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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 89 of 101 10 November 2012 at 2:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Here we go
French: I've decided to take a break. I want my brain to fully process all of the information and sounds I've fed it these past 10 months or so. When I am ready to hop back on the wagon, I have "Le Sermon sur La Chute de Rome by Jerome Ferrari waiting for me. Apparently, it won a prize this year and I've heard rave reviews of it. I also have Amelie Nothomb's new book, Barbe Bleue. Then to finish off, I have the Assassin's Creed books. I loved the games so I guess I'll love the books just as much. What is the most frustrating to me is that I feel like I know a lot, but then I feel like I don't know a lot at all. Today, two constructions in L'espagnol caught me off guard. ne..plus..que, which I figured to be "only" with "plus" being an intensifier, and how they used "telles quelles". Maybe I was over thinking it. My grammar needs a boost so I'm going to read more books as planned, and hopefully go through some higher level grammar books at the B2/C1 levels if I can find some. I'm going to graduate myself from using subtitles(except for Kaamelott because if I watch that without subs I'd go insane) after I watch my last 4 French subtitled movies for awhile. Polytechnique Amelie (can't believe I didn't watch this yet) L'auberge espagnol OSS 117 Rio ne repond plus I believe I need to take the training wheels off so to speak and start to rely solely on my ear. I guess we'll see how it goes. Italian: Passive Wave 52 tomorrow & Active waves 5 & 6. I'm going with 2-3 active wave lessons a day until I finish the last passive lesson, then I'd like to bump it up to 4-5 & start Perfectionnement. Perfectionnement (wish English had something like "en" & "y") looks really detailed. And it has 94 lessons! The older one anyway. I wonder if that book could actually take someone to a B2 level... Spanish: So far so good. The length of these lessons suit me perfectly because I'd like to focus on Italian the most since its more of my focus + With Ease has longer lessons. Between Italian and Spanish, I got the rolled r down to a tee within 3 weeks including the same length of time they use it and incorporating it into words without getting tongue twisted. I suppose hours of listening to my dad+grandparents speak Italian helped too. :P Goals before April 1: -Watch Season 14 of The Simpsons in Qc, Seasons 5-6 of Family Guy, Seinfeld Season 3, and maybe a season each of The Office and The Big Bang Theory in French -Finish my 6 books in French -Start both Perfectionnements 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 90 of 101 14 November 2012 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
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French:
It seems as if my break idea is working better than expected. I watched an episode of Kaamelott and despite the vocabulary I understood a lot more than usual. With the subtitles, I caught about 80%. Without them, I probably would have understood a little less. The one thing that keeps me from fully enjoying the show is the French sense of humor. I just don't understand it. :( I started reading Assassin's Creed: Renaissance. I kind of wish I saved it for when I became proficient in Italian since its an Italian setting, but I'll do that for the last three. I'm going to hold out a few more days or so before I finish my 4 movies. I'd like to check out some more Quebec/French native tv shows and movies. I have my eyes on Un gars, une fille. Both versions. Jean Dujardin is a delight to watch. Good actor. I bought a grammar book called Nouvelle Grammaire du francais. It looks pretty detailed and its entirely in French. Its length is quite intimidating though. It is EXACTLY what I've been searching for for so long. Just about everything that gave me trouble is explained. And when a bunch of French students even recommend it, its gotta be something good! Now to try to find the Italian/Spanish equivalents! Italian: I start the 57th lesson tomorrow. I'm not sure about this book. It seems like it focuses on more tourist-y things than New French With Ease. NFWE had lessons on a huge range of subjects. The pronouns and merging as of this moment are causing me problems. Its weird to get accustomed to. Spanish: No difficulties except a word like "viaje" will throw me off a bit because the v is like a b and the j sound throws me off. I'm actually finding Spanish easier than Italian as of this moment. I've started to use french/italian/spanish.about.com more extensively for grammar. I've known about them for awhile but never utilized them as much as I should have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 91 of 101 05 December 2012 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Been awhile.
