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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 46 14 July 2012 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone! Apparently I'm on a 5 month update schedule. Woohoo! I noticed that
it's been 13 months since I started learning French. Just over a year, and I feel pretty damn good about it! So I went backpacking in Europe for 4 months after I left Belgium. I've been back in the states for about a month now. When I was backpacking I was usually alone, so I would have a lot of time to read or do whatever, and I always read in French. Since my last post, the books I finished are: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo 1 and 2 Hunger Games 1 and 2 (reading the 3rd right now) Le Seigneur Des Anneaux 1 - 3 That's been the majority of what I've done since my last update. When I was backpacking I had no dictionary or other resources. I just read. If I didn't know a word, I skipped it. Usually if I kept seeing an unknown word I could pick up the meaning from context, and from that I progressed a lot. If I couldn't, well, I would try to remember and look it up online once I found a computer, but I couldn't do that much. I also traveled in France for about a month, and that gave me plenty of practice. I was pretty surprised with simply how comfortable I was in most situations. One time I even had a problem in a hostel and I had to go argue with the guy who worked at the front desk, who was, frankly, an asshole, and that blew my mind. I was confident enough to go have a confrontation with someone in French. If you try that and handle it well I can tell you that your confidence will be positively affected. :) I met a Québec girl who I traveled with for almost two weeks. We met in Barcelona and met back up later in France. At first we talked in almost all English, and then somehow we just shifted to French all the time, and we haven't looked back. Although we stopped traveling together, we didn't stop talking, and we still talk every day, sometimes for hours on Skype. She has been the main reason that my oral comprehension and especially my spoken French have gotten so much better. To have hour long conversations with one person requires you to really get used to the language quick. I'm really lucky that I have a plethora of friends I can IM or skype anytime I want to speak French. Now that I'm back in the states, I have a bit of downtime (currently searching for a job in another state) so I have time to study! I've been watching movies and TV in french, reading, I started doing Anki again, which I haven't done in almost a year, and I started doing the Schaum's Outline grammar exercises again too. So that's that. 13 months and I feel quite comfortably at home with the language. I wouldn't consider myself fluent by any means, but I don't bat an eye at having a conversation with anyone anymore, and I'm reading books in French almost like they're my native tongue. I'm convinced that the main thing you need to learn a language is man-hours spent studying it. Whatever you do, just do it as much as you can, consistently. Don't burn yourself out, don't lose hope, remember to have fun always, and you'll get there sooner or later! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 46 01 July 2013 at 5:42am | IP Logged |
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Woops, it's been almost a year since I updated! Mostly this can be attributed to the fact that I moved to Colorado,
had a new job, had a new state to explore that was packed with adventures. My French input has definitely suffered, unfortunately. But, I haven't entirely quit! Since the last post, the books I finished were: Hunger Games 3 (terrible, terrible, terrible) Madame Bovary (pretty difficult for me at the time. I had the audio book so I powered through it, but a lot of vocab was over my head) Harry Potter 5 (my least favorite HP so far. So long and for no reason. I was on this book for the better part of the year, because I just didn't want to read it and it put me to sleep.) Au Bonheur Des Ogres (enjoyable, but also fairly difficult--so much slang.) I've watched quite a lot of TV as VOSTFR. Not a whole lot in VF though. I did, however, obtain Avatar: The Last Airbender in VF recently, and have been powering my way through those. They're quite good, and it's wonderful to understand 98-99% of what they say without even thinking about it. It's a very fun series, too. This last week I started listening to French podcasts while at work. I found one series that I really like, called willandco. They're about an hour long, and typically involve four French people just talking about current events and interesting things. If I pay attention to it it's pretty easy for me to follow. Unfortunately, since I'm listening to it in the background while I'm at work, a lot of it I don't even hear. But still it's probably pretty good to get hours and hours of French during the day. I think I'll continue doing this. The next book I plan to read is La Nuit Des Temps. I found the audio book for it so I'll listen and read at the same time. I haven't done that in quite awhile. I used to do that a ton with Harry Potter and I think it really helped my pronunciation. So yeah, still going pretty strong with my one language. I