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Confessions of a procrastinator | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 1 of 20 21 August 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt there's many around as bad as me when it comes to learning a language,
inconsistently. This is my story.... I began learning French and Spanish in 1998 (21yrs old then). I completed close to a year of study via correspondence through University studies of both languages and did pretty well with them. The French program utilised French in Action and Spanish used Destinos (with separte assigments developed by the Uni's for submmission). Both are absolutely awesome programs. I evidently discovered that I could teach myself and didn't need to enrol in Uni courses to further my studies. So I bought more materials (the rest of FIA & Destinos to begin with) and embarked on a journey which resulted in very little... You see Benny the Irish polyglot hit the nail on the head when he wrote a piece about perfectionists. I'm indeed a perfectionist. I often didn't study unless I could do the certain specified hours i had set myself, wouldn't study until i'd bought such and such a book, covered all my books, ripped all my CD's, converted them perfectly, named them correctly, bought the new editions and so on and so on. In the end I have spent thousands of dollars on courses and have not progressed through them very far considering. Yes I did progress somewhat, but wow, have I stuffed around ;) But let's be a little fair. I didn't 'really' realise i was soooo passionate about languages for maybe another 10 years (not exactly, the passion was building more and more) it simmered in the background and instead I would distract myself by becoming a travel agent, trying to reach the NBA (yes I'm a BIG dreamer), imagining myself in the Tour de France, becoming a nurse (feeling it was more realistic than doing something with languages), getting married (not so time consuming, and definitely a good thing).. Anyway at times many years would pass and I'd pick up the courses again. Not where I left off, but back at the start as I wanted to learn EVERYTHING... and I did- I know the early episodes of FIA and Destinos pretty much word for word. I think there's not another language learner around that knows sooo much about language learning, phonetics, dialects... well i don't know all but i know a fair amount and yet i'm still a very basic Spanish speaker (I think A2), a B1 Dutch speaker (alough fading) - I started Dutch once upon a time, and German too, my German is almost non-existent... Well I struggled and struggled. I would study 1 hour a day, 4 hours a day... in fact whenever studying my plan would change (and still does) daily. I often studied French, Dutch, Spanish an hour of each within a day, would feel i wasn't getting anywhere, then I would drop one or 2 languages and then pick them back up again later feeling I was losing them. Then I'd scrap them all, then start 1 again.... add another... then back to 3. I even attempted a move to the Netherlands and could only manage to get to B1 before calling it quits and moving back to Australia. Admittedly my wife wasn't so keen on the weather over there, but had I studied properly before we left our trip might have been more of a success (who cares now tho). Right now i'm 36 nearly 37 and i'm (i think wisely considering my track record) concentrating on ONE language: French. But i'm still barely a b2. I've managed to get through Colloquial French and Hugo French in 3 months (while at Uni for Nursing back in 2007 or 08- the most French i ever studied was while i was doing a nursing degree apart from back in the beginning). Now as a nurse, I often look at the packaging of medical products so i can read the French on it, sometimes Spanish and Dutch, wishing I was doing a job involving languages, yet know i'm not proficient enough anyway. My plan this year was to study 3 to 5 hours a day of French. So far (due to all my breaks and distractions) i'm averaging a little over an hour. As of yesterday i'm up to Lecon 4 of FIA and Lecon 11 of Assimil as I've been stuffing around with other programs i've used 10 times already. On a positive note, my accent I feel is excellent (being a perfectionist), my vocab prob 7000 words at an estimate and maybe i'll actually make it this time as I feel i'm actually approaching a B2 (albeit prob with 2000hrs of study due to the stopping and re-starting with years and other languages in between, and honestly i'm not sure that's an exaggeration). This post feels uncomfortably self-centered and attention seeking, perhaps it is, but I had a 'what the hell' moment and just had to share my monumental rediculous journey with others. My word of advice for EVERYONE. Be realistic with your goals, slowly and steady gets you there in the end, be consistent, and maybe i'll learn to finally take my own advice too. And to end it all nicely. I'm still on a mission to get to my goal of fluency in at least one of my favoured languages (C2 in French is my aim). Wish me luck, and I'll try to do the rest, Cheers, Steve aka Petermollenburg 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5044 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 20 21 August 2013 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome to the forum, PeterMollenburg! I think where you may be getting derailed is by focusing on courses and not on actually using the language. Try to get involved with French while you are doing your course(s). If you like music- there's Lyrics Training. Listening- Le journal en français facile. Children's books for reading. GLOSS for more intensive audio and reading study. In short, engage the language on many fronts, not just courses. A course should be one out of many tools you use to engage the language and engage the language you must or you'll just be really good at studying.
