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TAC 13 - PAX - Croissants and Panettone

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Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 1 of 12
08 January 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged 
It's TAC challenge number 5 for me this year and whilst I may not have the same
vigorous approach to study and updating these journals, French is still very much a
part of my life.

I have 5 more months here in Bordeaux and I intend to make an improvement on the first
three months I spent here. I am currently an English teaching assistant in a high
school. Sadly I have fallen into an English bubble, but I'm making efforts to add more
French to my life.

For 2013 I've made a commitment to use Anki. Whilst it may not be the most fun, you get
a lot of bang for your buck. I would class Anki as active study whilst most of my study
is passive such as movies, T.V and podcasts.

In March I will be visiting Italy and I intend to move swiftly through Michel Thomas
Italian foundation. I will get my hands on an Assimil from French base to learn
Italian. I won't have to time to complete Assimil but I will peek at the first few
lessons.

Italian doesn't tickle my fancy too much as a long term goal, but the commonalities
with French will surely aid me in undertaking short term study.

Hopefully more goals to come.


------------------------------------------------------
For archiving purposes.

2009
2010
2011
2012

Edited by Adrean on 08 January 2013 at 5:27pm

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aloysius
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5999 days ago

226 posts - 291 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, German
Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 2 of 12
08 January 2013 at 6:05pm | IP Logged 
Great! I will have the privilege of reading your log this year as well. Always a pleasure.

I first accidentally misread your log title as Crosseyed and Painless, which is a wonderful Talking Heads song, but of
course makes no sense at all with regard to French and Italian. Right now I'm more into the former than the latter
but sometimes it's the other way round. They are both beautiful and interesting creatures.

I'm curious how you will fare with Anki. If you're successful it will certainly be a great inspiration for someone who
never manage to stick it out.

Make the most of your stay in Bordeaux! A great opportunity for sure.

//aloysius

Edited by aloysius on 08 January 2013 at 6:07pm

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Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 3 of 12
16 January 2013 at 6:27pm | IP Logged 
It's been a lukewarm start to the year thus far - thankfully I didn't make any
grandiose ambitions right from the get-go.

I've been hitting Anki for 10-20 minutes each day. I used this successfully a few years
ago and I know it's a proven method especially when you are studying from sentences
that are in context, so I am returning to it.

I watch several hours of T.V every other day.

I've seen a couple of films notably an Italian film with French subtitles called
Accatone by director Pasolini.

I also joined a French dance class and got along just fine with comprehension. Just one
of those New Year Resolutions.

Thankyou Aloysius for your comment,I look forward to working with you once again.
Crosseyed and Painless is quite the funky song and perfect background music for writing
this post.
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Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 4 of 12
29 January 2013 at 8:43pm | IP Logged 
Almost to the end of the first month of the challenge. Overall this month was an
improvement on the last three. I had more exposure to native resources, in particular
podcasts, T.V and film. I would say in terms of this kind of passive study I have done
between 50-70 hours.

Apart from passive study I've had a couple of language exchange meet-ups which went
reasonably well. Still trying to find a reliable and regular partner. I have another
exchange this weekend.I have a dance class once a week. I attended a wine tasting just
last week too.

I have been doing 10 minutes or so of Anki each day and getting through the cards which
are proposed to me. As I progess more through the deck the more and more cards will
appear so I will likely spend more time with this method.

As for films I have seen 6 or so during the course of this month. Notably 'Holy Motors'
which was voted the best French film of 2012 by 'Les Cahiers du Cinema'.

I think I could write a little about Bordeaux in the coming posts to give any readers a
better idea about the region. The days are getting longer now and the temperature is
becoming more milder which is very welcome indeed.
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songlines
Pro Member
Canada
flickr.com/photos/cp
Joined 4968 days ago

729 posts - 1056 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 5 of 12
30 January 2013 at 6:43am | IP Logged 
Adrean wrote:
I think I could write a little about Bordeaux in the coming posts to give any readers a
better idea about the region.


Yes, please; - I really enjoyed your posts/blog entries from Annecy, and presently know almost nothing about
Bordeaux.

By the way, there's a small Team PAX activity which we're doing. Read Kanewai's proposal in post
105, and share a song...!


