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Allons-y: Anna Learns French! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4412 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 25 of 51 20 April 2012 at 6:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I decided I'm going to have a look at my grammar book. Had a little look through the first chapter today
and it doesn't seem too hard to understand. I have 2 big assignments in the next 5 days, but once they are over I'm starting a regular program of doing french each day. The grammar book doesn't seem too hard to understand. Anyway, I was looking at the french resources available at my local library. They don't have real Pimsleur, but the GoFrench one which is the first 8 lessons. I'm planning on taking it out to see if I like it. That said, If I really like it I'll have to justify buying it. AHH! I've looked at assimil and I like the look of that more than pimsleur, probably just by the cost. while I haven't really been studying french much over the past week or so, I've tried to keep listening to some, whether it be on DVDs as I cook or things like that. I've found that I'm starting to pick up phrases in what I hear. I'm loving being able to understand snippets. Phrases I am beginning to recognise immediately Je ne sais pas ! Ce n'est pas acceptable / possible / comfortable (etc) me surprend I'm sure there are more things that I am picking up on, but these are the only ones that come to mind now 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4797 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 26 of 51 20 April 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The selection at amazon.fr is relly nice but I don't buy there. They discriminate newer
members of the european union (heh, eight years is not that new...) buy having the same prices for us as for the "rest of the world". That is is much more than for old members or even for usa/canada. Which doesn't make sense. The money they pay to send it cannot be higher to the Czech Republic than to Sweden or Canada. Perhaps Amazon doesn't own any maps... That is mostly an ethical view (I won't let them steal this way from me. For example the SPanish Amazon is fair), but the money is not that small as well. I'm not sure how much it coests to Australia (probably the same money as to the Czech Republic, which is funny)but it would be a lot. 2 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 27 of 51 20 April 2012 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ah, a classic phrase for French parents! :-) In spoken French, you'll often hear it without the "n": "C'est pas acceptable."
Assimil New French With Ease is currently $32.31 + $19.77 on Amazon, at least for me: The CDs, but probably not the book The book This comes up to a bit less than $55, which is not a bad price for this course, at least in the US. Most people will learn enough to carry on simple conversations and read real books with help from a dictionary, which is about all you can really expect from any course, I think. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4412 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 28 of 51 21 April 2012 at 3:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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emk you have been very helpful! I ended up getting it for $50 AUD with free shipping from our Borders
online. They went bankrupt last year and I have found in the past that their prices are not nearly what they should be for some things. Plus they had a deal for 10% off if you spend over $50 so it worked out well. I know it probably made me sound like a cheapskate, looking for the lowest price possible, but I'm a full- time student with very little income and i'm trying to save to go over to Europe. It is good though, because $50 is a sufficiently big outlay so it's probably enough to make sure I go through with it. Of course, it won't arrive for a few weeks so by then the monetary cost may have been forgotten. Cavesa, that's ridiculous about amazon.fr! I definitely understand not buying things from places on principle. I do the same thing about certain store! I wish I didn't have to focus on my real life work at the moment. I really wish i could work on my french now. Of course, I'm spending all this time lamenting the fact that i can't spend much time on french when I could be finishing off my other work, ultimately giving me the time to work on french. of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4797 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 29 of 51 21 April 2012 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I fully understand the lamenting, it happens to me as well. For those times when I
don't have time for my languages, I keep at least some music in them in my mp3 player. At least for the feeling (but my understanding grows with time as well). Do you listen to some French musicians? I like for exemple Zaz, Noir Desir, In-Grid (Tu es foutu is one of my favourites :-) ), and I've just found a few which I am still exploring: Ange, Les Thugs,Les Discrets (really nice), Faudel,Zaho (not my usual kind of musing but trying to understand some rap passages is a challenge), Alain Bushang, (and there is much more at lyricstraining and youtube...) P.S. I don't think you need to worry about people considering you a cheapskate (that is an awesome word!! thanks). Many of us are or were students :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4412 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 30 of 51 21 April 2012 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I went to France a few years ago, a cousin introduced me to some great music. Her favourites at the
