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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 65 of 104 03 May 2011 at 1:13pm | IP Logged |
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French: I'm about halfway through The Sounds Of French now. My thoughts so far:
- Very academic style (it's a textbook, not a course like Assimil etc.), which might not be everyone's cup of tea. - Lots of examples, which balances out the previous point, and makes the explanations a lot more clear. - Very detailed, for example there's a fairly long chapter just on the letter e and the rules governing whether or not it is pronounced. It's explained very well, but it's all stuff I already subconsciously knew from listening. I guess that's the point of the book though - filling in the gaps of your knowledge, and different readers will have different gaps. - Suitable for different learning styles - people who like logic and rules will enjoy the explanations, while people who learn by example will appreciate all the examples illustrating the rules. Of course, if you're one of these very auditory learners who can figure out and accurately reproduce the sound system just from listening, you won't need anything like this book :). The big test though - will it actually significantly improve my pronunciation and accent? Time will tell; it'll probably take at least a few weeks for everything I learn to actually filter into my habits and hence my spontaneous speech. Russian: I'm still being told different things about Ukraine! Last I heard is that the trip will happen, but I don't believe anything any more. In any case though, I'm starting to understand why Russian's so popular: it just has this allure about it that keeps me coming back, even if I might not have much practical use for it, and letting go of it just doesn't feel right even though I can barely speak it after all the time I've spent. So I decided to test my Russian by going on the SharedTalk Russian chat room. As expected I struggled to keep up with the conversation, mostly due to my slow reading comprehension speed: I still don't read the alphabet anywhere near as quickly as Latin. Since I couldn't follow the conversation in anything resembling real time I wasn't really able to join. However it was interesting to see the language actually being used in practice and which words come up a lot. I don't think it was a realistic test of my ability though as my focus on Russian has quite sensibly been on the spoken language rather than the written, so a spoken conversation would be more appropriate test. I still feel like I just couldn't manage an everyday conversation, but I'd like to try soon just because my gaps will become a lot more apparent. I've been looking at the Princeton course again as it has a lot of the more conversational stuff that's missing from Pimsleur - Pimsleur seems very focused on speaking to get what you want (ordering food, making plans, arranging meetings, finding out information) but I'm also interested in more social chit-chat and getting to know people. I took a look at the basic stuff on LingQ too (Who Is She? etc.) and it also has some useful expressions although it's a bit too "constructed for learners" in places. Still considering Assimil Le Russe too; main thing putting me off is that I might end up give up the language if I find out absolutely for sure that I'm not going to Ukraine after having made the investment... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 66 of 104 08 May 2011 at 10:37pm | IP Logged |
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Update for the last week...
French: Teacher's back so I've started weekly lessons again as of this week. We're doing the same stuff as before: discussing news articles and having general conversation. On Friday I went to a French cinema evening: saw a film called The Girl On The Train (La fille du RER) and there was plenty conversation, wine, and cheese later. I've finished Using French, and started doing a "third wave" on French With Ease. Same idea as the second wave, translating English to French, to try and "activate" more of the material. Using French doesn't say anything about an active wave, probably because of the amount of idiomatic language in it, but I reckon doing one would be beneficial at least for some of the less literary entries, with the goal being to come up with a translation that makes sense even if it's not the one from the book. To fill in the Assimil-passive-wave-shaped hole in my life I think I'll go over an episode of One Thing In A French Day each day (ideally of course), it has plenty good idiomatic French so should be good for picking up expressions. Still watching some Simpsons and South Park episodes. Russian: I had a text conversation in Russian over Skype with a girl from SharedTalk. Unsurprisingly it was hard work and there was a lot of dictionary use involved on my part, not only to understand but also to check I was spelling words I know correctly. She had been learning English since last September and I was amazed by her ability (at least in writing, we haven't spoken yet) especially considering the time. Her "method" is simply reading a lot and communicating a lot; she's also doing an English course at University but claims that she learned a lot more outside of the Uni. Anyway I was right about conversation exposing the holes in my knowledge, and I spent some of the weekend patching up these holes: - Reflexive verbs (quite easy really but I needed to clear it up) - Spelling of words (а or о, е or и, etc.) - Use of genitive case - The various verbs related to learning and studying - Date and time expressions - and the main one - simple lack of vocabulary. I've started the Princeton course again and I'm doing it Assimil-style: repeating each sentence, and doing an "active wave" every so often where I try to translate previous lessons from English to Russian. I discovered Master Russian Forum which looks like a great resource. It has transcriptions of Pimsleur (not full transcriptions, just the new material from each lesson) which makes the method a whole lot more useful and should help me connect the speaking and writing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 67 of 104 11 May 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
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I had another SharedTalk Russian conversation and it felt a bit easier than the last but I was still making lots of mistakes and still have a lot to learn, nothing new. I'm still keeping up with one Pimsleur lesson per day, but barely; I'm getting towards the end of Unit 2. I suppose I'm somewhat emulating Benny's method by trying to speak (albeit mostly in the form of text chat) long before I really feel ready to, and I'm understanding the benefits not only for developing the skill but also for finding which words/phrases are important for me.
