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Gary’s TAC 2012 - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4701 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 17 of 167 03 January 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I felt the same way about Pimsleur - after Parts I and II I was ready to move on.
Though now, after doing most of Assimil, I'm actually thinking about going back and finishing Part III. They hit such different parts of the brain. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5019 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 167 04 January 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've also considered the possibility of going back to it later, and maybe I will, I see what you mean about the different parts of the brain. Although I read some reviews of Italian part III on Amazon which put me off it further - apparently it focuses on business language too much instead of more basic and important things. But if nothing else it could be useful for extra pronunciation practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5019 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 167 04 January 2012 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had a rare free evening last night so made the most of it!
Italiano Slogged through the last two Pimsleur II lessons yesterday evening. As per usual the last lesson seemed suspiciously dense in new language, presumably to make the listener feel that they're learning a lot and so want to buy the next unit. As I say I won't be continuing it, but will move onto Assimil. Français Shadowing, surprisingly enough. Random ramblings on my thoughts on learning philosophy (this probably deserves its own category as much as the languages do!) I'm trying to apply what I was saying about quality study over quantity. I practised guitar for half an hour, just concentrating on one song, playing the difficult parts slowly and accurately, rather than half-arsing my way through several songs. I figure if I do that for a week or two I should slowly but surely master that piece, which is impressive considering there's pieces I've known for years but still play sloppily because I've never taken the time to practise them at that low level, and is much better than learning three or four pieces badly in the same time period. That in turn made me think about the big picture versus the details... Playing an instrument well is a combination of several things, for example technique, creativity, theory knowledge, ear training, confidence, and just knowing things by heart. A language is similar, with grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension, output, and all the rest. It seems important to both practice everything together (performance, conversation) and isolate the individual parts to improve them, especially any weak points you identify during the "everything together" part. Anyway, French meetup tonight, which like I said before should put my theories to the test. I've missed speaking French. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| PinkCordelia Diglot Newbie Wales Joined 4623 days ago 31 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Welsh | Message 20 of 167 04 January 2012 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I like your musical analogy garyb. It also raises the point of long and short term goals.
If all we aim at is short-term enjoyment we end up with half-arsedness. But a little short term pain might lead to greater long term benefits. Now is that thought enough to get me plodding through the FSI phonology course ... ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mani Diglot Senior Member Germany imsprachendickicht.b Joined 4717 days ago 258 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, Welsh, Luxembourgish | Message 21 of 167 04 January 2012 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Bon courage, PinkCordelia! The FSI phonology course is though but it's worth it.
Et bonne chance à toi/vous aussi, garyb, pour ton/votre rendez-vous ce soir. (Tu/vous? What do you prefer? I wanted to ask you in French but I'm not quite sure how...) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5019 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 167 04 January 2012 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed. It's always a balance though; you have to enjoy yourself a bit in the short term as well. As well as being fun it certainly stops you losing sight of your goals. Having a conversation certainly keeps up the motivation and reminds you of the progress you've made so far and of why you're learning in the first place, and the mistakes you make just encourage you to keep up the work. Same with playing a concert, or badly trying to play music that's beyond your ability: even if it's not a good performance, it's fun and reminds you of why you do all that practice.
Je crois qu'on dirait « On peut se tutoyer ? » ou « On peut se dire "tu" ? » ; en tout cas merci et oui tu peux me dire "tu" :) C'est assez normal qu'on se dise "tu" dans une conversation ou situation assez familière comme celles de forums web, aux bars, etc., même si on ne se connait pas forcément, surtout parmi les jeunes... par exemple au festival de musique en France auquel je suis allé, tout le monde se tutoyait, sauf aux commerçants et gardes de sécurité, etc.. Mais oui, ça peut toujours être un peu difficile à savoir. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5019 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 167 05 January 2012 at 11:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Italiano
Did Assimil lesson 0, which is about pronunciation and has some example sentences to listen and repeat in order for you to get the hang of pronunciation before starting the "proper" lessons. I recorded myself and kept repeating until I was happy with my sounds and intonation, which took a while thanks to my almost-inability to accurately reproduce something I've just heard. Bit too perfectionist perhaps but as I keep saying I want to get it right from the start. I'm already seeing bad habits creep in, particularly reducing unstressed [a]s to [ə]s despite my efforts to avoid doing so. It really is worth recording yourself frequently, especially at the start, to make sure that you're pronouncing correctly. Français The Meetup last night wasn't quite what I expected but very good all the same. Because of awful weather, few people turned up, and some who did earlier didn't stay long. There was nobody else there when I arrived, but the bartender mentioned that a nearby couple seemed to be speaking French so I might want to talk to them. I did so and had a chat, although mostly in English, then another guy turned up and joined us and we spoke French. Afterwards the couple left and I had a very interesting conversation with the other guy, which got onto topics that are very relevant to me and my goals like confidence, shyness, and self-improvement. While my pronunciation and self-expression were still far from perfect, I definitely noticed a significant improvement in both since a few weeks ago. This makes me happy - apparently the shadowing has been effective, not only for the pronunciation improvement that I used it for but also for expressing myself! I don't think there's anything too magical going on there, it's just that by shadowing I've revised and practised speaking a lot of useful material so it's fresher in my mind, and listening, reading, and speaking at the same time is more powerful than just doing one of them. Still, I seem to have managed to improve my conversation ability without actually conversing! Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing that compares to a real conversation and if I had the opportunity to converse in French every day then I certainly would, but the fact is that I don't and I probably won't any time soon so any other method that helps me develop my conversation ability is a godsend. On that note I'm continuing with the daily writing, as it helps me revise and learn ways of expressing things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| blackdahlia Pro Member United States Joined 4541 days ago 64 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 167 05 January 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Congrats with your French improvement! I know that pronunciation is one of my biggest hurdles (well after listening comprehension). After 20 min of Pimsleur this morning, I feel like I need a lozenge from tryin gto pronounce that darn R.
I'm glad you mentioned the daily writing, that is something I intend to start doing soon, so I'm happy to see it is working for you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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