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French in 3 months? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3567 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 17 of 26 27 October 2014 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Cheers Jeff, thank you for the welcome!
Can I first say 'wow', I wish I could just 'cross over the Channel' and visit France whenever I 'completed' a French course! Yes, learning phrases through the context of my conversations with my French friend via email will be very important... Yes, Assimil looks like the perfect, integrated approach; I can't wait to try it out! It will arrive at my place (according to Amazon) in around 11 days from now. I happened to try out the French FSI course last night. I only spent 30 minutes on it, and most of that was reading the long-winded introduction, as well as seeing the difference between the FAST course and the BASIC course. I definitely think that the FAST course is the best way to start, because who doesn't enjoy the feeling of making rapid progress in a language, especially going from 0 to quite a bit! It seems as though they were designed for use alongside the help of a teacher, but I think they look like great self-study programs for those who are self-motivated (ie, a grammar guide alongside it, as well as a dictionary, although the free ones online are great). Can you or anyone else verify my first thoughts on the FSI French course, I only having just glanced over it? Also, the lessons look as though they are broken up into nice sections, meaning progress can be tracked easily (which, needing to learn enough French in 3 months, this is important for me!). Well, if Assimil gets lost in the mail, I sure know what I'll be using! Also, because I won't have Assimil for the first week or so of my challenge, I'll probably use FSI for this time... And the Duolingo thread: Duolingo thread Edited by liam.pike1 on 27 October 2014 at 4:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5121 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 18 of 26 27 October 2014 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You seem to be in Sydney. If so, check out Chatswood library on the Concourse. There are 4 or 5 cabinets of native French books (totalling 80 to 100 feet of shelf-space) in the "Community Languages" section, plus book+CD courses on the shelves just in front of this section, plus DVDs somewhere else, on top of normal textbooks placed among normal books, call number 445-ish 448-ish. If you search the catalogue, you'll see there are 2068 items in French in "All Shorelink Libraries", and 1646 in Chatswood alone. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3567 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 19 of 26 27 October 2014 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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haha, how did you guess? :P
Yes, but I am in Hornsby Shire... Thank you so much for telling me about this! I know exactly where the Concourse is, having even been to a concert there last year... I was just wondering, who are these resources available to? I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to borrow them since I am not of that council, that's all. I wish my council's library would have this amount of good material! They've got nothing in comparison haha Edited by liam.pike1 on 27 October 2014 at 8:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5121 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 20 of 26 27 October 2014 at 9:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hornsby library has community language books, too, although few, at the corner diagonally across from the entrance. ie. they have books in French (and other languages). Willoughby City Library That's the Chatswood library website.
Because you mentioned me and my friends:
:D I don't normally live here, though, so I don't know where "Willoughby City" covers. You'll have to study the website or ask a staff yourself. --- Edited by smallwhite on 27 October 2014 at 9:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3567 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 21 of 26 27 October 2014 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hey, thanks for the tip about Hornsby Central Library, I'll check it out next time I'm up there (which I hope isn't any time soon :P)
haha, yes, I worked out that that bit of information and that I mentioned the 'HSC' is how you would've known :P (sorry to all the non-Sydneysiders who are simply not getting any of this)... I studied Mandarin for three years in Primary School and a year in high school; never learnt a single word! According to the website of the Willoughby City library, it doesn't appear as though only residents of that area can apply for membership. Apparently anyone can join, I'll have to sign up then :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4722 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 22 of 26 28 October 2014 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned it, but Hugo's French in 3 Months would be an excellent supplement to Assimil. It is a good way to get an overview of the essential grammar of a language. FSI has the advantage of being free and more comprehensive, but Hugo is a quicker way to get a basic grasp of the grammar you need.
I am currently using Hugo, 3 years into my French studies, as a way to review the basics and fill in some gaps. But I like to use courses alongside a lot of input, so I'm working on a bunch of them. And, if I may mention another course (yes, I like courses...), if one of those libraries has Pimsleur, that would be an excellent course to help develop conversation skills. It's not really worth paying full price for, but if you can get for free or for a small loan fee, it is worth your time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| liam.pike1 Groupie Australia Joined 3567 days ago 84 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, French | Message 23 of 26 06 November 2014 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hello everyone, thank you so much for all your help and kind suggestions :)
Here is my language learning log that I've made for French; check it out if you want... My French Log Hopefully my little 'project' will set yet another precedent for all those who wonder how to go about learning a language, and whether or not it is possible to learn a language in a short space of time and in a cost efficient manner, as opposed to spending years and hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on learning a language. It's all very exciting for me! Thank you, and hopefully I'll hear from some of you soon! Liam 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5346 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 24 of 26 17 November 2014 at 2:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm currently crashcoursing (is that a word? i guess it is now) currently myself in French too. I use
https://lingvist.io, read parallel texts, watch subtitled shows and fool around on the french internet. I never seem to get along with textbooks, therefore my learning is such an uncoordinated mess. However, I'm making great progress as far as understading goes. The key thing in my case is that I picked couple of French books on the subject that interests me and that I'm familiar with and I read them despite the fact that they're totally in French and should go way over my head. They don't because as I'm familiar with terminology and I have pretty good idea of the content I can actually read them and make progress. These are not novels, btw, because novels have too much advanced vocabulary like titillating, percolator or abhorrent. I don't need those at this stage. I picked science books where there's relatively less vocabulary baggage. I keep my phone next to the book and there are mainly two apps I use for translating. One is Wordreference app and the other one, which I've grown to use much more is French offline dictionary by Livio. It looks like crap on screenshots, but it is wonderful. It provides French explanation based on Wiktionary and brief translation in English, German, Spanish and in some cases Russian. I usually can make out the meaning from the combination of those. Edited by aabram on 17 November 2014 at 2:02am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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