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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4495 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 121 of 1317 15 June 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Comme je suis un scientifique qui travaille dans le champ de "sciences et communication", je peux vous dire que c'est un problème qui se manifeste vice-versa aussi. Ce n'est pas seulement le cas que "les journalistes comprennent mal les scientifiques/la science" parce que a) ça veut dire que les scientifiques ont, en fait, bien compris toutes les sciènces (quelle absurdité) et 2) que les journalistes sont des vaches qui ne peuvent comprendre rien du tout un champ considéré assez difficile comme les sciences naturelles. Bien sûr, il y a des journalistes qui sont nul en sciences (aussi un absurdité; on peut apprendre les sciences comme les langues, avec la même reservation qu'il y a un distribution de temps nécéssaire afin de vraiment comprendre). Si il y a un malentendu, ça voudra surtout dire que les scientifiques n'ont pas expliqué le sujet dans un façon qui correspond aux idées de la population en général. Souvent les scientifiques n'ont qu'un expérience avec vraiment communiquer et engager leur public, et ils s'occupent de faire leur récherche au lieu de "vendre" ou promouvoir leurs idées au public. Ne vous trompez pas - en général c'est pas une mauvaise conclusion de constater a) une paresse avec la communication au côté des scientifiques b) si il y a un désir, une manque des capacités afin de vraiment et correctement communiquer les problèmes et c) une manque de confiance au part du public qui n'ont pas l'idée d'être associée avec les décisions pris par les scientifiques vis- à-vis la récherche ou l'apparition des nouvelles technologies, etc. Je suis désolé de détourner votre log, mais c'est un sujet qui me concerne et donc je voudrais donner mon avis. Maintenant, un sujet plus heureux; je souhaite que vous reussissiez au votre examen! Bonne chance. Je suis aussi très heureux de m'apercevoir que vous écrites en français - il faut que plus de nous fassent la même chose! Edited by tarvos on 15 June 2012 at 9:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5320 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 122 of 1317 15 June 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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C'est fini !
Attention conservation notice: Long, rambling discussion of exams, how I got here, and the general awesomeness that is speaking French. Oh, and the road ahead.
Thank you to all my loyal non-Francophone readers who've been struggling along! After yesterday's exam, a late-night drive, and 3 hours of sleep, my French is a little incoherent this morning, so this is an excellent time to post in English. :-) First things first: The exam. I had a lot of fun with the oral presentation. As usual, I twisted the subject very slightly and spent my time telling amusing and relevant stories to support my point. During the debate, it actually turned into a game. By the end, the examiners were clearly having fun, lobbing all sorts of crazy questions at me, seeing if they could trip me up. I responded in all sorts of different ways, "Hey, I can get by in French, but I can't actually solve all the world's problems today, " and I eventually resorted to all kinds of delightfully impractical public policy suggestions. It's a good sign when the examiners are giggling uncontrollably, I think. The first oral comprehension section was an unmitigated disaster, thanks to a truly awful sound quality (worse than 95% of what I hear on French radio) and a missing student who came in halfway through the recording. They fixed the audio problems, however, so the second, shorter audio passage was a cakewalk. Reading comprehension was easier than I expected. I was getting tired by the essay, however. Fatigue is a problem, because I really have two different French "systems" in my brain: my natural, acquired French, which is OK but a bit weird, and the conscious, intellectual knowledge that I use to prune and shape my natural French. My conscious control was starting to slip by 5:30pm, and a couple of the key sentences in my essay might be a bit hard to follow. My guess: My final score is going to come down to two things: (1) the quality of my damage control on the long audio passage, and (2) whether the other 3 sections are graded strictly enough to eat into my usual safety margin. It's perfectly possible that this could go either way. In any case, I'm satisfied. My original goal was to pass a B1 exam, and I put in a competent showing on a B2 exam. Not bad for a strong A2 and 4 months of half-time study. And even if I bombed the listening comprehension, it's not a general problem: I scored 20.5 out of 25 on a DELF B2 Pro practice exam last week, which is an extremely respectable score. So I'm basically there, and I'm still getting better quickly. ... For