|
 |
Allons-y: Anna Learns French! | ||
Tags: French | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 33 of 51 22 April 2012 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks cavesa! You're always so helpful, especially in making me feel better about my studying, or lack
thereof! So yeah, I took a look at harry potter after reading your post. I figured, it may be above my level but if I can get through a couple of sentences now, after doing some reading at an easier level and working through assimil and working on memrise, i should be able to do harry potter with serious dictionary use. So I did the first few sentences. There was a great deal that I thought I knew, but looked up anyway, just to be sure. Wjhile I managed to understand it, with help from the dictionary, I wouldn't go and try to read much more yet. Perhaps in a few months or so. It definitely would help that I've read harry potter over and over again as a child. I was 8 when I read the first book for the first time, and 13 years later i am determined to read it for the first time, again. i'm spending a late night in the library tonight, so I will come back to the first page (i photocopied it with half the page blank and the other half the book) throughout the night and do sentences as a study break, I suspect I will do more french than property law, but thats not the worst thing in the world. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 34 of 51 24 April 2012 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Okay so I resisted doing any work on french last night and managed to get my actual assignment in on
time. I worked on some more of the first Harry Potter book and, while I managed to understand all of it, the structure made no sense when I translated it. I realised I really need to work on my grammar. Knowing that, even though I still have a great deal of assignment work to do, I've brought my grammar book with me to the library. At the moment I am working my way through the first chapter which focuses on the present tense. There is alot of information and a heap of activities, so I'm going to try to gradually worth through it over the next week. The book is like 500 pages but appears to only have 28 lessons, so I am going to do one lesson a week, maybe 2 a week if I can manage. If I time it well I can finish working through the grammar lessons and assimil at the same time. I feel like I am learning so much. I'm not thinking in french because I don't know enough to do so, but certain phrases are popping into my head.... surprisingly at the correct times too! I'm even saying particular phrases at times, without realising it. The big one for this is Je ne sais pas. Of course, I do say oh mon dieu, but I've been saying that for years, thanks to a french uncle. I'm starting to feel like there is some real progress.There may not be a heap of progress, but it is enough to make me feel like I am getting thigns done. I need this otherwise I'll lose interest and I do not want this to happen. I've always loved learning languages, even as a kid. IF there was a phrase from another language in something we were learning, I would get really excited about it. I know this is something that I want to do, and there are plenty of languages I want to learn... it's just difficult now because the start is so slow. Hopefully I will start to see some real changes once assimil arrives and I start reading and watching movies for the super challenge and 6wc. As for michel thomas, I'm about half-way through the discs I have on my computer. I'm reallly enjoying it, but A certain portion of it isn't sticking. I feel like I need to listen to these parts again, or fully sit down and concentrate, not just put it on in the background. Oh and assimil shipped today, so 10-15 days and I will have it! yay! EDIT: I found some books that I bought last year. At the uni alumni book sale last year I bought some old french work books. I bought Voilà 1 and 2. I looked through them last year, but I'm probably going to try to add them to my workload. The first book as 12 Units, as does the second. I'm guessing the books are aimed at early high-school students as the prefaces says that the first book follows the story of Kate, a 13-year-old Australian exchange student who lives in Lyon for a year with her host family. The second follows the story of a group of french teenagers living in Saint-Etienne. The first book is aiming for Level 4A learning outcomes (whatever that means): listening: 1. distinguish and repeate sounds accurately as in intelligent/intelligente 2. recognise cognates (lettre, limonade, pharmacie) 3. recognise the use of intonation to differentiate between questions and statements 4. identify specific facts, including names and personal details of people, their activities, interests or possessions, locations, time, price, colour 5. classify information 6. follow a short sequence of instructions (eg: to get to a particular location by following places on a map) speaking: 1. use appropriate greatings and leave-taking (salut, bonjour madame) 2. ask and respond to questions about self, others, school subjects, likes, dislikes, preferences (eg: tu aimes le chocolat? tu préferes le coca ou l'eau minérale?) 