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I’m riding my bike around France in May | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5329 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 32 28 April 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I just discovered your log! I'm quite impressed by your long speech in Japanese, and your rapid progress with Assimil NFWE.
French definitely feels like cheating to me, too. There's so much transparent vocabulary, and lots of familiar grammar. I still have to work to improve, but it feels like the work pays off four times faster than it should. This feeling is even more pronounced when I compare Assimil's L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique with their L'Espagnol—my combined knowledge of French and English make Spanish far more transparent than Egyptian. Of course, you're right about the challenges of producing truly idiomatic French. It's not that hard to produce grammatical and comprehensible French. But stomping out the last anglicisms and saying things almost the way a native would still requires a ton of input and at least some feedback. I think this is true for any language, no matter how closely related. Interestingly, the tense which has been the hardest for me use idiomatically has been the imparfait. It's vaguely analogous to the past progressive in English, but the rules for when to use it are very subtly different. So this is the single tense where I've had to actively fight interference from English. The subjunctive, on the other hand, was actually pretty straightforward, because it's governed by very strict rules: You basically use it 100% of time in certain constructions, and 0% of the time in other constructions, and only a few rare constructions ever force you to make a choice. And it's possible to get lots of practice with the French subjunctive using il faut que…, which is very hard to overuse. :-) I think the only reason people struggle with the French subjunctive is that they want it to make sense, rather than treating it as a set of rules to be followed mechanically. One piece of advice: Pay close attention to the ends of words in French, and which sounds actually get pronounced in which situations. Make sure you're conscious of the final "t" when you hear une femme intelligente, and keep in mind how it differs from the masculine intelligent. The same goes for bon versus bonne and il comprend versus ils comprennent. I didn't pay enough attention to these distinctions early on, and it made it unnecessarily hard for me to acquire the French gender system. French is a phonetically rich language, and some of those tiny distinctions carry very important information.
Oh, marvelous! I'm glad you're enjoying MC Solaar. My favorite songs from those three albums are:
I can sing along with almost all of these, but my favorites for singing in the car are Ben oui ! and Da Vinci Claude. They're both humorous songs with some very fast articulation, and it's a good workout. Lève-Toi et Rap is good challenge, too. Among MC Solaar's earlier albums, I highly recommend Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo. It's only available used (thanks to a jerkish executive in the French music industry), but it contains several classic MC Solaar tracks, including Caroline, Bouge de là and three or four solid tracks near the start of the album. I've found two really good ways to work with these songs: 1. Attempt to make a blind transcription, playing small sections of the song over and over, and writing down what I think I hear. This only works with certain tracks, but it's a good exercise. This probably requires a fairly large vocabulary. 2. Make Anki cards containing a short sound clip on the front, and 1 to 3 lines of lyrics on the back, along with any translation or cultural notes which seem useful. (You should be able to open the MP3 file in Audacity, select a portion of the sound, and paste it straight into Anki.) These cards are really fun, and they're remarkably effective. Once they mature after a month or two, I have 98% comprehension on the song, and I can easily learn to sing along. This is true even for songs which would otherwise be way beyond my level. In any case, best wishes for your studies! And I look forward to hearing about the native media you discover. There's a lot of really cool stuff out there, including both "high" culture and a lot of fun popular materials. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Travis.H Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4253 days ago 59 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Sign Language Studies: French | Message 18 of 32 06 May 2013 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the advice and encouragement!
