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Restarting/ activating a language | ||
Tags: Activating a Language | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7005 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 9 of 17 11 March 2015 at 2:50am | IP Logged | ||
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If you can somehow score the materials you had used before, the same book, the same recordings, etc, I
think a lot of what you learned will come back quickly. (If you liked the materials before, or at least invested a lot of effort in them at that time). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5665 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 10 of 17 11 March 2015 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||
The FSI course is also decent, though not one of their best. I didn't find it helped my French as much as other FSI courses i've done, but it's still much more comprehensive (and free) than most other courses you'll find. Personally, i'd recommend taking a serious go at the old Assimil course. Take your time with it and don't rush through it, it'll definitely be worth it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4809 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 11 of 17 12 March 2015 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had to restart French a few times in past. And I found a few catches to the process:
1.going through old material may be boring and discouraging at times but there are advantages others already described 2.going through a new beginner course may be boring and discouraging either, unless it is something of a totally different kind that you really like. I think Assimil could work fine (I've met a few people, and considered to do the same, who gave up on their forgotten high school language and found it easier to just learn a different one. The discouragement from return to beginner courses played a role, I believe) 3.I found it useful not to go through classical courses that much again, the Progressive series (grammars, vocabularies etc) proved very useful. It can refresh what you know quite fast and cover the gaps your previous courses left. And there are alternatives, should you not like the particular series. 4.This might be an individual issue but I found that my ears tend to forget much more than my eyes. Lots of listening (for exemple beginner podcasts, audio to whichever course you choose, songs and so on as you probably hadn't been watching movies yet when you left French) helped me regain my lost skills much faster. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Komma Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 3859 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish | Message 12 of 17 12 March 2015 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
That's an interesting point. It's a pity I didn't take my old books with me as I moved out. I have to ask at home whether they still exist, but I doubt it. I might try get it used somewhere which seems to be very cheap, but I'm not sure whether I like this course enough ^^ It's better than most of the courses I got around (as it covers more topics that young people like me like :D) @crush: Thanks for reminding me. I found the link to those Assimil courses last time I searched for Spanish. I believe that is a good thing to start with. And maybe I'll get the newer one and make both or look into both and look where the differences are etc. @Cavesa: I thought that too, and started with Spanish a year ago. I now have given up on that too for half a year (mostly due to massive university work and not much capacity left for learning languages, but I think I was also a bit lazy). And now I always think of french vocab when trying to get the Spanish stuff ^^ And I noticed that I seem to like French more than Spanish. I like some French singers and haven't got a hook in Spanish at the moment (except for visiting it this year again i think, but I'm too shy to talk when I'm only at A1 or 2) I've got the grammaire progressive in intermediate and advance from the library. I didn't know there was a vocabulary book :) Thank you for mentioning it. point 4: Yes I also experience that. I just started with a podcast and listening has always been my weak part. Reading is so much easier. Especially in French where it's pronounced so different than it's written. Thank you all for your comments. I think I have an idea how I want to start and then I'll see how I continue :D 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4966 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 13 of 17 12 March 2015 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had to (re)stsrt German last year and Italian this year. I was a strong A2 in German, proportionally better active than passive skills, and a weak B1 in Italian but I could already understand over 80% thanks to Portuguese, French and Spanish.
