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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5271 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 169 of 1317
05 July 2012 at 7:43pm | IP Logged 
@emk, I want to thank you for introducing me to Persepolis. I had heard of the work before on NPR a few years ago. Since I don't speak French, I am reading it in Portuguese translation. The language is colloquial and the subject matter quite compelling.
1 person has voted this message useful



numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6792 days ago

856 posts - 1226 votes 
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 170 of 1317
05 July 2012 at 8:43pm | IP Logged 
Congrats emk!

I listen to Solaar too, though more to the music than the lyrics, I guess I should make
more of an effort.

Anyway, I wanted to bring something to the table. If you don't know it already there's
this comedy program called Les guignols de l'info. Nice thing is there are lots of clips
on youtube. Another thing I found today is this standup show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uu-fQ 3fd9-s
3 persons have voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5541 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 171 of 1317
05 July 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged 
Thank you for the links, numerodix!

iguanamon wrote:
@emk, I want to thank you for introducing me to Persepolis. I had
heard of the work before on NPR a few years ago. Since I don't speak French, I am
reading it in Portuguese translation. The language is colloquial and the subject matter
quite compelling.


Yeah, I'm just about to start volume 4 and I'm really glad that I bought it. It's a
relatively fast read, and it gives a fascinating perspective on Iranian history and
life as seen by western-educated locals. It's surprisingly funny, too.

In general, I really treasure written colloquial French.

...

A random thought for English speakers learning French, or any other western Indo-
European language:

- 75% of the work of learning French was done for you by the Norman invaders, the
original Indo-European tribes, and the "Standard Average European" Sprachbund.

- Of the remaining 25%, even an aging brain will learn at least 75% of that
through exposure and necessity, just like kids do.

So provided you get enough exposure to interesting, semi-comprehensible French, your
actual study efforts will pay off at 16:1.

Now, maybe there are more efficient ways to learn a language. Iversen grinds way
more than I do, for example, and he speaks a lot more languages (and his French
is better than mine). To use his metaphor, maybe I'm out gathering berries in the
woods, and he's farming. On the other hand, hunter-gatherers work about 20 hours a week
and then sit around gossiping, whereas farmers coined the saying, "A man's work is from
sun to sun; a woman's work is never done."

Or as one !Kung hunter-gatherer famously put it:

Quote:
Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?


So if intensive study works for you, go for it. But if you want to spend 75% of your
time out for a pleasant walk, chatting and looking for mongongo nuts, that can be a lot
of fun, and it seems to work out OK in the end.

Edited by emk on 06 July 2012 at 10:11pm

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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6712 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 172 of 1317
06 July 2012 at 10:44am | IP Logged 
The curious thing - and the defining trait for a nerd - is that I enjoy grinding away, but get bored by idle smalltalk and long novels even when they are in one of my target languages. The main condition is that I can see that my grinding has a visible and immediate effect.
3 persons have voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5400 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 173 of 1317
06 July 2012 at 4:40pm | IP Logged 
Congratulations! And you didn't even squeak by - that was a pretty clear pass! Your tutor
was right to tell you you'd be crazy to settle for B1! Have fun working on the next stage
of your journey.

And speaking of tutoring, I'm thinking of advertising my services as a French tutor in my
town when I get back. I figure I should mostly get middle school/high school students and
maybe some adults who've only taken high school French and I'm hoping to show them how to
make the jump into learning with native materials. I posted a topic here asking advice on
what makes a tutor worth it so if you can leave your thoughts I'd really appreciate it:
Being a
good tutor

1 person has voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5541 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 174 of 1317
10 July 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
Congratulations! And you didn't even squeak by - that was a pretty
clear pass! Your tutor was right to tell you you'd be crazy to settle for B1!


Je suis surpris par mes résultats sur la compréhension orale. En théorie, oui, c'est
possible — j'ai reçu une quantité similaire des points quand j'ai essayé avec un examen
de pratique. Mais le vrai examen était beaucoup plus difficile.

Si je recevais un email qui dit « Pardon, il y a une erreur, nous avons mélangé les
examens de deux étudiants », je ne serais pas vraiment surpris !

...

Et maintenant, mon nouveau projet. Je veux améliorer ma compréhension orale. Je suis en
train de créer un système qui me permet de réviser du dialogue et de la musique sur
Anki. J'utiliserai plusieurs outils :

- TranscriberAG pour aligner le dialogue
avec les transcriptions. J'exporte les données comme un fichier STM.

- Un script Ruby (encore très moche) qui convertit le fichier STM en TSV (pour Anki) et
crée des fichiers MP3s.

C'est un peu comme « subs2srs » pour les étudiants du français, qui n'ont jamais de
sous-titres.

Il marche déjà un peu. Mais avec un peu plus d'effort, je aurai un outil qui me permet
de créer centaines de cartes sur Anki. Avec du travail, on arrive à tout…

Edited by emk on 10 July 2012 at 12:11am

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sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5400 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 175 of 1317
10 July 2012 at 2:13am | IP Logged 
numerodix wrote:
Anyway, I wanted to bring something to the table. If you don't know
it
already there's this comedy program called Les guignols de l'info. Nice thing is there
are lots of clips on youtube.


Love Les guignols - went to a taping (well not taping exactly, it's done live). In
addition to YouTube, Canal+ is one French channel that makes a lot of their videos
available abroad (unless they're changed that). You can typically see all the Guignols
for the past week plus the weekly summary:
Les
Guignols


Cela m’intéresser de voir les solutions pour automatiser la création des cartes d'Anki
-
c'est une tache qui peut demander beaucoup de temps.

Edited by sctroyenne on 10 July 2012 at 12:24pm

1 person has voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5541 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 176 of 1317
10 July 2012 at 5:35pm | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
Cela m’intéresser de voir les solutions pour automatiser la création
des cartes d'Anki
-
c'est une tache qui peut demander beaucoup de temps.


Le voila : Make Anki cards from transcripts (en)

J'utilise ce script depuis deux jours, et je suis déjà très heureux. Il n'est pas
évident à configurer, mais une fois tout aura été configuré, vous pourrez créer des
cartes très facilement avec TranscriberAG.

J'ai commencé avec Buffy 2.09 (un épisode beaucoup plus difficile que d'habitude) et
« Da Vinci Claude », une chanson par MC Solaar. Et c'est déjà très utile : je peux
réviser une ligne difficile de dialogue plusieurs fois sans peine. Et si je veux
consacrer dix minutes à la compréhension orale du français il suffit de trouver mon
téléphone et taper l'écran un peu.

J'ai un tas de outils comme ce script, parce que je suis développeur. Hélas, la plupart
de mes scripts sont difficiles à utiliser si l'on n'est pas un informaticien. Si je
veux créer du logiciel très facile, il faut que j'aie beaucoup plus de temps.


Edited by emk on 10 July 2012 at 5:36pm



2 persons have voted this message useful



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