French lesson yesterday wasn't the best; recently I've been busy and a bit stressed out and not sleeping well, and I seemed to be too mentally worn out to string together basic sentences or correctly read words from a page. I'm sure it was still beneficial to an extent though, as all speaking is useful. I had a fairly early night after that, so hopefully I'll be a bit more on form for the Meetup tonight. Just over a month to go until Le Hellfest, or "L'Épreuve" as I seem to be thinking of it, and I'm feeling nowhere near on track. I can't help but think that my progress in French has been a lot slower than it could have been, especially considering I learnt a lot of the foundational stuff at school, so I'm trying to learn lessons from that and apply them to other languages - an obvious example is focusing more on pronunciation and speaking from early on. It's also partly why I'm not keen to overload myself and I'm still putting off Italian (as well as because of the obvious lack of time and the potential for confusion): I'd rather learn more of these lessons so I don't repeat the same mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 68 of 104 17 May 2011 at 1:04pm | IP Logged |
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I got the good sleep I needed so I was feeling a lot better for the Meetup.
I've been trying to learn from the Meetup exactly what the difference is between the people who're considered "good speakers" and the learners like myself. I started thinking about that because I realised that a woman there, who's always being complemented on her ability, actually doesn't appear to know any more French than me: I've never heard her say something that I've not easily understood, she makes similar mistakes to mine, and sometimes she doesn't know words that I do. Yet she speaks a lot more fluidly than I do and is a good conversationalist. So it's becoming clear that being a good speaker isn't just about knowing the language, but also knowing how to use the language you know. I ordered the book How To Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately after reading a thread about the author here. I chose this book over the author's other, more general text because it focuses specifically on conversational fluency as opposed to learning methods in general. I received it yesterday and I've read most of it already (it's a very short book), and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it really focuses on what I was just talking about - how to more effectively use the language you already know. It's like a version of Conversationally Speaking (a book I've mentioned here before, about general conversation skills) but especially for conversations with native speakers - it provides some "tools" that you can use in order to best use and demonstrate your knowledge of the language. So, seems good so far but I'll reserve judgement until I've gone out and applied the advice. My last few posts sum up my current French learning process, which is essentially identifying gaps, or more specifically particularly weak areas, and filling them in by focusing on them. Of course I'm still working on the other main gap, pronunciation. I've not finished The Sounds Of French yet but I'm trying to consciously apply what I've learned while I'm speaking: - Correct articulation of vowels (aperture, tongue position, lip rounding). One thing that I find particularly helpful is remembering that /y/, /ø/, and /œ/ are just /i/, /e/, and /ɛ/ but with lip rounding. - General clearer articulation of vowels - the French /e/ and /ɛ/ are somewhat stronger and clearer sounding than the "same" sounds in English, for example. - Tongue position for consonants t, d, n, l - tip of the tongue always touches the back of the front teeth, unlike in English where this is sometimes the case and sometimes not depending on the surrounding sounds. - Keep tongue down for r - pretty much forces you to always articulate a proper French r as opposed to something more like an English one. - Fully releasing stops at the ends of words, e.g., pronouncing the t at the end of fête something like /tə/ (as is often apparent when French people pronounce an English word ending in a stop). - Maintaining a syllable-timed rhythm - obviously I knew this already but in practice it's all too easy to slip into a more English-like (stress-timed) rhythm. (someone who speaks a more "standard" English would want to add avoiding diphthongisation of vowels to this list -- people who pronounce "day" like /dei/ or /deɪ/ are inclined to pronounce "allé" like /alei/ or /aleɪ/ instead of /ale/ -- but as a Scot I pronounce "day" like /de/ already so it's not an issue for me.) I'm sure I'll add more once I finish the book. Interestingly I've yet to see anything about this elusive "speaking from the mouth not the throat" concept that I keep hearing and mentioning. Maybe it's something that falls into place when you're doing everything else right, particularly the vowel articulation and dental consonants. Lastly I listened to an interview with Susanna Zaraysky, author of Language Is Music which anyone who follows language learning blogs