3. provide basic factual information in a description of a person, place or event (il est grand. il a les yeux verts. il aime le tennis et le foot) 4. extend a statement or question by using simple devices, such as adjectives 5. use appropriate gestures (faire la bise) 6. ask for assistance (je ne comprends pas; je ne sais pas; répétez s'il vous plait) reading: 1. read aloud applying rules of pronounciation and intonation, as in fils, fille 2. use knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences to decipher a word 3. identify main ideas of a text, including time, place, events (un accidnet; trois personnes; à huit heures) 4. select and order information eg an incorrect sequence of events in a narrative, or present facts in tabular form writing: 1. link sentences using et, mais, as in nous n'avons pas de chien, mais nous avons duex chats, kitty et millie 2. rewrite a text substituting specific details, such as personal information, time 3. extend a sentence or question by using simple devices, such as adjectives 4. use a word bank or dictionary to search for and check vocabulary 5. use models to follow text conventions correctly. The second book goes on and covers level 5A and level 6A learning outcomes, as well as level 6A extension learning outcomes. I won't go and type out the outcomes of the second book, but I figured I'd write out the outcomes for the first book as I'm going to try to work through it. The first chapter is REALLY easy. I like the layout of it. There is a bit of a comic at the beginning with very basic vocabularie. The second page has a few words (salut ! bonjour ! bienvenue ! merci , enchanté , enchantée , au revoir , voilà ) and some cultural information, like how to address adults. there is an activity on how to great different people, based on their pictures and presumed ages. The book continues with a few more words (like moi, et toi ? et vous ? je m'appelle). Essentially that is all that happens in the first chapter. It is so easy I'd want to skip it. In general, flipping through the book it is not very challenging. In fact, the first unit of the second book introduces avoir! I'm not sure how they went through the whole first book without it. I think I could probably start with the second book, but I'll work through the first, just at a fast rate. It can't hurt, right? Oh another thing is I did a brief quiz on the alliance francais brisbane website. They called me yesterday about it. I can't quite remember, but I believe the quiz results weren't revealed and the call was to discuss what level I would be and what classes I could join. I'll have to ring them back in a few days (tomorrow is a public holiday) but I know I won't do any classes. I know that classes would probably be the best course of action, but I do know those sort of things tend to move slowly. As I've mentioned before, I'm possibly going to europe later this year and while I'm not staying only in france, I hope to spend christmas with my family. They do not speak English and, while their first language is Italian (at least zia and zio, not so much their children and other relatives), they all speak french fluently, having lived there for at least 50 years. Well I assume they are fluent. Now I think about it, my nonna and nonno have been in Australia for more than 50 years and neither are what I would call fluent in English. Anyway, I'd like to be able to communicate with my relatives. With this in mind, I want to get as far as I can by then. I've read that assimil claims to get to a B1 or B2 level, which I don't expect to get to, but a high A2 would be nice. Even a low B1 would be great. Regardless, I expect I will be able to make myself understood. Edited by dandt on 24 April 2012 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 35 of 51 30 April 2012 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||
|
While others have been dutifully reviewing grammar over the past week, I’ve done nothing more than listen
to some french music while driving (and that was limited) and watched/listened to How I Met Your Mother in French. My real life has been crazy and slows down just long enough for me to have a good start to the super challenge in the first week. I’m planning to start with Il Fait Beau, a graded reader on my kindle. It’s relatively easy, and I can easily without dictionary assistance. Even better, it’s aimed at adults so it’s not a tiny book (but small compared to others). It basically uses the same words the whole way through, slowly introducing more difficult words, with some harder content in the back. It also has quizes at the end of each chapter. I’ve read a third of it already, but stopped reading when I decided to do the challenge. I plan to start again at midnight and see how far I can get. It is over 100 pages and easy enough that I can read in a few hours, if need be. Or at least I think so. It would be great to finish a book in the first week. From there, I will continue on to the books later in the series. I believe there are 2 that follow. After, onto a different, but similar series. Technically, il fait beau will not be the first french book I will have read. I read Le Petit Prince last year, or the year before, and I have a french copy of the velveteen rabbit at home somewhere. I was given it when I was 3 or 4 by some relatives of mine from france. I haven’t read it since I’ve been learning french, but I definitely read it a couple of times as a kid. I’m not sure what I’ll do with movies. Between my Buffy DVD’s, my housemates Sex and the City, Ally McBeal and Boston Legal, plus the Gilmore Girls and other shows I have back home, I definitely have enough to fill the 100 Movies requisite. It would be great to cover it using only movies though. We’ll see. I suppose I do have French Dora the Explorer too. hmm. Anyway, as for what I have done: I've worked through some of the french textbook that I bought last year. It's very simplistic and seems to have been designed