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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 33 of 336 17 May 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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@Swift Not disappeared, just have spotty internet access :p And that's the big question
right now: waiting to see if I'm renewed for the program which I'll find out anytime between now and September. In any case I'll have to go back to get a new visa anyway. Let's just hope it's not the end of my French adventure. Went to another TV taping: On n'est pas couche hosted by Laurent Ruquier. As I said the only announced guest was Franck Provost. Once we were in the studio (sur le plateau) someone asked the warm-up guy the others. He read off a list the first political guest: Harlem Désir, founding memeber of SOS Racisme and currently #2 in the PS. He didn't announce the second political guest he just reiterated his instructions to give a warm welcome including a standing ovation to each guest when they come out and especially to not boo them (though we were free to boo during the interview). Well, turns out the second political guest was Louis Aliot, vice president of the Front National and Marine Le Pen's boyfriend. The interview was certainly exciting... The show airs Saturday night and hopefully there'll be some clips online afterwards. Worked on some Spanish using Madrigal's Magical Key. I'm getting into the real "meat" of the book: verbs, verbs, verbs. And I have to say that Spanish verbs are all at once systematic and logical, even with the irregulars (which seem to all have their own logic) and so "simple" in that sense, yet quite difficult. What's difficult is just a change in accent and switching verb endings from one person in one tense to another in another tense is what differentiates them from each other (talking about past preterite and present here). Except for irregulars which are different than present but keep the same stress as in present. Of course Michel Thomas went over a lot of these but he didn't introduce some of the complexity. And it's here where I'm starting to really feel the difference between getting a base in a language slowly in classes versus starting from scratch on my own. I can understand a lot so it's tempting to go really fast but then it's easy to get really overwhelmed. And there's a big difference between understanding the language intellectually which is possible to do quickly, especially with experience and a related language under your belt, versus being able to actually use it which takes practice. And there are no real shortcuts to practice. Also, learning vocabulary before was pretty effortless. We had a unit in a text book which had a theme, we got vocabulary based on that theme, we stared at the words and the pictures while repeating them after the recording, we did exercises for homework which incorporated the new words and we just lived with the words in general for a good week to two weeks (or longer) and we were tested. So I just learned the words through regular exposure, no memory tricks necessary. With Spanish there are all the related words of course, but there are also words that have no obvious relationship to French and so they're brand new. And now I have to come up with a system for actually remembering them so I can actually say something in Spanish rather than just conjugate verbs. And some of the basic vocab is easy to get excited about (especially the "grammar" words which are just glue in sentences) but I'm not as psyched about learning articles of clothing and such. Or the inevitable train station/airport/hotel/restaurant series of tourist vocab. Necessary, yes, exciting, no. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 34 of 336 18 May 2012 at 5:20pm | IP Logged |
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Worked through some more Madrigal's Magical Key. The verbs are piling up but
there's a verb review chapter coming up soon so I'm going to plough through the next one, Spelling Changes in Verbs, and use the review chapter to make everything stick. I find that I get tripped up when I feel like I have to review previous chapters/lessons before moving on - I end up never moving on. I'll also do the whole chapter both orally and written - it's been easy enough so far that I've done most orally but it'll be good to develop some written muscle memory. I also just wrote my first composition in Spanish and I posted it on Lang-8! It's nothing flashy but I played with some verb tenses. It'd be nice if Madrigal's... proposed some simple writing prompts so I'd have ideas of what I could write about using what I know thus far. Easy Spanish Reader had some so maybe I'll work through those. I also did a French composition based on a reply to a friend who asked me about my opinion of Obama coming out for gay mariage and did I think he did it just for strategic reasons. I edited it to take out some of my more potentially controversial statements as I don't want to get in a heated debate or alienate people but it was a good writing exercise (I'm for, BTW which I do say). http://lang-8.com/121496/journals Edited by sctroyenne on 18 May 2012 at 5:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 35 of 336 19 May 2012 at 4:31pm | IP Logged |
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Just discovered something that may change my life (or at least have an impact) - the
"book making" feature of Wikipedia. I don't know if anyone else has spotted it before, but it's in the left-hand column along with the print options. It lets you assemble all the articles you like by simply clicking on them into a customized "book" you can download as a pdf or in Open Office format. As I don't have great access to the internet this lets me assemble every article I want on a topic in French (and evenutally Spanish) and have them available for offline reading and in a printer- friendly format. This should help me plug many "holes" in my knowledge. I watched my Les Inconnus DVDs. If you're studying French and don't know Les Inconnus, look them up. They were a comedy sketch troupe that had a show in the early 90s which has become a major cultural reference. All the sketches are basically parodies of TV programming and music videos so there's quite a bit of clear speech but there's more difficult speech as well. A selection: Isabelle a les yeux bleus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qq71FYT_8 Journal Télévisé Bretagne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMKbZy6sQZQ Roxane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D39A-jVADgw A l’hôpital http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIiX4xn5wE Enseignement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OhvWT9UK64 Emission sportive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz0Y04LZzG0 Les Miséroïdes (Jean Claude Van Damme est Jean Valjean) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCICA_C955U Edited by sctroyenne on 19 May 2012 at 4:35pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| 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 36 of 336 06 June 2012 at 11:43pm | IP Logged |