I'll keep an eye out for those grammatical rules and pronunciation trip-ups. I remember reading somewhere in your log that you were getting some feedback on Lang-8 for some misused imparfait. Grammar can sometimes be a false friend indeed. I have big plans on doing a grammar outline once I finish Assimil. I got the idea from this website: http://www.streetsmartlanguagelearning.com/ The site is a little hard to navigate but sort of a hidden gem in terms of ideas on tackling grammar and a few other good language learning tips. I'm a huge fan of your song selection. A few other songs that I've really been enjoying of his have been: RMI Gangster Moderne (from youtube) Au pays de Ghandi t'inquiete I created an Anki deck today for Da Vinci Claude in the format you suggested. I remember reading on AJJAT awhile back about something like this and did it for a few Japanese songs. I don't remember how I made the decks but I think I had them flipped around where I looked at Japanese, produced it and then listened to the audio to correct myself. I'm excited to see how having the audio on the front with no text will change how I attack the song. Just running through it once today I can tell that I listen much more intensely to the audio which will be a great asset in comprehension. In other news today I found a French copy of Le Petit Prince for a dollar at a garage sale. I've read the book in English, Japanese and Spanish and am excited to finally read it in its native language. I haven't decided how I want to tackle it yet. I've read over a few pages already picking out words I know but I'm thinking I might go through it with a dictionary to see if I can't mine it for useful phrases and vocabulary. Edited by Travis.H on 06 May 2013 at 6:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Travis.H Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4253 days ago 59 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Sign Language Studies: French | Message 19 of 32 04 June 2013 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Today I met a group of French guys at the skatepark. I typically go after work when no
one is there so I can pretend that I'm better than I am. Today I was very surprised to find a large van with about 10-11 skaters all speaking French rolling around the park. As I cruised around the park I could hear they were speaking something other than English, but didn't find out until I got closer that it was French. In a subtly creepy way, I lurked near their group to see if I could understand what they were saying. I caught a few words and phrases which was exciting to pretend that I could understand them. It took me about 45 minutes to work up the courage to go talk to them. I finally worked up the guts to awkwardly blurt out "VOUSêtes BIEN françAIS!?" (a phrase I learned from an assimil lesson) to which they laughed and said, "Ah ouais" and then said something quickly to each other. The conversation didn't go any further because the sheriff showed up at that moment and kicked them out for drinking beer at the park. The funny thing is that he thought I was with their group and spoke to me loudly, using large gestures pointing to the sign saying there wasn't any drinking allowed. I hadn't been drinking at all and told him that I was just saying hi to them. As soon as he heard me speaking native English he relaxed a bit and apologized. I've never been grouped with other foreigners before by looks alone. Living in Japan I've always been obviously different than everyone else. It was strange to think that if I spoke French well enough, I could fit in with the group visually. The entire encounter with the French skaters was quite awkward. I walked away from it a little discouraged, realizing that I'm no where near being able to carry on a conversation in French. It's been difficult keeping good study habits going with this new job. I want to move from doing graphic design into doing architecture and I figured a good way to do that would be to get some practical building experience. Somehow I got a job doing construction for the summer, working for my friend's dad. The work is very physically demanding and I start early and by the time I finish work I'm so tired I feel like I can't turn my brain on. While I'm at work I try to fill in the gaps with short anki sessions and listening to French or Japanese while I'm doing work by myself. But, it's not enough and I want to be doing more. I spend all day learning new skills and moving heavy objects that I can't seem to find enough time to dedicate solid, focused attention to my studies which is frustrating. I didn't feel too encouraged today meeting my first native speakers but it did make French more real. This might sound weird to native French speakers, but hearing real people speak the language made it something tangible for me. It took it off the pedestal I had it on and made me realize it's time to start doing some actual speaking. I'm nearing the end of Assimil and feeling like there is a lot of random jumbled French phrases and words in my head. A good start, but time to start organizing that information and "activating" it. Edited by Travis.H on 04 June 2013 at 7:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Travis.H Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4253 days ago 59 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Sign Language Studies: French | Message 20 of 32 21 June 2013 at 6:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm pleased to announce that I will be doing a bicycle tour around France next year. The plan
