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La troisième croisade (FR/IT/EO) TAC ’15

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Lakeseayesno
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Mexico
thepolyglotist.com
Joined 4114 days ago

280 posts - 488 votes 
Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 49 of 92
01 January 2015 at 8:52pm | IP Logged 
Abandon hope all ye who enter...

... I mean, welcome to my TAC 2015 thread! To read my TAC 14 log and the materials, resources and websites, I used to learn Nahuatl, please roll your illustrous persona back to page one of this thread. I will keep the first page updated with Nahuatl resources if I happen to come by them.

This would be my third time participating in TAC (hence the title being "the Third Crusade"). I will be juggling three languages this year: French, Italian and Esperanto. Details on my status on all three follows here:

FRENCH
At this point, I've been studying it alone for less than a month, so saying I'm A1 would be more a compliment than a reality: let's leave it at false beginner. In spite of almost all my friends speaking it in varying levels, I'd always sort of abhorred French (to the point where I'd sworn I'd never learn it--says something about my force of will, doesn't it?)--however, I started Duolingo-ing it almost as a joke, challenged by my family to try. That it hasn't come along as easily as other romance languages moved me to consider it as a more serious challenge, and now I'm ready to make it my main language for this year.

My motto for this mission is "petit a petit, l'oiseau fait son nid" (little by little, the bird makes its nest). I don't want to burn out on this language, but rather build on it in small increases. Unlike Nahuatl last year, I have TONS of support and resources for this language. There are francophones all over my social circles, books in french in many libraries. It may be conceited of me to think thus, but if I advanced a good deal in a language with as many pedagogical holes in the road as Nahuatl, I think I'll do just fine in French if I focus on fixing my weak spots, such as pronunciation and cognates.

I'd be happy if I can take this language to an even B1 (that is, balanced input and output) by the end of the year. I wasted no time and signed up to Italki's language challenge for French, which requires 20 hours of classes in 45 days. The last one I participated in was 12 hours in 30 days, so this doesn't feel too intensive. I want to use this challenge as a way to immerse myself in the spoken language from the start, something I failed to do with Italian and cost me dearly. Another thing I want to do is to keep taking at least two hours of French tutoring a week after the challenge is over, without excuses like "life got in the way". Two hours a week isn't too demanding.

ITALIAN
I don't remember well when I started with this language, but it's been more than a year. I really got to the point where I enjoyed it speaking it a lot, but during November and December I really didn't get the chance to meet the people with whom I usually spoke it. My focus, as it was during 2014, will be on speaking and reading it more often.

It's been suggested that I try out for CILS B2 this year. It isn't a terrible idea: in fact, I think it'd force me to understand and work on my weaknesses more than goal-less self-study would. The problem is that I also want to try JLPT N1 (Japanese C2) this year, so I'm slightly worried about the logistics of doing two big tests in one year. CILS is in the summer while JLPT is in the winter, so it isn't impossible, but neither of them is my main language this year, so I'm worried studying for them would get in the way of French.

I'll decide closer to the sign-up date of CILS, I guess.

ESPERANTO
Unlike the other two, I haven't got an especific goal for EO. I'm roughly A2 in it: I finished a few courses on Lernu last year and bought myself a self-study book, but I'm still not sure of when I want to squeeze it in. Seeing as I don't really need to study Italian actively anymore (unless I sign up to a CILS prep course), I'm thinking I'll treat it as a backup language when I'm fed up with French.

Another idea that comes to mind is that since I'm thinking of going to the NY Polyglot Conference in October, maybe I should take all of September to study Esperanto alone, and see how well I fare with relatively little study and a month-long revival session.




As a general goal, I'd really like to try and keep my log updated better than I did last year. I DID improve over the first time I did TAC (if you consider that on my first try I puttered out halfway), but there's a lot of improvement to be had.