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Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 6 of 12
13 February 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged 
@Songlines - I will make it my goal to make a post about Bordeaux with pretty pictures
eventually!

It's been a couple of weeks since the last post. It's been more of the same, more or
less.

I have been keeping up regular study with Anki which is quite satisfying. I can finish
off a hundred or so cards a day in about 15-20 minutes. It depends how quickly I want
to run off and do something else. The deck I am doing concentrates on words in
sentences and therefore in context. I find it almost easier to retain a whole sentence
than just a singe word out of context. If anybody is using Anki to study French I
recommend French Intermediate Sentence deck which has about 1007 cards (there are some
single words). I made the deck 3-4 years ago now and I'm glad it's doing well and has
the number one spot for French deck downloads :)

Socially, I had an exchange the weekend before last which went remarkably well. I am
having one this Saturday. I had a few drinks with some of my older high school students
last night but I treated it as an opportunity for them to speak English, although
French naturally broke out between them sometimes. I also had a dance class which I
guess is a bit of a 'learn language' class too. Little exchanges are happening all the
time just by being here in France, but there are too many to mention.

Most notably in terms of study I have tried to make audio recordings on subjects which
have me speaking for 5 or so minutes. This was inspired by my team mate tastyonions who
makes short audio recordings. I usually choose a subject that I like and try to talk
about it without stumbling too much, for example I chose Anki and a couple of my
favourite French podcasts to talk about. I might share them with the PAX group later
and get a second opinion when I muster the courage.

I will be in Italy for 10 days in 3 or so weeks which I'm really excited about. I
forgot to mention the last time that I got my hands on the French Michel Thomas course
version to learn Italian. It's almost as if they copied the Michel Thomas Italian
course script and used actors and adapted it slightly for the French language. This
might be a good idea for those of you who would like to use L2 to study for L3. I think
overall it's very well done.

Edited by Adrean on 13 February 2013 at 5:19pm

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Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 7 of 12
18 February 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged 
Had a satisfying exchange over the weekend. The language became somewhat relaxed and
flowed easily for a short period. I mentioned this afterwards to the person and they
said they realised that I seemed a little more in control than usual.

I wanted to drop down here, if only for my team-mates who are learning French a few
videos that I made to see my level at the moment. I would like to share some of my
preferred methods of study and I hope they may grab someones fancy. I made the videos
quickly and on a whim so no fancy editing or purposeful rambling - just rambling.

The first is my favourite French radio program called
Le masque et
la plume
. It's a once a week French cultural program on the cinema, theater or
books.

The second is a podcast put out by a Swiss radio station called
On en parle .
It's about various subjects, though they often pertain to a Swiss public.

The third is about my
French intermediate
sentence anki deck
which I made several years ago.
1 person has voted this message useful



Adrean
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
France
adrean83.wordpress.c
Joined 5927 days ago

348 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: FrenchC1

 
 Message 8 of 12
02 March 2013 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
I just returned from having a language exchange. Thankfully I've found a regular
responsible person who is willing to meet each and every week and spend 3 or so hours
together. The French wasn't flowing today all too well though. We visited a museum
which on the first floor has sculptures from Roman times to modern times. The second
level is dedicated towards the history of Bordeaux.

Tonight I will be going to dinner at a colleague's house and so I will spend the
evening speaking French. I fretted about what to bring to a French person's home for
dinner but I ended up choosing a bottle of wine.

I lost my anki deck due to a computer reboot. Haven't got the motivation to restart
with the same deck just yet. I have been watching a few episodes of South Park in
French as well as podcasts.

The last few weeks I've taken advantage of the warmer weather to go exploring around
Bordeaux by bike. If you find yourself outside of Bordeaux centre chances are you will
have a vineyard within sight. It's simply breathtaking to see the plenitude of
vineyards everywhere. At this time of year they seem to be quite busy with the cutting
down of the vines from the previous year. They effectively leave the stump of the tree
and just a few inches of the vine branch. After they have cut down the vines they
collect the wood and burn it which seems to be quite lawful. The smell of burning vines
is becoming a familiar smell at this time of year.


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