still don't understand how so many of you are studying umpteen languages. The thought of adding one more Romance language to the fold is even way too daunting to me. Still, I think I'm probably a B2 in French right now. I guess it's hard to know for sure (and I do think it's true that people on this forum, me included, throw around CEFR grades way too frivolously) without taking the test. I looked into the DELF/DALF tests in my area. The next one isn't for about half a year, so if I want to take it then I have plenty of time to get ready for it. I kind of doubt I'll take it then, though, because there's no reason to, besides to confirm what the level that I'm guessing I am. Anyway, that's all for today, Ciao! Edited by LeadZeppelin on 02 July 2013 at 5:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 46 10 September 2013 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
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So I'm about to start something that I've wanted to do for many years but was afraid to start too early... learn
Spanish! I'm not really starting out at zero for this. I took two years of Spanish in high school and I loved it. I was constantly taking my textbook home and trying to learn more than what was required of us. I liked it so much that when I went to college the next year, I was planning on minoring in it. So I took one Spanish class at the university level and then quit after that. Basically, the major I was doing didn't require a minor, so it was just a lot of extra work that was totally unnecessary, and for an 18 year old college kid I just had other things on my mind. So the last time I had a Spanish class was seven years ago... so I've forgotten almost everything. Still, I think it should come back pretty easily, and plus now that I have a good command of French I think I won't have many issues. I was hesitant to start learning another language for fear that it would hurt my French. I can't believe people on this site who study 10 languages at a time, that seems crazy to me! But I think I reached a really solid level of French that, as long as I get some French input pretty regularly it shouldn't suffer too much. I think in about a year and a half, I want to live / travel through central and south america. For as long as I can. I'm saving up now for this. In the meantime, I feel like learning Spanish is a really good way to prepare for this. Maybe after a year I can even start learning some portuguese so I can really have fun traveling through south america. I don't know--that's so far off that my plans will undoubtedly change and anything could happen. Before I start studying Spanish, I want to finish Harry Potter 6 & 7 in French. I'm on 6 now, going through it pretty rapidly. It shouldn't take too long to do this. My plan: Pimsleur Michel Thomas Assimil Learning Spanish Like Crazy Platiquemos Destinos Harry Potter Realistically, I'll probably do all of these simultaneously, with graduated start dates. Start out with Pimsleur for a week or so, then add in MT, then after awhile mix in Assimil. Platiquemos will take some more thought, when I get there, on how to integrate it into my routine. Each time I add or subtract a different program I'll probably have to adjust how much I do with each one each day. But I can play it by ear. I think as long as I do a little bit of each one consistently I'll have a lot of success. Destinos I'll probably start watching after a few months or so of learning. And Harry Potter was my favorite way to learn French and I'm guessing it'll be similar in Spanish. I'll wait a couple months to start with the first HP book and I'll do intensive reading (as opposed to the extensive LRing I did with French in the beginning that I think helped me about zero). That's about it! I'm pretty excited. Learning another language... I've gotten used to being quite good at French and it's going to be interesting and humbling to really suck at a language again. :) I plan to be better about updating the log (we'll see) and want to update it once a week on Mondays. EDIT: how do you edit the subtitle of a thread? I want mine to say French and Spanish. I've microtagged this post as Spanish. Is that all I need to do, and maybe it will update overnight? I can't seem to find anyway to edit that manually... Edited by LeadZeppelin on 04 October 2013 at 5:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4322 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 20 of 46 10 September 2013 at 8:02am | IP Logged |
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I enjoyed reading your blog. Good luck with the Spanish. I had a friend who traveled for a couple of years in South America, working their way from the tip eventually to Canada. It really changed their life in a lot of good ways.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3933 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 21 of 46 10 September 2013 at 12:18pm | IP Logged |
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While I've never tried most of the language courses (Assimil, etc), I did do the first 16 lessons from pimsleur - free from the library. If I lived in a major city that had the rest of the lessons, I probably would have continued. I like the format...just couldn't justify the cost.