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Got sick again which sort of derailed my formal work (focusing on anything made me
naseous). Then we got some good weather so wanted to just go out and lay out in parks all day, which is sort of the point of being in Paris so I won't feel guilty about it. I did finally get the remainder of Kaamelott, except for Livre 6, which is okay for now as it's a prequel. I've really been enjoying it and I feel like I'm getting better at my oral comprehension which is helping with my OVS outings. I think I'm speaking better these days as well - though these things come and go (I've just been through a rut where I felt like my French was worse). Just came back from a play, Piège à Matignon and I managed to catch some play on words before the other French audience members (though I missed a few punchlines). I went to a pub quiz and one of the questions was conjugate a series of 5 verbs (basic yet irregular ones) in imperfect subjunctive. My team was pretty good but we got some of these way wrong so gives you an idea of how (un)important learning to conjugate the imperfect subjunctive is for those learning French as a second language. No word yet on whether my contract will be renewed for next year or not. Not sure what I'll do with myself if I don't but I've been thinking of moving from my hometown if I'm not. I was thinking of all sorts of destinations and then I randomly looked into immigration to Canada. Getting into Canada itself wouldn't be easy - looks like I'd need to work a few years in a "skilled" career - but Quebec sets their own standards and looks like I could get in thanks to my French level. I'd have to look into it further as I don't know if meeting the points requirement makes you a shoo-in or if there's still a decent chance of being turned down, but Montreal seems interesting to me... Still hoping for another year in Paris, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 37 of 336 09 June 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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So news doesn't sound good for getting renewed in Paris for next year. I don't know
anything about my case in particular yet but I've heard that they're not going to renew very many people in the region. It's hard to believe that my French adventure may be coming to a close very soon. Which makes me grateful that I found out about Quebec so I have a short term and long term plan. The advantage is that cost of living is lower (the first time I've aspired to live somewhere that doesn't figure in the top 5-10 most expensive places to live in the world). It's way easier to establish permanent residency so I could finally settle down somewhere long term - which means I can buy things without having to worry how I'm going to fit them in a suitcase in a few months and I could maybe get a pet. And another good point is I would be a new transplant in a place where there is a large community of French people who are new transplants as well. When moving abroad it can be hard to break into the established community which is why so many expats hang out with other expats - which in Paris means hanging out with other anglophones. But in Quebec there'd be a whole community of French people who are also new to the area who would be looking to make new friends which means I could hang out with the other expats yet still be speaking with native French speakers. As I said it's painful thinking my long term plans might not include France but I'm glad that it could include French. Getting back into Spanish - I ordered Gramática de uso del español: Teoría y práctica A1-B2 with a credit I had on amazon.fr which is due to arrive Monday or Tuesday. I love the idea of having one grammar book going from A1 to B2 - makes it feel like it's within close grasp. And I'll have to get back to my poor neglected Irish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 38 of 336 12 June 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged |
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Got my Spanish grammar book! It has 126 units each spanning two pages and covering a
different grammatical topic from A-1 level to B-2 level. So it doesn't go into depth but it covers a lot. I'm sure I can supplement with exercises I can find online and SRS and it's supplementing courses anyway. As I'll need to register for classes at community college to be eligible for the work visa program for Canada I'll definitely take Spanish (too bad all the French is just basic and intermediate). It'd be nice to see if I can test out of one or more semesters before the fall semester begins. One semester should be definitely doable but more would be a little confidence booster as well as a testament to the methods I've been using. So I'll make that my short term goal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4396 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 39 of 336 13 June 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
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Hey sctroyenne, sorry to hear that your stay in Paris might not work out. I guess like
you've said, you at least have some sort of plan to continue your journey with French. If living in a French speaking country is something you love and want to continue to do, I'm sure you will find a way. The note on the imperfect subjunctive was interesting, I was wondering how important the tense was considering that there is no equivalent in English. I was thinking it was unnecessary for my level; I guess it is unnecessary in general unless you are a journalist? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 40 of 336 14 June 2012 at 2:16am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, unneccessary in general basically. Even as a journalist. So just learn to
recognize it as well as passe simple (for reading literature and history) and move on to more important stuff. Worked through quite a bit of my new Spanish book (love playing with new toys). Got to unit 15 working through all grammatical aspects of nouns and adjectives. I tend to want to use uno, esto/eso and bueno when I should be using un, este/ese and buen. I guess it comes from random exposure to Spanish I've gotten throughout my life that makes me always want to use the -o sound. Just for kicks I decided to try the placement test for community college (it's online and just multitple choice). I did a LOT of guessing - some educated and quite a bit random - and stuff that I knew I wasn't always sure on. But somehow I scored 488 which would put me in 4th semester and beyond (min. score required 440). This doesn't really count as I said I was doing a lot of guessing so I'll re-try later and see what I get when I actually have an idea. I know very little vocab and I can barely speak so I wouldn't want to start off in a 4th semester class (unless my materials bring me up before then) though there is something to be said for taking a class that's slightly above my level so that it'll be hard. Just at this point I think 2nd semester fits the bill. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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