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Gary’s TAC 2012 - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 145 of 167 25 October 2012 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Français
Two meetups this week: the Café and the Wednesday night group. There were a few French people at the Café, one of whom decided to challenge me and ask me questions about Scottish politics. Although as us Romance language learners know, subjects like that have so much common vocabulary with English that they're not necessarily the most challenging. Good night overall although it got a bit busy, chaotic, and noisy, so at times it was hard to get into conversations. Last night there were no French people; one guy arrived, introduced himself to everybody, asked if he was the only French person there, then promptly disappeared - unfortunate although quite funny. It was decent practice although the level of French was quite low and all the basic mistakes and slips into English started to get really grating after a while, and of course my level was a bit all over the place as always, ranging from fluently explaining the various British education systems to struggling and contributing my own share of basic mistakes. I still think that I'm getting a bit more consistent at least. It's too easy to lose my patience with intermediate-level learners and forget that I was in their situation not very long ago. Also, the ones amongst them who have lived in France tend have a very impressive accent to compensate for their lack of vocabulary and grammar, which is certainly enviable and means they make a much better impression on a typical French person than someone like me who's the opposite. I'm still trying to polish up my basic grammar as always; the About.com lesson on the past infinitive, for example, was quite illuminating - it's something I've realised that I often don't use in places where it would be best (and come to think of it, neither do most learners, in fact I can't remember the last time I heard a non-native speaker use it correctly...). It's also extremely common in Italian, in which you're not likely to find a relative clause with the same subject as its main clause. I think that je crois que je t'ai vu and je crois t'avoir vu are both fine, whereas in Italian anything other than credo di averti visto just sounds... wrong. Please correct me if I'm mistaken on either count though! I've watched most of Belle de Jour - another film that's quite easy to understand, and the difference in the language from modern films is extremely noticeable - I'm not sure if it's because of the time period or because the characters are supposed to be "high society", or a combination of both, but the way they speak is far more formal than I'm used to : things like "où est-il?" instead of "il est où?" in normal conversation seem quite strange to me. I need to find more French people to speak to. They definitely seem to be getting harder to find as the Italians are getting easier to find. I received the pronunciation DVD yesterday, and due to an unexpected change of plans, I have a free evening tonight. You know what this means. Italiano Italian Super Challenge Films: 30 done, 70 to go. Speaking hours: 40 done, 60 to go. The usual weekend conversations, although the guy I was meeting has now gone back to Italy. I've got a couple more possible exchanges in the pipeline but I know not to speak too soon. Not watched much actual film recently but I've been finding some comedy stuff on Youtube. Still slowly working through Perfectionnement Italien, passive wave only and adding useful phrases to Anki. Looking forward to getting that one out of the way but it'll be another good few weeks at my current rate. Edited by garyb on 25 October 2012 at 12:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 146 of 167 29 October 2012 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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French pronunciation so far: The DVD seems to take the "top down" approach - suprasegmentals first, individual sounds later - as opposed to the "bottom up" approach which makes more sense to me. I remember a few people mentioning on here, perhaps in the current "native proficiency" thread, that the top-down approach is actually better, so it's probably a good thing. Anyway I've done the first few lessons and already learnt some new things about the rhythm and intonation. Yet another nail in the coffin for the "lots of listening is sufficient to learn good pronunciation" theory - I've known for a while that it's nonsense as far as individual sounds are concerned, but this kills it for suprasegmentals as well. So many subtle details of intonation which I had never picked up on during the however many hundred hours of French I've heard up until now, yet become completely obvious as soon as they're pointed out.
Apart from that, I spent most of the weekend partying, hungover, and sleeping so it wasn't a very productive one. I did have an Italian exchange but I wasn't feeling up to it mentally so was happy to speak English for most of it. I'm glad I don't normally drink lots, at least not by Scottish standards - the hangover and the low-quality sleep really kill my motivation to do anything productive, so I just end up wasting precious weekend time. Of course I've got no desire to sacrifice my social life for productivity, but there's a lot to be said for moderation most of the time... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5011 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 147 of 167 29 October 2012 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the post about the DVD, Garyb. - Looking forward to reading more about it.