French: Still going through my grammar book. I started watching Very Bad Blagues, Kaamelott, and Bref without subs. Its frustrating knowing that a word you know went right over your head. My biggest problem, as it was before, are the contractions. At this stage, L/R won't help me in listening comprehension I believe. I feel like I have to begin a whole new learning process just to pick up more than a 60-70% comprehension rate for these shows. Just gotta keep chuggin' on I suppose. Honestly, Very Bad Blagues isn't that great. But, like Kaamelott and Bref, they are 2-3 minute clips so its at least bearable and will help with comprehension. To me, if a French learner can watch these shows and by the end get an 80% comprehension rate without living in country, you are my hero. Italian: Did lesson 79 today. There are still problems with conjugating but other than that the process is going relatively well. I can understand/read a lot better than I can produce. In fact, my production is pretty much zero. Spanish: The wording of some of the French notes have driven me nuts. Nothing too serious. Today I finished lesson 58. I took a look at the conjugations, and my goodness, hardly anything irregular. Hardly any use of the partitive, fairly phonetic. This should definitely be the first learned language for anybody without a preference. The only problems right now are g+j and v+b. General: I stopped doing the active wave. Goals for next year: French - Solid C1, leaning on C2 Italian - B2 Spanish - Solid B2, leaning on C1 Edited by sillygoose1 on 05 December 2012 at 2:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 92 of 101 12 December 2012 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||
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French:
I take back what I said. Very Bad Blagues started to get quite humorous and I enjoy it. Halfway through season 1, I can sense my comprehension skyrocket. I just need to work on abbreviations and other slang words. I watched an episode of Kaamelott, and I can say that I caught about 90% of it. I didn't read any transcript or look at the subs and I understood enough. I watched L'auberge espagnole and understand about 90% of the French dialogue also. Italian: I should be finished With Ease by the start of January. After listening to an interview by Luca, I found I could understand quite a lot, give or take a few words. My one problem is the conjugating. I still have to get the hang of that. Reading doesn't present too much of an issue. It's easier to read Italian than Spanish right now. Spanish: Nothing to say really. Well, the subjunctive seems to be used more than I'm used to. I don't feel as comfortable with Spanish than I do in Italian mainly because I think L'espagnol is just too light. I should have opted for Le nouvel espagnol I think. They use fancy revision lessons and cultural notes in the place of lengthy dialogues/lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 93 of 101 17 December 2012 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to be closing this log down soon due to my participation in the TAC '13.
One of my last few updates. Here is where I stand currently. French: I feel like I'm stuck. Radio, News, Dubbed series = Fine. 90%+ comprehension. Some TV shows, songs, listening to French people discuss amongst themselves = 40-60% To be fair, the only TV show I'm referring to as of now is Very Bad Blagues. Songs can be difficult even in a native language. And the French people I'm talking about are in a game where they talk about game specifics and the other group was a rap battle group in a voice chat server. Even then, only some episodes cause problems. The problem is that I know most of these words. But they are just passing right over me. I'm probably going to take a break because when I did that with Kaamelott I came back being able to understand a lot more of the show. I'm going to put French on the back burner for a few days. I think I've been putting way to much stress on understanding that when I don't understand every word I go nuts! I'll just listen to the radio casually. I haven't noticed too much of a comprehension increase in Very Bad Blagues, but it's definitely there. Gotta find some new French chat partners in a game or something also. Italian: Assimil lessons are barely an issue for me now. By the 3rd or 4th run through of the recording, I catch everything. I also discovered an Italian rapper, MC Cavallo. I don't think he's serious in his lyrics, he just does it for fun as far as I know. I don't know if I want to do L/R. My reasoning is because I want to be able to understand how natives talk rather than someone reading a book with proper speech. I'll probably do one. I'm going to scour through RAI and movies. I'm probably going to have to put up with dubs because there are so little movies/shows. Spanish: L'espagnol is a disappointment right now. I feel like I'm going to have to do at least 20 lessons of Perfectionnement to get as comfortable as I am with Italian With Ease. With Spanish, I think I'm going to dive right in as I am with Italian. Good luck & have fun to those participating in any challenges next year. Also: http://www.ciep.fr/en/delfdalf/sujet.php Found that for French. They are example presentations for the French CEFR exam. Seems as if I understand up to C1 on the site. Didn't try C2. Edited by sillygoose1 on 17 December 2012 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5795 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 94 of 101 17 December 2012 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck for 2013!
Did you like Amelie Nothomb's "Barbe Bleue"? I liked it a lot as well as almost any book of Amelie Nothomb. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 95 of 101 17 December 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks.
I haven't yet finished it, but it's going well so far. I haven't read other Nothomb books, what are some other good ones? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=34617 (new thread) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 96 of 101 18 December 2012 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
Those are great results! Congratulations on your progress. :-) If you want to play around with the sample audio for the DELF/DALF exams, you might enjoy listening to them with the actual time limits and the questions. It's harder that way, because you need to listen and think at the same time which uses up mental bandwidth. (Oh, and don't trust the audio samples. The actual exam was a bit harder, which threw me off and made me panic a bit.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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