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LL & Loss of Confidence:How to Persevere? | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5022 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 9 of 27 02 April 2014 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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One thing I find enjoyable--your mileage will certainly vary wildly--is collecting words I don't know for SRS purposes. When I read a text and I spot a word I don't know, I get excited. I get the same feeling I got as a kid after catching a butterfly or finding a turtle in the backyard. I make a card, and feel like I'm one step closer to completing the collection.
But hey, that's just me. Have you tried LingQ? They've got a tiered system allowing you to start with very simple audio, stuff even an absolute beginner can handle, and then you can tiptoe up to harder difficulties. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5001 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 27 02 April 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not convinced by the typical advice of throwing yourself in at the deep end and trying to speak as much as possible from as early as possible, especially since you already said that your attempts so far at socialising with French people were difficult and demotivating. For certain people, including myself to an extent, repeatedly putting themselves in these situations is great as it forces them to learn and gives them lots of motivation, but I don't think that applies to everybody and in your case it might be more sensible to focus on self-study or lessons in order to at least get past the basics and to the point where these situations with natives become an enjoyable challenge rather than overwhelming. Look at them as something to work towards in order to motivate you, like "if I keep up the work I'll be able to chat with a table of French people!"
Comparatively speaking, reaching intermediate/conversational level is the easy part and doesn't require immersion; it's afterwards that living in the country and spending time with the people really becomes useful. I'm all for doing lots of speaking, especially since you're in the country so you have the opportunities, but I don't think it's the most productive thing to do when you're not yet able to understand or say much. Obviously you also want to avoid the opposite trap of never feeling "ready" to go out and speak, which is where a lot of the early speaking advice comes from, so there's a balance and I certainly wouldn't advise avoiding socialising with natives. I'm just saying I don't think it should be the priority just yet. Edited by garyb on 02 April 2014 at 6:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Raconteur Diglot Newbie Poland bit.ly/1eiSWnc Joined 3686 days ago 34 posts - 47 votes Speaks: Polish*, English | Message 11 of 27 02 April 2014 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks everyone for the feedback, and keep it coming please!
Outcast, I completely agree with the quote you brought up - “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” Very true. This is why I’m trying to do things differently this time, starting with joining this forum for support, motivation, and advice. You’re right that my present situation may not be a “winning formula” for language learning. It would be better, perhaps, to tackle it in the future (when I’m less busy). The things is, picking up French now would make living in a francophone country much more enjoyable… and this is happening now. So despite challenges, I would like to try with the little time & energy I gather for this project (not an optimal situation for sure). What do you think? Is it even possible to progress with less than an hour a day (during a time I’m likely to be tired)? Gemuse & others, Given the above, are there any resources you would recommend in particular? You said there are many good ones. Also Gemuse, I think I will take your advise and start a log on here. Staying accountable and organized will help! And some venting too probably! :) ScottScheule, Thanks for the hint. I tried SRSing before, extensively, and I am not sure if it’s for me. The logic behind the method is so cool, and I was really excited about discovering it. However, I found the process really frustrating – forgetting the same cards again and again… and again (even when they were supposed to be “mature”). Garyb, I think you’re right – immersion, when you really don’t know what’s going on, is not as helpful as advertised (at least not for me). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 27 02 April 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some ideas:
SRS-fatigue - especially, have you tried sentences? Using "hidden moments" to make time The multitrack approach diminishing returns from long sessions As for French... do you like it? Get motivated by using whatever you like most - music, books, movies. You remind me on tristano and kujichagulia who only need English for work and don't particularly like the languages of their countries. See some of the threads they started and what advice they got. Also, found a couple more threads about getting people NOT to speak in English and perfectionism. As for specific resources, I've heard French in Action is good. It's completely in French but beginners can use it. I think you need to train listening comprehension more before trying to speak with natives. (also consider practising with non-natives! just make up for that by listening to native materials too) Edited by Serpent on 02 April 2014 at 8:30pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3876 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 13 of 27 02 April 2014 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | ||