I've been doing Destinos and love it! It's so cheesy and repetitive, but it works. I've also recently started Harry Potter, but it's a bit difficult for me. Another great free resource for learners is the podcast Notes in Spanish. I also highly recommend getting some Skype language partners or a Skype tutor to help you with spoken Spanish. I've enjoyed your log! Your French will help you tremendously when learning Spanish. I look forward to your next update - five months from now. ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 46 17 September 2013 at 7:36am | IP Logged |
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Wow, thanks patrickwilken and Stelle! I didn't realize that people actually read these really... Ha. And sorry to
disappoint you that this update was a little sooner than five months. ;) In the last week I finished Harry Potter 6 in French, the majority since my last post a week ago. So I read almost 500 pages in French in a week... wow! Also, I live in Boulder, CO and there were some really major floods that hit us last week. That definitely got me sidetracked from reading. We were in the evacuation zone a couple nights in a row so it was a pretty hectic time and we were mainly trying to make sure we were safe. But, I'm glad to say that me and everyone I know is safe, and I didn't have any damage to my residence. So very lucky! I'm going to start on Harry Potter 7 in French tomorrow. BUT, I'm going on vacation at the end of the week. I'll be backpacking through the Grand Canyon and I'll be gone Friday - Tuesday, so I won't be able to do anything language related during that time. I'm excited to start learning Spanish so I have a lot of motivation to finish this last book quickly. :) Thanks again for the encouragement! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 46 26 September 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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As promised, I was on vacation for five days, so I basically did no language learning.
French I read one chapter of Harry Potter 7. Spanish I'm starting Spanish early! Two reasons: 1. I want to have a book to read at night, and it'll be awhile before I can read a book for fun in Spanish. I figured HP7 would do for now. 2. More importantly... our company trip was just announced last week and we're going to Cabo, Mexico! Woohoo! I have 3 1/2 months until mid-January when I'll be down there and I'd like to have some good conversations in Spanish, so I better start learning right away! I officially started Spanish yesterday, September 25, 2013. I did: Pimsleur 1 Michel Thomas 1 Assimil 1 I decided against doing a graduated start of the programs. Mainly because I want this to be a daily routine, instead of doing, for example, three days worth of Pimsleur in one day. Plus, if a program is too slow or I don't like it or I get bored with it, I'll just stop, and start doing more of another one. I made a spreadsheet so I can track exactly what I do every day. That should keep me pretty motivated. I still plan to update every Monday. See you then! Edited by LeadZeppelin on 30 September 2013 at 9:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4810 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 46 30 September 2013 at 9:08am | IP Logged |
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I've been sprinting through Spanish so far! I've done up to:
Pimsleur 16 Michel Thomas 3 Assimil 5 A few thoughts. I'm really enjoying Pimsleur. It's really easy to sit back and relax while listening to. It's been quite easy so far, probably in part due to the fact that I've had a couple years of Spanish years ago. My plan now is to get through Pimsleur in no more than 45 days (a rate of 2 per day). At this rate I'll be done with it much quicker, though I imagine I'll have to slow down later when it's covering things I didn't learn before or is just generally harder. After I finish Pimsleur I plan on starting Platiquemos. Michel Thomas can be, similarly to the French version, quite annoying at times. I'm definitely not enjoying this. It's such a short program though, I'd like to finish it. I wonder if it's really worth it though, considering how quickly I'm going to go through Pimsleur. I did the French one once, and the advanced French twice, and I remember it gave me a good diving board for remembering all the different tenses. I guess we'll see. I've done one Assimil lesson per day and plan to keep that pace. There are 109 Assimil lessons and when I started four days ago I had 111 days until Cabo. :) So one a day will be about perfect. I consider Assimil just an added supplement to Pimsleur and Platiquemos at this point. Feelin' good! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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