those of you thinking of taking a DELF B2 exam, some notes. A passing score is 50%, and a solid score is (say) 70%. It's actually a pretty fun and well-constructed exam. Well, there's actually a small number of frustrating questions that require you to guess what the examiner was thinking, which would give me trouble even in English. But again, the passing score is 50%, so it's not the end of the world. If you want to take one of these exams as a personal challenge, it's worth stretching a bit, especially if—like me—you could afford to fail it. 80% of the skills you learn are generally applicable, and I actually enjoyed getting to use my French skills in a semi-academic environment with real time pressure. If nothing else, it's an interesting cultural experience, sort of a mini-bac, so you can commiserate a bit with people who've sat real-life exams in France. ... So now, the fun part: My French. Almost four months ago, I had a strong A2 level in French. I also had B1-ish listening skills, thanks to a couple of years of my wife speaking French to our children. In a weird way, I was basically an usually old "heritage" learner: Lots of simplified, child-friendly input, decent passive skills, but very little active use. Then I decided to start speaking French with my wife. For a couple of days, this was part-time, but it quickly became almost exclusive. At first, this was both amazing and frustrating. Sure, there was this incredible rush ("Hey, I'm actually speaking French"), but this was followed by the sober realization that I had the conversational skills of a toddler. The good news is this: No self-respecting adult can stand having A2-level conversational skills for very long. Your brain switches into self-defense mode, you start learning really quickly, and you want to sleep 9+ hours a day. I went for some kind of conversational fluency first, with a pretty appalling error rate. But once I could survive in conversation, my tutor got pretty ruthless about the errors. And at one point, I spent about 2 weeks working very hard on my gender errors, for example. At B2, it's not acceptable to have big, systematic errors— you can still make lots of mistakes, but they should be different mistakes each time. I also spent 30 days writing at lang-8, about 100 words per day. This was incredibly useful, because it helped me see all kinds of little grammar errors and it helped me tremendously with French spelling. Seriously, go do this, if you haven't already. Cultivate a network of friends who can correct you well. Basically, I just kept plugging away, doing this and that, and gradually getting better. Like Benny, I had a bunch of little mini-projects. Like khatzumoto and Antimoon, I spent a long time playing around with native media, puzzling over sentences, doing reps in Anki. B2 is a deeply rewarding level. I can carry on an adult conversation with pretty much anybody. I can explain and defend an idea. I can enjoy books and magazines. I can watch Buffy (or kids' movies) and understand enough dialog to have fun. I'm really and truly independent in French. I even think in French. Of course, I still lack nuance and precision. My written French, though generally comprehensible, is still a bit odd. I can't really persuade yet. But the path ahead is clear. Back when I started this log, I felt like I was standing on a foothill, with a valley of tiny houses behind me, but C1 loomed ahead like the Matterhorn—an impossible challenge. It feels very different now: I'm standing on a small hill, looking forward into a long green valley. C1 is somewhere way down in the valley, and I've certainly got a long hike ahead of me. But I can see a meandering river and some lovely fields of lupin shimmering in pink and purple. I may get some sore feet along the way, but it's going to be a really enjoyable hike. 19 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5320 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 123 of 1317 15 June 2012 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Après l'examen, j'ai dépensé trop d'argent à « Schoenhof's », une grande librairie à coté
de Harvard. Ils ont des livres en vingtaines de langues étrangères. C'est un peu dangereux, là, si l'on n'est pas riche. Évitez d'apporter une carte de crédit. C'est mieux d'avoir $100 en espèces, car c'est une limite. Et ça, c'est important, si l'on est entouré par tellement de livres intéressants. J'en ai acheté trop, bien sûr. Et j'ai aussi deux colis en route d'Amazon.fr. Merci tarvos, de m'avoir écrit un message intéressant. Je veux vous répondre, mais mon français a besoin d'un jour sans trop de travail. :-) Edited by emk on 15 June 2012 at 6:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4476 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 124 of 1317 15 June 2012 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Schoenhof's est super, mais il est beaucoup trop cher, oui! Heureusement, il n'est jamais ouvrir quand je peux y aller...