What I did for German: I got to Assimil but I did everything faster. I had three editions for German, so I did each at a rhythm of 7 lessons a day. Then I picked the two Assimil intermediate courses, also faster than 1 lesson a day. I was already using native materials back then but I kept working on Deutsche Welle's monolingual courses which one decade ago I thought I'd never be good enough to use. Then I went through a good grammar reference to fill in the gaps. And now I expect to learn declension through output, as I can already have the basic conversations and just make the usual declension mistakes. It is easier to learn if you do directed exercises. What I did for Italian: it is much easier than German for me. I did the whole Duolingo and it helped activate something, as my skills were mostly passive. Then I did one Assimil beginner in a rush. I did find the other two editions to be redundant. Afterwards I worked on two TY booklets aimed at tourist talk, as there is a trip coming. I particularly liked TY Italian Conversation. I think they provided the tourist talk in a more dynamic way than rote memorization of key phrases. I wouldn't work on this if there wasn't a trip coming, but it was pretty useful. And now I've started Assimil Perfectionnement Italien which I will work on slowly because I can already understand Italian and I want to reflect on the lessons slowly in the hope of turning some knowledge into active knowledge. I can work on native materials whenever possible, it's just a matter of time constraints now. So it is still a different situation from German, as Italian is a language practically transparent after so little time of restarting. My advice: don't spend too much time on textbooks where all you learn on a page are a couple of words and one more grammar rule to memorize. You are better off with advanced textbooks, native materials and a solid grammarboo with exercises (like Routledge's Modern {Language} Grammar: A Practical Guide. If it makes you feel better to go through this material, do so but quickly. Wait to pay attention on details only when they are worth it. Did I know basic Italian or basic German perfectly at my comeback? No, I didn't. But I think the way I adressed them this second time, after years of dormant/underlying/subconscious knowledge or how you may call it, was enough to make the bridge towards native material in a couple of weeks, literally. I'm testing this even with non-transparent languages. I regret not having studied my Georgian textbooks more in depth, even with rote memorization. Now that I'm going back to them, though, I know most of the vocabulary and I can focus on the important words I still don't know actively and on the grammar. I already know there are a couple of books I don't need to get back to, and for those I do, I will finally be able to focus on the details, other than schizophrenically trying to see both the main rules and the thousands of exceptions at the same time (which I see as a failure of the textbook, as well, as it would be muhc wiser to teach the main rules and deal with exceptions later; but you won't have this issue with common languages that have loads of materials and more choice). EDIT: I forgot to finish writing about Italian. Edited by Expugnator on 13 March 2015 at 1:10am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kees Nonaglot Newbie Canada learn-to-read-foreig Joined 4984 days ago 37 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Swedish, French, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian | Message 14 of 17 26 March 2015 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I restarted with French in the same way, although my French was pretty bad even after 8
years of High School. I started reading books again after a short course. I noticed with all languages that if you keep reading them (so actual books) even if for an hour a week, you don't really have to "restart" anymore. I guess you can use "readlang" or bliu bliu (?) to get up to speed in reading and I had some texts set up on www.bermudaword.com as well for French with manual pop-up translation so you can keep on reading. Once you can read fluently (again) the grammar will be more of an Aha-Erlebnis. Plus reading actual books is more fun than going through language courses. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tangleweeds Groupie United States Joined 3375 days ago 70 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Irish, French | Message 15 of 17 27 March 2015 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been finding Lingvist's free online French course to be a very enjoyable way to begin
bringing back my French, but I enjoy working with computer courses. My French hadn't been used in 35 years, but I studied it when I was young, so the memories have been surprisingly resilient. Lingvist now predicts that I'd recognize about 60% of the average French text I might run across. There are also reading and listening components to the site, which they suggest material according to your vocabulary. And I agree that listening is being the hardest thing to bring back. The other free online resource I'm finding very helpful is the FSI French Phonology course. This re-beginning seems like a great opportunity for me to cultivate a better accent and ear for the language right from the outset. My current deal with myself is that I'm consistent with using these free online resources this month, I can get myself the new Assimil French with Ease next month. But for now I could really use a good online grammar reference (I enjoy grammar), and I haven't found one yet. Does anyone have suggestions of online French grammar resources appropriate for the re-starter? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5583 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 16 of 17 28 March 2015 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a great post. I spent two years studying German until Sept 2014, at which point I got a job in Spain and so obviously returned to reactivating and improving my Spanish. When I leave here I'll need to reactivate my German and the problem with reading in German now is that I would never do anything to improve my Spanish, which seems like a terrible waste of being in a Spanish-speaking country. German is my passion and Spanish is just something I learn because I think I should. I force myself to listen to news podcasts in Spanish, but find myself looking longingly at the Top-Thema podcast that is still on my ipod (although they have stopped downloading by now). I have yet to find an author that writes in Spanish (yes I know there are many good ones) that really speaks to me. The guy that created SSiW (Say Something in Welsh) has a book that suggests something he calls "high intensity language training". This involves practising a language really intensively for 24 hours or 48 hours followed by some conversation and then doing absolutely nothing for a few weeks or even months. I have no idea whether this works or not, but my German situation sounds the perfect opportunity to test it! I'm now off work for Easter and am really toying with the idea of having a couple of days to just spend shadowing the three Assimil German books (which I already completed) and listening to podcasts in German. I can't shake the idea that I ought to be sensible and focus on my Spanish, though. I'm only here in Spain for a limited time and really should take the opportunity. Sorry for rambling, at any rate the main point is that, if I decide to do it, I'll post my experiences on this thread as I think it would be relevant to test out this method. Edited by Random review on 28 March 2015 at 12:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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