I e-mailed Penny Sewell about captions (not subtitles, but captions for the hearing-impaired) for the DVD, and she replied that for the version presented in French (though not for the version presented in English) "a transcript in French of the whole course is included on the DVDs as pdf files which can be printed off as required". I'm hoping/assuming that means everything that the presenter says, rather than just the transcript of the "examples". - Do you know? - Are you watching the French or English version? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 148 of 167 29 October 2012 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||
I have the French version; I guess by "English version" she's referring to the other DVD set, "French Pronunciation – your key to success", which is presented in English and aimed at beginners. I just had a look now - each DVD contains PDF files of the full transcripts of the lessons on that DVD. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5011 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 149 of 167 29 October 2012 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 150 of 167 05 November 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Another not very productive week. November's another of those crazily busy months,
particularly in the music scene. I'm still keeping up with listening and Anki so I'm not completely losing momentum. Italiano I went to an Italian meetup on Monday which was quite good - my Italian progress still seems to be relatively steady, far more so than my French was at the intermediate level. I still feel like I have a ton of small things to learn but that's normal. I watched Notte prima degli esami again. It's becoming a favourite as there's lots of colloquial young people's speech, it's entertaining, and it has good Italian subtitles which I admit I'd be quite lost without! Italian Super Challenge Films: 31 done, 69 to go. Speaking hours: 43 done, 57 to go. Français I watched more of the pronunciation DVD, but I've not had any chance to put it into practice yet. Hopefully I'll get some opportunity tonight. I'm trying to be more aware of the rhythm and intonation of the syllable groups. Penny says that she goes over the accent stuff before the individual sounds because she thinks that getting the former right is more important for sounding French, and there's definitely some truth to it, as it's often rhythm and intonation that give away Anglophones straight away. She does a couple of impressions of people speaking French with strong English accents which reminded me all too much of meetup groups. I suspect I'll soon start noticing these accent "mistakes" more in my and other learners' speech, and hopefully learn from them, in the same way that I easily spot grammatical mistakes. The DVD doesn't seem to have made any reference to my perennial "mouth/throat" problem yet, and I'm not sure if it will since that seems to be something quite particular to me or at least to Scottish people; if it doesn't come up by the end then I could always send her an email asking for her thoughts. However I was experimenting a bit with my microphone and I think I was actually starting to get a feel for it - my voice did sound decidedly more French, but it felt unnatural and I kept reverting back. Hopefully I'll figure out if I'm on the right track, and if so, practice it more to train it in. If not then... maybe I'll get good enough at the individual sounds and the accent to compensate. I'm hoping that all my concentrated study of French pronunciation will mean that I'll be more attentive and develop a better "ear" for pronunciation in future linguistic endeavours. Every language has its own subtleties which aren't immediately obvious and need pointed out to someone like me, so I'm not getting my hopes up too much, but it should help me be a lot more attentive to rhythm and intonation. I watched L'arnacoeur, which is silly but good fun, and has French subtitles available although they're not completely precise and are missing a couple of bits, particularly fast and tricky lines for which they'd be most useful... This week's going to be another busy one, but I'll hopefully make it to the Café tonight, and maybe even the French meetup on Wednesday although I'm not sure. I should have a bit of time at the weekend at least. I still have a couple of possible exchanges - another Italian woman and a Frenchman - but I've been too busy so I'm hoping I've not missed the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot. People generally lose enthusiasm for these things pretty quickly, so often you have to act fast so that, if nothing else, you can fit in one meeting before that happens. Edited by garyb on 05 November 2012 at 12:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 151 of 167 06 November 2012 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did indeed get to try using my theoretically "new and improved" French last night. It was the first time I had spoken French in almost two weeks, and it showed: I was definitely out of practice. There were a few French people there but they mostly just wanted to talk to each other, and other than that it was the usual low level of French with English mixed in. My pronunciation was a bit strange and all over the place: I was obviously trying to integrate what I've been learning, but it's going to take a lot more practice. As usual I need to do more self-talk and try to find some opportunities to talk to French people, but I don't exactly have much time for either right now.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 152 of 167 09 November 2012 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Due to a last-minute change of plans I made it to French meetup after all. There weren't as many people as I expected but there were four French guys. I realised that it had been quite a while since I had actually tried to converse with a group of native speakers; the majority of my French practice in the last few months has been with other learners or with individual French people. I didn't talk much at first, because I had arrived midway through a conversation and it was about technology, smartphones, tablets, and programming languages... I had no trouble understanding since my studies and my work are in that sort of domain, but to be honest it's not really the sort of thing I enjoy talking about at the pub. As technologically impressive as the latest Apple and Samsung products are, I personally have very little interest in them and I'm quite content with my cheap Nokia. But once the conversation moved on, I joined in more and I was pretty much on fire - the words were coming to me effortlessly, and my pronunciation was... not awful. Maybe listening to the fast conversation between the French guys had "warmed me up", or maybe it's just part of the usual inexplicable ups and downs. It was a hell of a lot better than Monday at any rate.
I met an Italian from Conversation Exchange yesterday evening. Her English already seemed almost perfect, and she just seemed to be looking for a chance to speak her native language a bit since most of her life is in English, and help someone out while she's at it. I'm never too optimistic about that sort of exchange, and the last one like that certainly didn't last long, but we'll see. I was speaking quite well at the start, but towards the end I started to feel the effects of my recent lack of sleep and putting sentences together suddenly started to become very difficult. She didn't seem to be making any concessions in terms of speed, which was obviously good practice for me but difficult at times. Recently I'd say that having basic conversations in Italian (work, interests, what I did at the weekend, future plans...) is becoming about as easy for me as it is in French. But once it strays into more specialised or deeper subjects, I get quite lost quite quickly in Italian and struggle to understand and find words, while in French I can keep holding my own. I guess for me that's the big difference between intermediate and advanced. The whole "intermediate plateau" seems to have been a hell of a lot smoother and shorter so far in Italian than it was for French, with the only significant difficulty being finding conversation opportunities, which thankfully now seem to be coming up quite regularly. Yesterday I quite excitedly read Benny Lewis's review of Verbling. It's a site that works like Chat Roulette but for language learning - it connects you with random target language speakers and you chat for five minutes in each language. It sounds like a dream come true for me: instant chat without all the hassle of coordinating meetups or hoping that unreliable Skype partners will be online. I'll give it a try at the weekend and see if it lives up. I still prefer to speak face to face, but video chat isn't bad, and it would certainly be a great thing for when I have, say, half an hour to spare on a weekday evening. I suppose that since it's short conversations with random people, it'll mostly be basic "where are you from, what do you do?" stuff, but if you get on well with someone then you can add them as a friend and talk more later, and besides, nothing wrong with polishing up the basics. Hell, it could even be a fun way to practice my conversational skills and see how much I can learn about someone in the limited time. I do expect some technical problems; Flash audio/video stuff seems to mostly be reliable on Windows which is what I mainly use at home, although Mac users sometimes report problems and I wouldn't even waste my time trying on Linux. Availability of partners might be an issue, although English/French and English/Italian should be relatively common combinations and the site will probably get more popular as time goes on. I shall report back. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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