will have heard of because of all her shameless substance-less advertising posts, sorry, guest posts. While a lot of her method seems to be based on being able to pick sounds up just by hearing them, which as I've already stressed is something I just can't do effectively, she does have some interesting things to say. One helpful idea is thinking about speaking different languages as being completely different activities as opposed to the same activity "speaking" but with different words, and another is being very attentive to not only what natives say but to how they say it: tone of voice, emphasis, rhythm, body language, etc. as this tends to differ between languages, so incorporating these things can make your communication more native-like. The interview is available on Polyglot Podcast. Applying all this to conversations, which in themselves can be difficult enough, is quite a challenge, but I think that when you learn any new skill you need to go through this awkward "conscious competence" stage to create new habits and train in the skills until they become natural and you can do them without thinking. I haven't had much time for Russian so nothing to write about on that front. Just as well because this post is getting quite long - sorry if it's a bit boring, but as always it's been good for organising my thoughts! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 69 of 104 23 May 2011 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
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Another week... in terms of speaking I had a lesson on Tuesday (for which I was a lot
more awake this time!), a Skype chat on Thursday, and I went to a French film night on Saturday. The film night was the main highlight: we watched L'auberge Espagnol which was an amazing film and really made me want to be a student again and/or travel. And it made me want to learn Spanish. Language envy isn't a bad thing as it encourages me to get better at French more quickly so I can move onto other languages :P. After the film there was a good few hours of hanging around and talking with other French speakers. I met another learner, an older guy who was very interesting and had some good things to say on learning French and on life in general. His feedback on my French was that I express myself well and make myself understood well but my accent needs a lot of work - not much of a surprise there regarding the accent. His point was that while my pronunciation is mostly correct, the way I speak sounds a bit unnatural, wooden, and just not very French. I do feel that my pronunciation's improving so it was good to hear that part. As I said in the last post I've been making an effort to maintain the syllable-timed French rhythm and not fall into an English-like stress-timed rhythm, but because of that I've lost a lot of expressiveness so I essentially need to re-learn how to speak expressively, but in the French style (although I have to admit that even in English my speech is often a bit boring and inexpressive, which is something I really should work on!). His advice was to "act" French rather than simply "speak" it, as if I'm an actor at the theatre, and try to emulate the tone of voice and mannerisms of French speakers as well as just their words. He also said that repeating sentences after hearing them on film/radio/etc. is a good way of not only learning them but also learning how to say them as a native speaker would. Also, I've heard enough French that I subconsciously have quite a good idea of how to use expression So that's yet another piece of the speaking puzzle, now that the basic mechanics seem to be mostly in place. Let me yet again express my jealousy of the people who can just pick up all this stuff naturally! Of course it'll be a lot easier for other languages I learn in the future. I finished reading The Sounds Of French. My opinion is quite the same as before - it covers all the mechanics well, in a style that's thorough and academic yet practical enough to easily apply. Only complaint is that the section on stress is quite short and not very in-depth compared to the rest of the book, but as I've been saying, that sort of thing is probably better and more easily learned by listening to real speech than by reading from a book. I also picked up a copy of the Penguin parallel text book from a charity shop. Reading obviously isn't my main priority but if it helps reinforce and learn some useful words and expressions then it's all good. I'm also reading a policier novel called Pour Toutes Les Fois which I found at the library. Good to finally find some modern writing. I had a very French day on Sunday - no conversations but I watched a few TV episodes, listened to some radio, ate some steak-frites, and watched L'auberge Espagnol again, this time with French subtitles rather than English in order to pick up some of the subtleties that I missed the first time round, and just because I enjoyed it so much; I'll be very happy to apply spaced repetition techniques with this film by watching it every so often! Again very little Russian to speak of, French has been the main priority and I just haven't been in a Russian mood. Unfortunately, even a couple of days without looking at Russian is enough for me to forget significant amounts... I'm still feeling like holding back on Italian was definitely a good idea, especially since everything I've been learning about speaking will help me out a lot. Pronunciation and accent will definitely be a priority right from the start. Edited by garyb on 23 May 2011 at 12:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 70 of 104 26 May 2011 at 2:13pm | IP Logged |