Well, that's it. Wish me luck!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4946 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 50 of 92
01 January 2015 at 10:41pm | IP Logged 
Good luck with your Romance studies! All of our languages overlap: I'm a false beginner in both Esperanto and Italian, having dabbled on them till an A2 level in the past. I'm one of the people who love the French language, so it was my main language back in 2012. I will keep following your log.
2 persons have voted this message useful



tristano
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 3827 days ago

905 posts - 1262 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 51 of 92
02 January 2015 at 9:43pm | IP Logged 
Hey, I like your motto :)
Good luck!
1 person has voted this message useful



tastyonions
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4445 days ago

1044 posts - 1823 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 52 of 92
03 January 2015 at 1:13am | IP Logged 
Salut Lakeseayesno. Je lis votre blog de temps en temps et ça me fait plaisir de voir que vous apprenez le français. Bon courage ! :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Lakeseayesno
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Mexico
thepolyglotist.com
Joined 4114 days ago

280 posts - 488 votes 
Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 53 of 92
03 January 2015 at 2:33am | IP Logged 
Merci beaucoup, tastyonions! :) Je vais essayer d'écrire sur ma mission linguistique du français aux le blog.
1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4689 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 54 of 92
03 January 2015 at 1:14pm | IP Logged 
Bienvenue à Team Français 2015. If you like Duolingo, you might also want to try lingvist.io (while it's still free).

If you write in French for the TAC, please also translate it into English. This will help the less confident follow what you write, and also allow more advanced learners to see exactly what you meant to write so they can help you with corrections.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Lakeseayesno
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Mexico
thepolyglotist.com
Joined 4114 days ago

280 posts - 488 votes 
Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 55 of 92
06 January 2015 at 5:56am | IP Logged 
Salut Jeffers! Je utilise déjà lingvist.io ;) J'aime ça!
(Hi, Jeffers! I am already at lingvist.io. I like it!)

The first few days have gone without much to report on, although I'm proud to say the other day I made my few first sentences without looking at the dictionary and nobody in the room looked at me like I had sprouted a second head, so I'm guessing I did well... decent... more or less? :)

For the time being, my daily routine consists of:
(obligatory tasks)
1. one Duolingo unit,
2. a few Mems in Memrise
3. writing one original thought on Facebook (where I have several friends to point out mistakes)
(non-obligatory tasks)
4. Listening to a few minutes of the "Français authentique" podcast for later review
5. Checking out what's new on the "7 jours sur la planete" app.
6. Noting down new words and expressions.

I'm also preparing everything for a good Italki challenge (which includes finding a good teacher--still browsing profiles, so I'm open to recommendations). I'm feeling pretty psyched about this one, but like I said before, I want to keep my wits about me and avoid burnout like the pest it is.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Lakeseayesno
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Mexico
thepolyglotist.com
Joined 4114 days ago

280 posts - 488 votes 
Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 56 of 92
10 January 2015 at 4:26am | IP Logged 
C'est le nouvième jour de l'annèe, à peine 2 mois depuis le moment quand j'ai commencèe a apprendre, et déjà je peux percevoir un changement dans m'attitude antérieur concernant cette langue. Tous le jours je deviens un peu plus intéressé dans cette langue.

Hours this week: somewhere between seven and eight. I discovered FluentU, and I'm pretty hooked (although I feel it's still a tad buggy), so I've been mixing it with my other tools and apps. I'm a bit fascinated by how well Duolingo and Lingvist.io complement each other.

I've gone ahead and booked a few tutors for the Italki challenge. Truth be told I want to stick with one (two at most), so as to keep a linear structure, but I'm taking the few first hours as test drives to see whose method matches my work ethic best. I'd like to solve some grammatical sore points first before deciding what to do next, but I'm most definitely set on talking as much as I can without regressing into English, Spanish or Italian. This reminds me that at this point I have yet to feel any interference between my other two Romance languages and French, but it hasn't been that long, so maybe interference is just lurking around the corner...

I'm also honestly very curious about how well I can defend myself in the language with the small vocabulary I have by this point. As an exercise in description and vocabulary development (and in self-control), I'm always telling my students "if you don't know the word, try describing the concept WITHOUT stepping outside the language": I'm curious about how well I can do that after scarcely doing two months of French.


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