Regardless, good luck! 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 3 of 20 21 August 2013 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the welcome. Sound advice you have given, I shall endeavour to take on board your tips. I must say I have bought a lot of childrens books (predominantly audio- which i haven't begun reading yet), I have subscribed to French learning mag Bien-dire (not using yet), and I am attempting to read more and more online just on topics of general interest that i'd usually read in EN (this I am actually doing). I have begun buying FR music. So I'm working on it, but could do better. Guess I was on the right track but prob still not really engaging enough. Thanks for the tips, I really appreciate it. What do you mean by GLOSS? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5548 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 20 21 August 2013 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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GLOSS
As for racking up more time, it may help to use all the 'empty minutes' in a day, commercial breaks, waiting for the coffee machine etc. I usually have flash cards, an mp3 player, a target language book or my smart phone to use those moments. But, make sure to also have some free time every day. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4691 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 5 of 20 22 August 2013 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Steve, I know the feeling of being stuck in the beginning of a lot of courses: I like the beginning, it feels full of potential, but once you get underway that feeling fades more and more and it just becomes work.
For me, the solution was to make language learning fun. Watch movies, listen to music you like, read books and comics. If I could make one specific suggestion which has really made a big difference for my progress, it would be listening to and reading Le Petit Nicolas. I've listened to the audio book about 10 times, and I'm on my third reading of the book, and it still makes me laugh! I imagine you enjoyed French at least in part because of the fun involved in the FIA videos. Find that fun again. EDIT: by the way, what French music have you found? I listen to a lot, and my kids compain that I never listen to music in English anymore! Edited by Jeffers on 22 August 2013 at 3:44am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3926 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 20 22 August 2013 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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If it's not fun...then I won't do it.
Do you enjoy working your way through those programs? Or are you doing it because you feel like you should? My favourite language-learning activities are: - reading children's novels - doing language exchanges on Skype - listening to music (and singing along!) - listening to podcasts So that's what I mostly do! Sure, I also study grammar explicitly, and I did drag myself through the first 16 lessons of Pimsleur, but the cornerstone of my language learning is thinking about things that I love to do in English or French, and then doing them in Spanish. For French, depending on your level, there are lots of children's novels available - both written in French and translated from the English. I really liked La quete de Despereaux (translated from the English novel by Kate DiCamillo - I've read it in English, Spanish and French and loved it every single time!). edited to add: Le petit Nicolas really is a great book! I listed some French Canadian children's novels in another post, that I'm copying and pasting here:
Edited by Stelle on 22 August 2013 at 4:21pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4791 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 20 22 August 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you may be around the level at which I was a year or so ago with some similar issues. What helped me from there and what didn't, what I would advise myself a year or a two ago:
1.Get reading. Not children books, unless you enjoy them. BDs are an awesome beginning. Or translated books of easier genres. For example the French translation of the True Blood books is really good or Harry Potter is a popular choice. Or books for young readers tend to be easier, such as those by Erik L'Homme, while not being boring. Get through some and once you are at least a bit comfortable, get to things you really enjoy and start from there. Discover new authors and build your own French books taste. During that journey, you will get tons of input and it will move you forward. Use French wikipedia and similar non fiction sources. 2.Get listening. Watching TV shows in French made a world of difference for me. My listening comprehension went several levels up and so did my ability to think in the language. And surprisingly, it helped with speaking a lot! There are some tv shows with good quality dubbing and some original ones ideas both on the htlal wikia or in some logs, such as emk's or mine. And Stelle is totally right about the music 3.Don't stop learning grammar. I didn't have time for this and it is noticeable. Not that much in speaking I dare guess. But every time I have a second to think about it, for example when writing or when being asked a question on grammar (like which option is correct or how to say something well), I stumble. Don't make my mistake. But for that, you don't need to go through basic courses again. Get a good grammar book with exercises or something other and dense. If grammar learning is not your favourite activity, than make the time intense so it can be shorter. And of course there is a lot more you can and should do, such as practice writing and speaking as often as possible and so on. Points one and two can be as well seen as a step towards defeating the procrastination. When you read and watch things you enjoy, than there is no reason for your brain to defend itself by procrastination. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3926 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 8 of 20 22 August 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
This is very true. If you don't like children's books in your own language, then you probably won't love them in your target language. BUT I think that a lot of adults don't realize how many good children's books there are out there! For BDs, I grew up on Asterix! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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