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Gary’s TAC 2011 - Team Œ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 89 of 104 21 September 2011 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
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Still trying to crack the code to language meetup success. Some people turn up and immediately get into good conversations which continue for the rest of the night, whereas people generally aren't keen to talk to me. It's not really a question of ability, or even confidence and social skill beyond actually opening your mouth and saying something: they're saying much the same things and asking much the same questions as me, yet they're sparking off conversation rather than receiving short and abrupt and/or English answers. So I'm trying to watch to see exactly what they're doing that I'm not, and learn.
One thing that I think will make a difference - from now on, I don't learn French, I speak it. I'm not trying to exaggerate my abilities or deceive anyone, and there's no claim about being able to speak it "well" or "fluently"; I can always add that I'm "trying to improve" or "not quite fluent just yet", as long as I avoid the L-word. I came up with the idea after a particularly condescending encounter last night when I was asked if I'm "learning" French, and then asked "so what have you learned to say, good morning?" (and my response of "almost anything I want" just caused a look of confusion and an answer of "...like what? You know good evening as well?"). I think saying that you "speak" the language just sets the stage best for both parties - they'll see me as someone they can have a conversation with rather than someone who's going to struggle and need help, and I feel more confident in my ability which helps me speak better and feel more a part of the group rather than an outsider trying to get something from them. I think last night the whole group of French people saw me as a "learner" rather than a "speaker" right from the start because of that conversation, and I had to make a lot of effort to recover from that and prove myself and get them to speak French to me, which could probably have easily been avoided if I had made it clear from the start that I already have a good knowledge of the language. I'll see how it goes. I'll never understand people who say that the hardest part of learning French is the grammar or the verbs or the vocabulary. Or even the pronunciation - it's tough but like these other things, with the right approach and practice it's surmountable. For me, the hardest part by far is finding the opportunity to converse frequently enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 90 of 104 24 September 2011 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
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Forgot to balance out that last post with a positive one! My French is improving noticeably these days, and every conversation seems a bit easier - the words are coming off my tongue more readily, I'm having to think less, and it's all seeming a bit more natural. Like I just said in another thread, learning is non-linear: you end up on a plateau for a while, working hard with seemingly little results, and then suddenly you start improving quickly despite not making any unusual effort or even less effort than before, and that's just the hard work from during the plateau finally paying off and coming together.
Nicely, things have been the same for my guitar playing recently: I've improved massively over the last couple of months, and the band material I used to struggle with is seeming almost effortless now. If things keep going at this pace, I'll be ahead of my goal of fluency by next June and might even be there by the end of this year. We'll see though; the next plateau has to come sooner or later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 91 of 104 09 October 2011 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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Perhaps I spoke too soon - my French seems to have gotten worse again in the last couple of weeks! Ah well, back to the plateau like I said. There's too many variables at play to really figure out why; I've been a bit busy and stressed and not quite feeling 100% healthy so my mind's not working well and I'm finding it hard to relax, so that's not helping.
As usual, better just keep up the hard work, and make the most of my seemingly bottomless well of motivation. I may not be "gifted" for languages at all, but the fact that I never lose motivation in anything is a rare gift in itself it seems so I should consider myself lucky. I came across an interesting article on foreign language accent reduction. The advice basically comes down to imitating a native speaker's accent, preferably based on one particular speaker whose accent you wish to emulate (actor, friend, etc.), first in your own language then in the target language. As usual I'm willing to try anything so I'll give this a shot. It seems like something that would be most effective after "traditional" phonology learning, which I've already done more than my share of. I guess the male speaker on the Assimil recordings is as good a choice as any, at least from the later lessons where he's speaking more naturally. Although maybe a film character would be better as it would be easier to impersonate someone when you have an idea of their personality and can "see" them in your head more easily. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 92 of 104 15 October 2011 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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Last night I was at a friend's place and we were watching a comedy show on YouTube that happened to have Italian subtitles. As well as the obvious effect (giving me even more desire to learn Italian) it reminded me that watching L1 material with L2 subtitles can be very useful - there was Bill Hicks using lots of colloquial language and expressions, along with the equivalents in L2 coming up in text at the bottom of the screen! I suppose you get the same thing when you watch a film in L2, but when you see the text written it makes it a bit more memorable, and easier to understand if your listening abilities aren't perfect. I don't think it's something I'll make a major part of my studies, I still think hearing and of course speaking the language is more important than seeing it, but it's definitely something to do once every so often, especially if I'm planning on watching something in English anyway. Edited by garyb on 15 October 2011 at 3:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 93 of 104 31 October 2011 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
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French seems to be back on track again, my last few conversations went well, still far from perfect but certainly improving. A notable exception was a Skype chat yesterday when I was hungover and not in the mood for dealing with people and my mind kept going blank, but that's the beer and vodka jelly's fault.
