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s.mann’s French ** TAC 2015 | ||
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4703 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 25 of 58 05 January 2015 at 8:13am | IP Logged |
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Sounds like your LR experiment is working well, if not always smoothly. Who is the reader on your Harry Potter audio? I wasn't aware that there are different versions, but mine is 8 hours long (read by Bernard Giraudeau).
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| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3432 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 26 of 58 05 January 2015 at 5:56pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I'm happy enough with the experiment, although I haven't put in enough time into it to determine if it
has had any results. I think the thing that speaks to me about it is that it reminds me of the extensive reading I did as a kid in English, which didn't do much for me at my psuedo prep-school, but I know I was one of the best writers in college (we had to do a lot of peer reviews). I'd easily read a YA mystery (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys) in less than 2 hours, and the Harlequin romances I got my hands on were about the same (despite the adult subject matter, they are still written at a 10th grade level IMO). Later I began reading classics simply to check them off my own personal list, even though they weren't assigned. I considered it crucial to my education and assumed the school was neglecting it. Of course, without some comprehension guidance I wasn't really getting the full experience of reading them, but I had a sense of accomplishment and exposed myself to a lot of good writing and vocabulary. I wouldn't have read so much if I had to read at a speaking rate, but now is the perfect time for that pace for me in French. My dream is to read Le Comte de Monte Cristo in the original, since I have read the beginning in translation repeatedly. Perhaps by the end of the year? In particular, I think the addition of listening is extremely helpful because I still run into vocab in English today that nobody ever says (at least in my neck of the woods) and I know the meaning of well... I try to "activate" it verbally (not to be a prick, but sometimes it's the best word or the only one coming to mind), and when I pronounce it wrong among people who know the difference they either remain silent and assume I am speaking above my education, or correct me resulting in a slight embarrassment that at least fixes the pronunciation problem for good. The opposite has also happened: I had a friend who really liked to use the word "denouement" in speech and I thought I didn't know what it meant... turns out I did, I just had been pronouncing it wrong in my head for years, maybe decades. (Come to think of it, many of my missteps are with Frenglish words...) The other thing I was thinking last night, is that I really like blending the more recreational learning with the courses. I like seeing that things I'm learning actually show up in the "wild". Without something like a book written for people rather than pupils I don't get these moments. It's just not as satisfying to answer carefully prepared snippets correctly in terms of making me feel like I might one day be able to use the language for real. I'm probably pushing too far beyond my comprehension level right now, but I think as long as I keep up coursework alongside it, it will eventually all work out. I'm not sure who the guy is for the audio, but it's the first one that comes up if you Google the book title and audiobook. I tried listening to clips elsewhere on the web, but it all sounds the same. It's probably the same guy, it sounds professional, and occasionally I think there's actually another voice rather than him doing a character voice. I'm also wondering if sections have been sped up at least slightly, because in addition to being really fast there are some times when there should be a pause (like a space between paragraphs for a scene change) but the audio just plunges through. That said, except for some clipping at the end of chapters, and a handful of missing paragraph sections which I doubt make up a full hour, it's all there and it doesn't sound chipmunky or anything. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3432 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 27 of 58 06 January 2015 at 3:35am | IP Logged |
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Well, I am happy. I did my FSI Phonology plus all my computer-based stuff and then decided to take the DLI GLOSS assessment... I only did the reading, but I got a* 2 *on the
reading comprehension! According to Wikipedia that puts my comprehension at the B1 range at lowest, possibly B2. I'm pretty happy with that because I thought I was bombing it since it's a little more free-form than I expected for an online exam. Not many questions are multiple choice, and most are short answer response boxes, that I assume they search for keywords in. If you want to do it, you best set aside some time too, I thought it was kidding about 1-2 hours, but it really took that long. It's not a stunning max-out of ILR 2 or anything, but it was so long and drawn out I feel like it was a real test of my current level, and getting out of the A range makes me proud. I don't know how to make those awesome long screen captures, but if I figure it out I'll post it here for reference :) *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R eference_for_Languages **I'll live with my glee for a few days before crushing it with the listening test. Edited by s.mann on 08 January 2015 at 11:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3432 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 28 of 58 08 January 2015 at 4:16am | IP Logged |
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Things I learned today:
According to Assimil the inverted and "est-ce que" forms of making a question are less formal. I wouldn't have guessed that about the est-ce que form, it seems more formal when I look at it on paper, but then it slurs a whole word out when spoken, so that's probably a good way for me to remember it. Lingvist let me know that the difference between sympa and gentil is only that sympa is colloquial. That's a nice feature that's started showing up when I type a synonym or otherwise wrong word in. Also on Lingvist "sans doute" is translated as "probably" with a second literal translation of "without doubt." To me that means that in French there is a doubt when you say sans doute. Curious... On RFI I noticed in yesterday's transmission that the word for suicide attacker is "kamikaze" which caught my eye since at least in the US this is still reserved for WWII Japanese wartime acts (and easy-to-drink, high-octane shots), and not the common terrorist acts of today. It is late and until tonight I kept up with my Phonology work, but I think I'm going to watch a dubbed Buffy or two instead. :) Edited by s.mann on 08 January 2015 at 4:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3432 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 29 of 58 08 January 2015 at 11:32pm | IP Logged |