is to fly into Paris and bike counter-clockwise around France, visiting famous architectural sites. From what I've roughly mapped out, the trip will be about 2,500 miles and I'm giving myself about two months to complete the route. One month of riding, and one month for seeing things. This may seem a bit impulsive but I actually began planning and budgeting for this trip a month after I started learning French. The plan is to spend the entire two months completely in French, listening to French while I ride and speaking French with people as often as I can. I don't have all of my goals laid out nicely yet but I will once I get nearer my departure date next May. One goal I have for certain though is to get to a B2 level before I leave. I'll need enough comprehension sills to be able to listen and actuallyenjoy a large amount of French without too much strain. I would be very pleased if I was at the point where I could listen to harry potter-level and up audio books. This means I have a lot of work to do to get to a B2 level before May next year. --Where my French is now-- I'm in a weird place. I've reached lesson 90 in Assimil and I've noticed myself spending less time with Assimil and more time watching youtube videos and short news clips in French. I was actually surprised to discover watching these clips that I understand more than I thought I did. And then I watch, read or listen to something else and am hit with the reality that I know so little. I've been mostly just listening to French. With my job situation I can get a lot of audio but I don't have a lot of time to get much reading. I mostly listen to music or Assimil. The assimil lessons I've done, I've listened to so much they replay themselves in my head and several of them I can recite word-for-word. I feel like I learn more French with Assimil, but the youtube videos and music are more fun. I'll still finish Assimil, but I'm not going to be doing a lesson a day. It'll be more like a lesson spread over two days with lots of review in there. And then music, lots of music. My favorite piece of media I found though was an hour stand-up set that Eddie Izzard did completely in French. I was blown away. It's really nerve wracking to do anything for tv or an interview in another language, but to do an entire comedy show in a second language was very impressive. Jean Reno was also spotted in the audience. I feel like French is about to explode out of me. I'm building up listening hours but I haven't had really any speaking hours. This has been good. From my experience with Japanese, massive amounts of input really help with output at any stage in learning. My plan was to hire a tutor at the beginning of August, but I'm thinking of doing it sooner. Anyone know a good French tutor? I'm going to be laying out a mini-grammar goal this weekend that I can hopefully start next week. The plan is to create outlines for grammatical patterns I've seen so far and write explanations in my own words. I'll try to do a more thorough write-up of exactly what I'm doing hopefully at the beginning of next week. Edited by Travis.H on 21 June 2013 at 6:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4533 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 32 21 June 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I know the feeling- pretty much every time I hear someone speak German I try to talk to them, and more often than not it doesn't work. Spontaneous interactions like this are really difficult. Even if they were English speakers they might not have wanted to bring someone into their group. I think it's better to judge yourself on interactions that you've planned out, like skype exchanges and language meetups. がんばれ！ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4225 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 22 of 32 22 June 2013 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hello fellow romulan =) Glad to see you're still studying even though you're so busy! And I agree with osoymar -
don't be discouraged. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5006 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 32 26 June 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks for the link to the Izzard clip. I don't usually listen to much stand-up comedy, and certainly don't usually understand it in French, but I think it really helped that Izzard was doing it in his second language: he didn't speak as quickly as a French person would, and possibly not as quickly as he himself might in English. One of my favourite bits was near the end, around the one-hour mark, when he did a sequence involving Latin. I noticed your thread requesting French-language material on cycling. - If I come across anything (e.g. blogs from people who've done some of the long-distance bike routes) in English, would you like me to PM them to you? - Or do you already have enough English info.? Edited by songlines on 26 June 2013 at 9:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Travis.H Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4253 days ago 59 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, Sign Language Studies: French | Message 24 of 32 13 July 2013 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the encouragement everyone!
I'm getting so close to finishing Assimil and it's taking all of my energy to not try and not rush through to the end. I'm still doing about twice as much review during the day of previous lessons as I am spending with new lessons. It might not be the best strategy, but I'm doing what I can. I created a new Anki deck apart from the Assimil deck I've been working through that I titled "Fun French". I've put in some random phrases and things I read that I'd like to remember. This includes such fun phrases as, "Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois" and "C'est la fin des haricots". And thanks to EMK I've created a new gender deck that lays out some fundamental rules for identifying gender. I got it from this website. I got a number from a coworker of a French guy who lives near where I live. I guess he's met with other students before to just speak French. I'm going to try and give him a call next week to see if I can meet up with him to speak some French. It's a little intimidating, but I'm just going to push past that and go for it. I found a new artist that I can't decide if I like yet. They're called Stupeflip and they're crazy. I like their song Stupeflip Vite and haven't really listened to much of their other songs yet. I'll post an update after I've given them a good listen to. Edited by Travis.H on 13 July 2013 at 3:32am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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