I went to my first Wednesday meetup in a while (the Wednesday-night fetish of events organisers here continues and had other things on the last few times) and it went well as always, plenty conversations. There were a few young French people at the other side of the table, who I never got a chance to speak to (first due to my position then having an unsociable couple stuck between them and me, seriously, some couples shouldn't be allowed to socialise) but it made me think that it would be nice if I knew some French people who were of a similar age and had similar interests to me. Most of the people I talk to at meetups are a bit, if not much, older than me, which definitely isn't a bad thing because they tend to be interesting, helpful, and respectful, but at the same time meeting people more similar to myself and seeing what they're all about would be really interesting. I know there's plenty of them out there because I hear young people speaking French quite regularly on the street and so on. I guess these sorts of people are more likely to be out partying than at language meetups, and when they are at meetups they're often the worst offenders for being condescending and unhelpful. And maybe it's not just coincidence that I happen to have lots of friends from Spain and Italy and Germany but none from France. Anyway, all that is definitely a "would be nice" rather than an "essential" and I'm grateful for the people with whom I do have the opportunity to speak in French. Pronunciation efforts: I'm definitely seeing improvements from shadowing, and I'm glad I started doing it again after dismissing it as useless a year ago. Now I think it can be very useful, but only under two conditions: firstly, you already need to have a good knowledge of the sound system so you know exactly what to listen for and imitate (unless you're one of these people gifted with a good ear that I've talked about before), and secondly, you need to record yourself so you can compare your speaking with the recording. Maybe my definition of shadowing isn't exactly the official one but it's what works for me. So it's definitely going to form a part of the "Gary method" for future languages, after a formal study of the phonology. I think Anki has been useful to me, but keeping up with it feels like a losing battle. Finding the time to review every day is nigh-on impossible, and even when I do have the time I often just forget because it's not a habit. I'm resisting the temptation of this 6 Week Challenge idea for Italian. I'm still of the opinion that continuing to stay focused on French for the next month or two will be more productive in the long run. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 94 of 104 10 November 2011 at 1:02pm | IP Logged |
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Another couple of meetups. I'm still not really happy with my pronunciation and feel that it's still a wee bit too Anglophone-ish for my liking. The individual sounds are generally fine (I still have a habit of reducing certain "a" and "è" vowels but I've been working on that and it's improving) but my intonation's not quite right and I feel that I'm often not saying things the way that French people say them. Fortunately that's all stuff I can work on, so I foresee plenty of shadowing-and-recording in the near future.