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Things I learned today:
Lingvist introduced me to "poulet" as a colloquial word for cop/copper/police. I'm guessing like in America where "pig" is sometimes used for a cop, you don't really want to use it in front of them. Also today on Lingvist the corollary to yesterday's "probably"/"sans doute" showed up: "C'est hors de doute" is actually used for when there is no doubt. (I'm really liking this aspect of Lingvist, it's more than just the flashcard program I started using it for...) --- I finished my Duolingo goal for the week today (V. Comp P aka passé composé). It's hard for me at first, but I get on a roll, hence finishing ahead of schedule. I'm still doing the Fluent Forever Pronunciation Anki deck, although I've skipped days. I've read that Anki handles it well, as in if you remember something after a long than planned interval it rewards you with a longer than original next interval. Kinda cool. I'm also on Lesson 6 of 10 of FSI French Phonology, also for pronunciation practice. The two only overlap very slightly, so I think that doing both is good for me. Watching Buffy went okay, not great. I need to return the disk to the library, but have only watched one of the four. I was getting a little lost and turned on the English subtitles, but that was more of a distraction from both the video and the French audio than anything. Not sure if I should try re-pre-reading and re-watching to get more of that episode, or move on to another one. I binged on the whole series a couple years ago in English, so it's not like I need to understand what's happening, but the fun of that show is the jokes and banter, neither of which I'm getting. --- Je suis triste. Je suis en colere. Je suis avec vous, la France. Je suis Charlie. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3432 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 30 of 58 10 January 2015 at 6:50pm | IP Logged |
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Well, yesterday I had a day-long IKEA odyssey taking up my time, but I managed to
get in my time on Duo and Lingvist on the go. I didn't record what nuances I learned there, but I'm sure they'll come up again. I also listened to about 30 minutes of Michel Thomas (what was left on the CD in the car) and entertained myself by translating a simple song in English (Janis Joplin's rendition of Mercedes-Benz) into French and then singing it and trying to change the lyrics around to make it rhyme. The making it rhyme part didn't really work, and upon checking with the internet, my pronunciation of "amende" and the lack of using "honorable" after makes it even worse for rhyming, but it was fun to play with the amount of language I know. --- The night before I decided to do the GLOSS listening test for French... it was somewhat disastrous for me. Unlike reading where I was a 2 and it suggests 2+ materials for me, this breakdown actually says something along the lines of "we can't tell you how well you did in your current level because you can't understand simple sentences." It says I'm below ILR 1. This is something I want to get a little closer to my reading skill before working on the Reading GLOSS stuff, but the topics for 2+ reading are way more interesting to me than the topics for ILR 1 listening. I'm therefore a little torn about what to do about it... The obvious solution would be to do the exercises presented, but I'm not as interested in deciphering phone messages (listening tasks at ILR 1) as I am in learning about health care issues in francophone Africa (reading 2+). Then again, it would be a good test as to whether their materials actually get you to the next level. It seems that any listening I'm currently doing isn't enough to even partially pass these tests. I would do a GLOSS lesson as a trial now, but the lessons site doesn't seem to be consistently accessible... Other ideas for listening I have are News in Slow French and RFI Journal en Francais Facile with the (partial) transcript, as well as more intensive work on Buffy possibly even making my own parallel text for that. News in Slow French would be a little slow compared to the tasks that were in the DLI test in my opinion, but current events is a topic I'd like to improve in any language, so that would kill two birds with one stone. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on the above resources or any others for improving listening comprehension through self-study over a shorter period (say, 3 months), please let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4703 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 31 of 58 10 January 2015 at 9:52pm | IP Logged |
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If a lesson doesn't interest you, then don't do it. A lesson can interest you for two reasons: either you enjoy the content, or you really want to master the skill(s) it covers. There's really nothing wrong with letting one of the four skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing) lag behind, despite the fact that many courses seem to built on the principle of keeping them level. Keeping them level often results on holding you back (mainly because people give up the whole thing in frustration). Work on whatever you're enjoying the most right now.
That being said, I've really enjoyed working on listening skills over the course of my French studies. If you have any of those easy readers + CD, listen to the audio several times without glancing at the text, and see how much more you can understand each time. When you listen, listen hard, e.g. listen for patterns and words, even when you don't understand them. When you later learn those words and patterns, they will come easier because you've already heard them. I've been mentioning it a lot recently, but L'avis de Marie is easier to understand and much more interesting than RFI's Journal, unless you really like the news. With either one, I'd recommend the same as with an easy reader: listen 2 or 3 times without glancing at the script. Then either read the script or read it while listening. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5270 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 32 of 58 11 January 2015 at 2:08pm | IP Logged |
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Hi s.mann,
Welcome to Team français and good luck with your TAC 2015! I'll be following your log and am keen to see your progress. Fry a fry, PM 1 person has voted this message useful |
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