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| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 125 of 1317 16 June 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Congratulations! When do you find out the results? In the end, though, they don't even
matter. The process of improving does, especially now that you can function on a high level in your wife's native language. For my future goals I'll need to take the C1 (or the TCF - Canada seems to favor it) so I need to get signed up soon ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5320 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 126 of 1317 17 June 2012 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Je ne sais pas quand je les recevrai. Quelques semaines, je pense ? Tu aimerais Montréal (à part l'hiver). Les gens de cette ville sont très sympas et il y en a beaucoup qui sont bilingues. Mais il y a aussi un quart de la ville qui parlent ni le français ni l'anglais comme langue maternelle. Je trouve que Montréal est une ville très agréable pour ceux qui aiment des langues. Et maintenant, mon plan. Deux choses : * Je veux me plonger dans le « Super Challenge ». J'ai besoin de beaucoup d'« intrants ». * Je suis vivement tenté par « Assimil : L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique ». Il y a un tas de critiques très positives. Oui, oui, je suis complètement fou, mais il faut utiliser le « wanderlust » pour améliorer mon français. Ma femme ne m'empêchera pas d'acheter ce cours, parce que elle a toujours aimé l’égyptien et les hiéroglyphes. Ce ne serait pas un projet sérieux — j'aimerais avoir un niveau A1, c'est tout. Si vous avez une police hiéroglyphique, vous devriez voir des hiéroglyphes ci-dessous : 𓇋𓄿𓅱𓀀 Aegyptus font Edited by emk on 17 June 2012 at 5:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4454 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 127 of 1317 18 June 2012 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Reading your last post made me wonder – how do you say “wanderlust” in French? Google Translate gives “bougeotte”, which I’d never heard of. According to my Larousse Maxipoche, “avoir la bougeotte” means “avoir la manie de bouger sans cesse; avoir l’envie de se déplacer, de voyager.” Bouger/to budge is one of those funny pairings that makes French amusing – I think of MC Solaar’s “Bouge de là” as well. But a native speaker would have to render judgment about “bougeotte.”
Or instead of translating the individual word, it might be better to be less literal, and instead of “be tempted by wanderlust” render it as “get sidetracked” (by languages peripheral to your target.) Could it be something like “aller à la dérive”? Perhaps I could defend this usage with the following quote from an essay by Guy Debord: “In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.” A good description of wanderlust, no? The Debord quote is from here: http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/314 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5320 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 128 of 1317 18 June 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
For questions like these, Linguee is seriously awesome. It gives you the actual parallel texts, and not just a "best guess" like Google Translate, so you can see the translation in context. If I search on "wanderlust", I generally get "l'envie de voyager", except for one poetic translator who went with "l'humeur vagabonde", which I just love. Linguee If you read all the translations, you'll see that the translators often go for a major paraphrase, which is a sign that there's no really great word in formal French. And given that "wanderlust" is both a lovely English word, and it has a well-established meaning here on HTLAL, I went for the anglicism. I spend a lot of time looking at idioms on Linguee. This is part of my campaign to eventually turn my "processed French language product" (as an FDA-approved food label in the US might say) into actual French. That and lots of reading and lots of sentences in Anki.
Il y a des francophones ici qui peuvent nous conseiller ? Ça me semble d'être élégant mais un peu familier, et donc pas quelque chose qu'on pourrait chercher sur Linguee, qui est beaucoup plus forte en ce qui concerne le registre soutenu.
Heh. My kids love MC Solaar's lyric "Alors bouge, bouge, bouge contre la bêtise", which I sang to them one day. The eldest responded "Why bouge bouge bêtise?" followed by crazy giggles. They understand the practical relationship between "bouger" and "bêtise", certainly. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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