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TAC ’15 French Spanish Celtic Adv Study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 41 of 336 20 June 2012 at 12:19pm | IP Logged |
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Continued working through the Spanish book. I keep meaning to switch back to Madrigal’s
Magical Key and Assimil, but I’m going at a pretty good pace right now. I’ve done 25 units – a fifth of the book. It’s started getting a bit harder: ese vs. aquel, remembering that tanto goes with como and is variable, cualquiera, etc. I've noted that those are the more difficult topics and I'll put them into Anki and wait until I encounter them elsewhere (Assimil, reading). Also the book has been using a lot more vocabulary than at the beginning so I have to stop and look things up more often (though sometimes I manage to figure out what would grammatically make sense even when I don’t understand most of the sentence). I really ought to get back to Assimil and the dialogues, though. But the book is great for cramming all the “grammar words” into my head which I’ll now recognize when reading. I also downloaded some learner’s podcasts. I started turning on Veronica Mars in Spanish but I only caught words here and there so I’m nowhere near being able to sit back and follow a show (though this one would be more difficult than say, Law and Order). Switched to French – it’s entertaining hearing the French voices for Dwight from The Office and Barney from How I Met Your Mother and Bulldog from Frasier doing minor roles on this show (and Barney’s/Bulldog’s voice actor obviously not anywhere near high school age). One expression keeps jumping out at me: “être à côté de la plaque” meaning to be wrong, to miss the mark, to go off track, etc. Saw a play: Piege @ Matignon. It was ok, apart from one character who was incredibly obnoxious and the climax relied on his obnoxiousness being even more over the top. It’s about a politician who, upon hearing that his party’s candidate won the presidential election, has hopes of being named premier ministre (hence the reference to Matignon) only to have them dashed when a video of him dressed in drag coming home from a costume party is leaked on the internet. They would sometimes fit in little puns based on real politicians that it seemed only I understood (or that I understood quicker than the rest of the audience). One being the politician holding up two blue shirts asking which one he should wear and his wife says “le bleu marine – ca fait tendance en ce moment” which is a reference to Marine Le Pen. Though I did miss a couple punch lines and I hated the aforementioned character who was supposed to be funny so I missed out on some laughs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 42 of 336 08 July 2012 at 8:15pm | IP Logged |
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I've been negligent in updating and in studying. Trying to enjoy what could likely be
my last moments in Paris/France. Some things that I've been doing: last week I went to Versailles for the last night of "Mois Moliere" a sort of theatre and arts festival held every day of June in Versailles centered around Moliere. I saw L'Ecole des Femmes which wasn't easy to follow without having read it first. I did read a synopsis beforehand so I could follow the story at least. It was a great day - I had gone earlier to explore Versailles a bit and I managed to sneak into the palace gardens (I wasn't looking to but an opportunity presented itself and I didn't even know if the wide open gate I found led to the gardens or not). When coming out of the play, we all saw fireworks behind the palace which was just magical. On the train back home I had a full view of Paris with the sparkling Eiffel Tower - which seriously never gets old. I also visited Parc Saint Cloud, advertised as one of the most beautiful parks in Europe and it can certainly live up to that name. Yesterday I participated in the Chasse aux Tresors de Paris. Each arrondissement presents a sort of scavenger hunt with cryptic clues which were hidden in the form of a series of love letters. My team did the expert version for the 9th arrondissement and we did quite well. The clues were challenging but far from impossible and I even managed to figure out a few of them for my team which I was proud of. For example the letter referred to "ivresse" in a sort of throwaway sentence that no one was paying much attention to which I suspected was significant, then I spotted a wine shop "Le repaire de Bacchus". Later last night I went to the last showing of the season of Panic Cinema with a group from OVS. It's an indie cinema that shows strange, cheesy, unique, etc films on Saturday nights which has a strong geek following. They try to create a sort of Rocky Horror atmosphere where everyone is encouraged to have fun. They have special series of horror and porn films in addition to the more "mainstream" ones. If you still have a stereotypical view of Paris it would surprise you to find this gem there. They showed the 80s film "Megaforce" with Barry Bostwick in VF. It was a classic "nanar" - a film that's so bad it's good (as opposed to a "navet" which is simply a bad film). They invited the director team that happens to be called Megaforce and who directed videos for Britney Spears and Madonna and they played some of their work beforehand. The guy who runs the site Nanarland was there as well. Other than that I've been doing a bit of Spanish - got to relatives in my book and picking up Assimil again. I'm also developing plans/ideas for tutoring once I get home. Thumbed through my Irish book but decided to put it off for the time being. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4398 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 43 of 336 09 July 2012 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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Wow, it sounds like you have been having fun! That theater sounds cool, I wish I had known about it last night as I am leaving on Thursday. Perhaps next time!
Would you like to meet up in Paris for a chat or something? I am here with two friends. No problem if you don't. I would send a PM but they seem to take about 15 days to arrive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 44 of 336 09 July 2012 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
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Well if you end up going to school in Paris you can be a regular.