Study time is at a premium as always, and especially recently my social life has been taking priority over most other things. That's partly because a lot of stuff's been going on recently, it's the time of year for people visiting and bands playing and the Christmas parties will start soon enough, and partly a conscious decision on my part that my social life and skills are pretty much my number 1 priority in life right now. I do feel that it's paying off, I've definitely been more talkative in general recently, be it when with friends, at work, or at language meetups. In the remaining "hobby time" I've been focusing on music more than languages, but this balance always tends to vary depending on my mood and what's coming up soon. And of course there's work, which takes up a lot more time than I'd like but since I'm doing it anyway I may as well accept it and do it properly and make a good effort. I guess I've been thinking a lot about priorities recently. On the subject of priorities, those in my language learning in the next month or two will be, most important first: - Speaking to people, as always - Improving pronunciation - shadowing etc. - Practising self-expression, including talking to myself and writing. Writing is something that helps but I often neglect, and I can do it anywhere where I have a computer or a pen and paper. - Advanced-level listening/TV/film - currently enjoying Bref and other videos available on the CanalPlus site, plenty short videos that are funny and memorable and quite challenging. I've also started watching Simpsons episodes in French again, they have lots of nice idiomatic expressions and vocabulary, and best of all, transcripts. Other stuff like listening to the radio and reading is cool but I'm well past the point of diminishing returns with these methods so they're not the most productive way to spend my time. Certainly better than nothing though and they help reinforce basic language, so they're worth doing at times when the high priority activities aren't possible. Also again toying with the idea of doing a B2 or C1 exam just for the hell of it, as I mentioned at the start of my TAC. If I find some free time in the next few weeks I'll take a look through sample exams to see what sort of level I'm at and whether it seems like it would be interesting or useful to me. Next lot of exams are in January, so it would be a fitting end to the challenge. Admittedly, given my goals, a week of partying in France would probably be the most fitting, but I don't know how realistic that is! Edited by garyb on 10 November 2011 at 1:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 95 of 104 16 November 2011 at 2:52pm | IP Logged |
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I went back to the Language Café last night after a month or so away from it, and I was glad I did! I went in with low expectations, even taking a deep breath and assuring myself that everything would be OK as I entered the bar, but I was pleasantly surprised. As always it's a question of luck, and last night I got lucky and there were French people there who were willing to speak to us lowly learners in French and give us a chance to prove that we were actually capable of conversing, and they even *gasp* made an effort to include us in the conversation! I got to talk enough that I reached the point where the French was coming to me easily and my pronunciation was decent. Now I just need to figure out how to reach that point more quickly; I'm sure that at least some of it comes down to comfort and confidence. We did speak in English as well later on in the night, and had some half-and-half conversations, but it was a good exchange and I didn't feel that there was an unfair amount of English. Hopefully there'll be more meetups like this one but I'm not getting my hopes up and I realise that French people actually giving us a good chance and helping us join in is an exceptional event and that it's generally going to be my responsibility to get involved in the conversation. Still it's motivation to go to that meetup when I can, and as I've said before, even if I don't get to speak much French it's still a great opportunity to meet interesting people.
One interesting point was that I mentioned that I'm still trying to reach a higher level in French before starting other languages, and someone said that it can be hard to actually decide that you've reached that level. Good point and maybe I do need more concrete criteria for assessing when I'll reach that level. My main motivation for this is the idea that at this level I'll know how to teach myself a language to an advanced level. However, I'm already fairly confident in my ability to teach myself to an intermediate level in an "easy" language (i.e., another Romance one) and in the few months that would take I'd still be advancing my French and learning more about advanced learning, so maybe I'm more ready to start Italian than I think. Free time will as always be the big limiting factor of course - I'm off work for a couple of weeks at Christmas time so I'll have some time to make a good start (although I've also got plenty other stuff planned for that much-needed small period of freedom!) but whether I'd be able to keep it up afterwards once I go back to work is a whole other question since I already barely find the time to keep on track with French and with guitar. Something to think about anyway, maybe I'm just getting impatient. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Adrean TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member France adrean83.wordpress.c Joined 6170 days ago 348 posts - 411 votes Speaks: FrenchC1 | Message 96 of 104 17 November 2011 at 10:04am | IP Logged |
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Hello Gary, a fascinating read as always. I seemed to have missed your last few posts
even though they have been quite spaced out evenly. I think it's great that you've managed to keep up your meet-ups. I imagine that it would be so much easier to sit at home with the telly on some Wednesday nights. I'm completely guilty of bailing out on a regular French meet-up in Sydney because I chose to do German classes instead. I went ahead and looked at the groups photos and everyone seemed so sophisticated or older so I avoided it and invented excuses and chose to go to a German class instead. Your idea of getting out there and communicating in whatever language it is, is certainly appealing to me at this moment. Sitting at home is comfy but not very rewarding is it? I've been reading books (in French) lately aimed at being a better communicator and ultimately a better person! Hence why I enjoy reading your log so much. I've got a question for you Gary....What would be some practical tips you could apply at these language meet-ups to maximise communication? Do you wear something funny? Do you compliment people straight away? Stuff like that! Edited by Adrean on 17 November 2011 at 10:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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