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I've done a bit more Russian recently. Finished Pimsleur unit 2 and slowly working
through Princeton at what seems like an average rate of one lesson every two days. To be honest I've been skipping a lot of the exercises as it's mostly stuff I already know like basic verb conjugations; at this stage I'm more interested in the dialogues for picking up words and expressions. I also watched a couple of Luntik clips (kids' cartoon which I think I read about on Teango's log?) and was happy that I could understand at least some of it and see some of the words I know being used in some sort of context. French wise, on Tuesday I had my last lesson (as my teacher, an exchange student, is off back to France), and she told me I had been her best student. I don't know what the standard she's comparing me to, if it's other "serious" learners who actually do work outside of lessons/classes or what, is but in any case it's good to hear that I've improved over the last few months. I went to Meetup last night and had a good chat with a few people. No real revelations this time but I did get complements on my ability so maybe I'm on the road to becoming one of these "good speakers" who I'm trying to learn from. Still plenty work to do in the next few weeks of course. Not sure if I'll look for another teacher or what but I need to replace the weekly lesson with something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 71 of 104 01 June 2011 at 2:06pm | IP Logged |
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Watched a couple of French films recently:
- A teen comedy, Les Beaux Gosses. Good for hearing some typical young people's language, and for some light entertainment. And the storyline was a bit better and more believable than the typical American teen comedy: God forbid, the protagonist actually made an effort to go and talk to the girls and move things forward rather than them just falling into his lap on Prom night! - La Grande Vadrouille. Apparently a hugely successful film although I had never heard of it until I randomly came across the name somewhere. Comedy about British pilots who land in Nazi-occupied Paris, really funny. And more of the usual stuff, and a bit of talking to myself on video just to practise expressing myself. Going to another film night on Friday, this time to see the sequel to the film from the last one, Poupées Russes. Looking forward to it. 15 days to Hellfest, so I'll definitely be making French my main focus for the next two weeks. Out of desperation I'm even going to try Yakety Yak again tonight; last week at the Meetup one of the tutors was there and he said it's been getting better and more advanced recently. If I get really, really desperate and I can't organise a Skype chat or something I might even go to the Exchange meetup next Tuesday and try and corner one of the French natives into a conversation. Edited by garyb on 01 June 2011 at 2:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 72 of 104 06 June 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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Usual weekly update... Not the most productive weekend, I had various social and family
things on. The film night was good but unfortunately fairly short as the host was tired so didn't want us all staying there until the early hours as we usually do. Still got in an hour or so of conversation after the film at least. The film itself was good although not quite on a par with L'auberge espagnole. It had a few small parts in Russian which I'm happy to say I understood some of. Not much to report other than that; just some TV watching, reading, and talking to myself as no other opportunities for talking to others came up. Yakety Yak was not bad; nothing spectacular but still useful and not a complete waste of time. This week I might be hardcore and go to it then to the meetup afterwards. Also still considering the exchange tomorrow: the desperation for real life conversation has indeed struck to the extent that I'm willing to risk wasting two whole hours of my precious free time just for the chance of maybe, perhaps getting to talk to someone in French. I'll download some podcasts to my MP3 player so that, even if the event itself isn't productive, the walk there and back at least will be. Anyway I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Plan for the next week and a half is just the same as always, get as much done as I can fit in. Should be a nice quiet weekend at least. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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