And yes, I have tons of free time other than early evenings. I'll try to send you some contact info. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 45 of 336 10 July 2012 at 2:28pm | IP Logged |
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My Spanish grammar book is starting to become too hard because of vocabulary (it covers
A1-B2) so I'll switch back to focusing primarily on Assimil and Madrigal's. I got all the way through interrogatives and exclamatives which I'll also need to review later on (most likely in whatever Spanish class I end up taking). It still serves as a way to get an idea of what all the "grammar words" are which helps with basic reading which ought to help me absorb the basic patterns. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 46 of 336 13 July 2012 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
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Checked out Slow News in Spanish - a great site. I'll be trying to incorporate as much listening practice
as I can in addition to work with courses. The quicker I develop my ear for "real" Spanish the better. Just one week left here :( Starting work on my future. I contacted my local parks and recreation district which offers various classes for the community each quarter. They often have conversational classes for various languages but I emailed them suggesting a class in language learning strategies. They sent me a proposal form which I'll work on filling out as well as creating a rough class outline and starting promotion (the proposal is stronger if you can demonstrate interest). My sister works with the chamber of commerce so I ought to get some help drumming up interest. If I can share my knowledge of how to achieve language goals with people who would have otherwise shelled out a ton of money on Rosetta Stone without knowing any better and manage to make a bit of money doing it then that would be awesome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 47 of 336 23 July 2012 at 3:19am | IP Logged |
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So this is the last week :'( I had a pretty rough time accepting it the end of last
week but I'm doing better for the moment. I fit in a little Spanish study - some Assimil and then review of regular verbs before diving into the irregulars. I'm doing okay with those though it's clearly still in the intellectual part of my brain and not the habit/instinct part. Set up my accounts for my little language tutoring business (hope I get students). Need to give the site/blog a little style, write up a few blog posts and sketch out others, set up my Amazon affiliate store (I get to make a collection of essential resources AND potentially make a little money off of it? Sweet) and my local language learning resource list, convert what I have into my proposal for a "How to Learn a Language" class for my local parks and rec district and adult school and finalize my business plan for tutoring. Oh, and I have to pack and take advantage of my last days in Paris. I think my not-able-to-sleep-on-planes problem won't be much of a problem this time. I was starting to chicken out about having a blog and all that. Thinking, "Who am I to pretend to be some kind of expert?" but then I remember that I mainly have it to support my local tutoring. I can put a URL on the fliers I post up around town so potential students who want to learn but who aren't the type to spend hours browsing the internet for guidance can see that I have some useful knowledge that could potentially help them. Plus I get valuable experience in working freelance, copywriting and promoting myself using the internet and social media (I did a little stint in social media marketing at my last job and it seems to be one to harness for future work). And then I relax a bit. Maybe one day I'll open it up to distance tutoring but one step at a time. Anyone interested in sharing tips and wisdom through a guest post let me know! And in unrelated news, since I have to take some community college courses to be eligible for the visa program for my next potential move, I've been looking at ways to make it useful. As a humanities/social sciences person I have a resume filled with soft skills and a lot of people have been recommending web/programming skills to complement them. I discovered some web development and web programming certification programs that won't take too long and will be quite a useful line item on my resume. And my little side business will give me the opportunity to practice a bit as well. I already thought of a potentially cool idea for a language learning site (hint: it would work on listening comprehension) but it'd probably take quite a while for me to get to the point where I could develop it. But stay tuned... :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 48 of 336 12 August 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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So I've been back two weeks. I spent most of my flight home (which was comprised of 4
legs) working on Spanish. Finished Madrigal's Magical Key, reviewed some Michel Thomas advanced and did quite a few Assimil lessons. Now that I've been through the Madrigal book I can see how dense an Assimil lesson is. One line will have content that gets covered over several chapters in Madrigal. I finished my class proposal and sent it in shortly after I arrived but I haven't heard anything back yet. I dived striaght into the job hunt and selling stuff on the side and that's been consuming most of my time. But it's been slowing down a bit since now I've worked through the backlog of job postings and now I work on new ones as they come in and following up on what I've applied to. With the Olympics being on I end up in front of the TV a lot and I've been catching up on all the trash TV I've missed. I do switch over from time to time to Spanish TV. On newscasts and similar stlye programming I can pick out some words here and there and I've started even being able to pick out some verbs (which I find "disappear" more). Some commercials I can understand fairly well. What I'm happy to discover is that for this kind of programming my comprehension seems mostly limited by vocabulary and lack of strong verb practice but I don't find it overwhelmingly fast. I can sense some separation of words which is a huge step in being able to comprehend native speech. Talk shows are pretty hard and series are maybe just a notch or two easier. I also never noticed just how many Spanish channels there are so it's very easy to immerse. I definitely need to organize to get some regular French work done. I'll be working on my fluidity of speech, building up my general active vocabulary in order to talk/write about a wide range of subjects (lots of Wikipedia) and ironing out some of the major mistakes I still make such as gender (need to reinforce my rules vs exceptions to the rules lists), prepositions, concordance des temps, some Franglais structures, etc. How will I go about all this? I think I'll try making my own phrase tapes from the audio that I have and just practice, practice, practice. I'll work with some of my many books for grammar and use Anki to engrain some morphology. And I'll try translating myself some more to get a better handle on how to say everything I say in English in correct French. In addition, I'll be carving out some time to get through my Irish course even if I have to do it slowly and steadily. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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