to work with a CD, which I do not have. Further, it has activities that would only work in a classroom context, so it is difficult to do certain things, like describe 3 people in your class. Instead I've been making the people up, or describing what someone in the library is wearing. It is rather enjoyable, but really is just filling in time. I bought the new So Frenchy So Chic CD, which set me back almost as much as ASSIMIL!!!!! I didn't check the price before buying, but i must say, it's always a great compilation! I'm quite disappointed though as half the songs on the first disc seem to be in English. hmm. I thought assimil may have arrived early today when I got a notice from the post office. Unfortunately, it was something else, but I hope it arrives soon. The super challenge and the 6 week challenge both start in 5 and a half hours for me, so it'd be nice to have the material and be ready to start! That said, I'm sure I have plenty to occupy me for now. I do have the remainder of Michel thomas to complete and it would be nice to get through that before I start assimil. The problem is I don't have an mp3 player, other than the one I had in high school which is synced with all my old music, so I don't want to add more to it. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to just bite the bullet and do it, or at least start using my old, disfunctional iphone for now. That's the bad thing about iphones... you stop using an ipod because it's just so easy to use your iphone, but when you change to another phone, say, for argument's sake, an android, it just sucks because the mp3 player isn't very good. Anyway, i'll sort that out and then I can get even more exposure. Not sure what else I can report, just that I'm looking forward to the challenges beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 36 of 51 01 May 2012 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
So it seems my kindle has died!!! I'm devastated as this makes reading something that must be done at the
computer. Nonetheless, I got in an hour to start off the 6WC and super challenge. I'm hoping to fix my kindle today, hoping it is just a power issue and not related to the fact it's been at the bottom of my uni bag for a week. So I spent an hour reading 'Il fait beau' and I'm about to watch Dora L'exploratrie - Suivez La Carte. While I can't understand everything in the show, I can guess what alot of it means, and could probably understand more if it wasn't dora the explorer and so dull for someone my age. Regardless, it is fairly mindless and i could probably split it. My favourite part is 'allons-y let's go!' .... pretty sure it's the only English I've heard.... so much for Dora being bilingual! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 37 of 51 03 May 2012 at 1:54am | IP Logged | ||
|
So I have successfully read a book! I am so proud of myself, even though the book was relatively easy. It
was just at my level, which made it really good. I was able to read it easily enough without hving to stop and look much up! In fact, the only things I looked up were those things I didn't understand that had linked footnotes. These things were newly introduced vocabulary and tended to be repeated throughout the book, but generally I could understand it from context. I really liked this aspect. I haven't started reading another book yet, although I know I should because the challenge is so long and needs me to read so many books. As it is, It is a book a week (every 6 days in fact) to complete, so if I can read lots early on when I am reading relatively easy books, it would be good. While the book is over 100 pages and meets the criteria for the challenge, it is unlikely that I will be able to find too many books at a similar level and length. I have about 5 or 6 on my kindle (which I was't able to fix and have to return to amazon) and it would be good to take advantage of them being at my level now. I'm not sure what I'll do once I get beyond these books as I'm not going to be ready to jump to Harry Potter. Once Assimil arrives I will be using that, so I may be able to use that as books? I'm not sure as I am not super familiar with the program (in fact, not familiar at all). That sad, I know it will sort itself out somehow, even if it means reading Harry Potter earlier than intended. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4411 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 38 of 51 03 May 2012 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
|
So my ASSIMIL arrived today, ahead of schedule. I've just done the first lesson and it seems ridiculously
simplistic. I mean really? Is all I have to do read it, listen to it, repeat it? yikes! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 39 of 51 03 May 2012 at 11:42am | IP Logged | ||
|
Congratulations to your first book!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5319 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 51 03 May 2012 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Yup, the passive wave is really that easy! A lot of the real work seems to happen below a conscious level: If you repeat the lesson until the French makes sense to you, you're training your ears and your brain with lots of French input. I typically needed to listen to the lesson about 8–12 times until the French audio made sense by itself. And don't hesitate to speak along with actors if you find that helpful. Of course, if you've already finished a graded reader and some Michel Thomas, you'll find the first lessons very easy! 4 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