One thing I'd suggest is getting some studying done (an hour is fine) also on days when you are not tired (weekends). I have experience only with German courses, so I will just give the French counterparts to the courses I have likesd. What is your level? This is a nice easy beginner course: http://www.amazon.co.uk/French-CD-Intensive-Language-Course/ dp/3632988498 After that (or even concurrently with it), do Hugo French in 3 months. After the above two, move onto Living Language Ultimate French Beginner (you have to hunt for the book with CDs as it is out of print). Simultaneously with Ultimate French, start reading Graded parallel text readers, eg., http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Frenc h-Reader-Beginners- Bilingual/dp/1477696296 You can also throw in some fun comic based learning like: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-French -Cartoon-strip-Vocabulary- Builder/dp/0198602677 You should also get a dictionary meant for French learners. An inexpensive grammar book such as http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Fren ch-Grammar-Vocabulary- Collins/dp/0007299419 can serve as a reference. This all will take a 12-14 months, and should bring you to a solid A2. There was a great quote in Assimil German: Before you learn something, you will have to forget it 7 times. Edited by Gemuse on 02 April 2014 at 8:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4102 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 14 of 27 03 April 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
I had exactly the same experience, so I know how demotivating it can be. The problem, as I see it now, is that the entire picture of learning language this way is from word to phrase to sentence, when you ought to be working from sentence to phrase to word. Even if you learned a whole dictionary from SRS (many many hours), you would have the totally new and addtional, much harder, task of learning how they fit together. My advice, for what it's worth, is to approach language learning as collecting sentences. If you forget a word in a sentence you've internalized, then you will be able to use the other words in the sentence to remember its meaning. Assimil books are full of such whole-sentence translations. My second piece of advice would be to expect probably 500 hours of time spent in studying before you get comfortable expressing yourself and understanding others (by no means "fluent"). View the learning process as a predictable path of several hundred hours and focus on investing time on a daily basis. Calculate the hours long term and consider the benefits of 2 hours a day over just one (1.5 years compared with well under a year). And you will have satisfying milestones before 500 hours. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3876 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 15 of 27 03 April 2014 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
^^ Agree. In the spirit of mining sentences, the following "dictionary" might be useful. Use the preview function to look inside. Each entry is followed by easy to understand example sentences, presented in an uncluttered format. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Easy-Learning -French-Dictionary- Collins/dp/0007434758 Edited by Gemuse on 03 April 2014 at 12:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5326 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 27 03 April 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
From where I'm sitting, it sounds like you have two choices: 1. Give up, and stop worrying about learning French. 2. Stop giving up every time it gets hard, and hang in there until you reach B1. There's a lot to be said for giving up: You live and work in an English-speaking environment (even if it's in a French-speaking country), you're "super busy and stressed", and when you've been forced to make a choice in the past, you've always chosen to abandon French. This seems like a pretty clear choice to me. But maybe you're tired of making this choice, and you want to make a another choice. Your other choice is to decide that you want this, and that you're willing to pay the price. To reach B1, the price is roughly 400 hours of study, with noticeable payoffs starting between 100 and 200 hours. But you can't put in 30 hours per month for two months, then take a 6 month break, and then start over from scratch. You need to find a way to keep going, no matter what. But maybe you find it difficult to make a decision and stick with it (most people do). If so, here are two techniques which may help: 1. The Seinfeld method, or a 30-day "trial" commitment to studying French every day. Pros: It's free, and it forces you to set aside some time every day which never budges. The first 30 days are brutal, but if you survive, and decide to do a second 30 days, it will eventually become a habit. (I've done something in French for over 2,200 straight days.) The technique also works wonderfully with Assimil courses, which have nice short lessons you can do in a day. Cons: Once you skip a day, the system tends to break. And it only works if you're willing to commit to, say, 20 minutes every day, no matter what. 2. If a Seinfeld calendar just isn't enough, or if you can't justify investing 20 minutes every day (which I can't justify for Egyptian, for example), then you might be interested by my post on Beeminder. Beeminder calls itself "goal tracking with a sting," and it only makes sense for people who desire real, serious consequences for not following through. If you're willing to be utterly consistent, and never give up, you can probably reach a decent, low-intermediate level with as little as 30 minutes a day, five days a week, over the course of a year or two. (If you try to go much lower than that, you'll tend to forget between lessons. This can be worked around, but it's tricky, and that's a topic for another day. I'm happily learning Egyptian with an investment of 45 minutes per week.) Anyway, you can absolutely learn French. You can even have a whole lot of fun in the process (most of the time). But to do it, you have to decide that you're willing to set aside the time, and you have to stop taking 6-month breaks. If you're willing to make that commitment, we can find you excellent courses, excellent grammar books and awesome things to read and watch in French—and customize these recommendations for just about any level and personal taste. For that matter, we can even provide lots of advice on how to stick with an important goal, and how to deal with ordinary human weakness. But only you can decide whether French is a truly important goal in your life. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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