time were Tryo and something else, but I can't remember what they were anymore. There is a great series of CDs in Australia called 'So Frenchy, So Chic' and they're basically the soundtracks for the French film festival. I generally have just been listening to them, but I'm also a pretty huge fan of Camille. I was 16 when I got back from France and I haven't had an ipod since around the age of 17. It basically got too hard to see the screen and I just stopped using it. I've recently dug it out and found much more french music on there. I'll definitely have to check out the music you suggested, especially if it is on lyrics training! I love that site! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4412 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 31 of 51 22 April 2012 at 8:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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nothing significant to report today. I started reading the easy reader that I have been going through on my
kindle again today. I was around halfway through it, but stopped when I decided to do the super challenge. I know I can read it again, but it will essentially be my first book in french and I want to get that awesome feeling as part of the super challenge. I'm starting to wonder whether my reading technique is the best possible. While the book is easy, there are a number of words per page I do not know. most of them I can work out from the context. Those that are more difficult tend to have endnotes with the translation for that entire sentence. From there I can work most of it out. I have not used a dictionary at all with this book, which I guess is really good. The only thing with this is that I only have a sense of what the word means, not an actual meaning. In this read- through I am going to write down most of these words so I can look them up. As a beginner's book, I suppose the words that are coming up are words that are simplistic enough that I should learn. In addition, the words tend to repeat throughout the book. As it is on my kindle, I am not able to underline or highlight anything in the text. I'm going to try to write down the words to get around this. It may not be the easiest thing and will take time, but that's fine. I expect to only get through part of the book before May begins, at which point I go back to the start of the book so it can be part of the super challenge. I had a look in my uni book shop today at the french materials. There are a few novels, but they look to be too difficult. One of them appeared to be graded and said B2/C1 on it. I didn't really flick through it, but it got me wondering... what would something like Harry Potter be? I saw the B2/C1 book and was like AHH I'LL NEVER GET THERE but then I realised it very well could be easier than Harry Potter. Seeing how few non-instruction related french materials the store had, I couldn't help but wonder how I'll find enough texts at a basic level. I have a few on my kindle, so I will use those to start off with. They are, however, very basic. From there, I'm not so sure where to go. I had planned to move onto Harry potter, but there is NO way that I'd be ready for that. I was fooling myself when I thought that it could work! I suppose I have to search my campus library. I was hoping to avoid this for a while, as it is certainly going to be difficult to find books with little language knowledge, but I suppose I'll get through somehow. My local library seems to have some french, but very little when compared to other languages like Italian, spanish, portuguese, greek and some others I seem to have forgotten. I may be able to find some novels there. speaking of the library, I put a hold on goTalk french, which I know little about but it seems to be the first 8 lessons of pimsleur. Hopefully I can get hold of it in the next week or so and work through that in the time before Assimil arrives. Of course, I write this as I have much work to do for my degree and seem to be battling a cold, my allergies and an ear infection. Perfect learning conditions I suppose. And it definitely should explain to you all why I've written a long post that says basically nothing. I am seriously considering asking my housemate to change my HTLAL forum password until I get my work done. I swear I spend so much time on this forum, time which probably would be much better spent actually trying to learn french. Though I suspect I am not alone in this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4797 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 32 of 51 22 April 2012 at 11:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Firstly, translated books tend to be easier than originally French ones.
Children/Teenage/Young Adult Fiction is usually much easier than high literature. First few books of Harry Potter are less complicated both in the story and the language than the later ones. So there is really no need to be too afraid of your Harry Potter book :-) (and don't believe everything you see written somewhere. Especially when it comes to CEFR levels) Forum addiction is a bad thing for learning languages. So, I'm closing the computer now and opening my Italian textbook. :-) P.S. My boyfriend used to have a kindle and he had an amazing English (monolingual) dictionary among his books, which allowed him to search while reading, without being disturbed much. Perhaps you could find a French one and it might be helpful. (At least you won't get to my usual trouble-I write down the words but I'm sooo lazy to search the long list in the dictionary later) P.S.2 you post said much more than "nothing". Now get back to your studies for the degree! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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