhere around March/April I purchased SmartFrench. I’d given just about every other program a try so I decided “What the heck, how about a clean sweep”. That was a lucky break. In fact the program was a major ice breaker in terms of pronunciation and listening comprehension. I completed the SmartFrench basic level (7 interviews) step for step. I was encouraged with my progress so I did a complete review of Assimil (“with “Ease” and “Using”). This time around I was able to shadow many of the lessons I’d previously found impossible to shadow. I went through the whole course, read a line and then immediately back translate it. The other activities did were reading and listening. My reading mostly consisted of reading and rereading a couple of Simenon’s Maigret novels cover to cover and using the dictionary as needed. In some cases I read the English version first just to get the context. I also continued the (mostly) day to day dose of RFI’s “Le journal en français facile” Then I had another major interruption to the study plan. My company is going out of business, and trying to stay one step ahead of the pink slip and retired every language program and foreign language book for about two months. I secured a position a few weeks ago and go back on track. I think the break did some good. This time around I’ve been about the graduate from “Le journal en français facile” straight to the “regular” news and I have nailed many of the reports word for word over the past couple of weeks. The Simenon novels suddenly seemed much easier along with just about everything else I’ve wanted to read. I’m also covering the 3rd semester of FIA. Last night I completed the audio at lesson 39. I’ll need to go back and review before continuing. I’m also planning on completing SmartFrench. To summarize, my study plan evolved into a focus on pronunciation and vocabulary. It was not by design it happened by accident. In the past I’ve always been created impossible tasks such as master course X steps 1-N and then never had the time to complete it. This time my focus was just on what I needed. My pronunciation was need of improvement so my approach was to cheat at FIA and just work on saying everything properly and skip the rest of exercises, or to only focus on SmartFrench -- just pronunciation that’s it. Also instead of try to worry about French vocabulary, I only worried about Simenon vocabulary and spent time just reading the dictionary looking for phrases of interest. It seems to be working because, as a mentioned above, I’ve gotten a big discount on listening comprehension and assimilating the syntax. Some much for all the hype about the perfect method. John 1 person has voted this message useful |
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