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s.mann’s French ** TAC 2015 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| redflag Senior Member Australia Joined 3636 days ago 123 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French | Message 49 of 58 07 February 2015 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to do the course Monday I think as I'm flat out this weekend - I definitely think you should read the Prince
in English and then write in French. The writing in French is already a major task. You can always go back and read it in French afterwards. 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 50 of 58 09 February 2015 at 5:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Week in Sum:
Well, I took Saturday off, but otherwise kept up pretty well this week. I made quick and steady progress on both Duolingo and Lingvist. I can see the light on Duolingo, and there are only 10 skills left. I also made decent progress on Assimil - not as a daily thing but I was able to do a few each a couple of the days and got up to lesson 14. I also started from the beginning of FSI French Phonology and did 1&2 again. I only did one lesson in the Practice Makes Perfect: Pronouns and Prepositions so far, but I think it will be a big help. That first lesson took an hour. I spent a couple of hours writing and couple more rebuilding my network on Lang-8 this week. I think it was pretty good, although I don't feel like I've progressed much in my writing fluency since my last attempts a couple of months ago. I'm excited about the possibilities with MOOCs. The one I started this week, Découvrir la science politique on edx.org, wasn't super easy to follow but it's not impossible and I think it's a good bridge to gaining confidence with pure listening too. I'm really looking forward to writing, but I need to do some reading first (in English) and I haven't gotten around to that yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 4830 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 51 of 58 09 February 2015 at 10:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Looks like you're keeping up a good pace. Keep us updated on the MOOCs, they sound interesting. Best of luck with french phonology btw, It's highly useful but also extremely dull. I ended out stopping after like lesson 5 lol. I really should go back and do it all the way through.
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| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 3801 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 52 of 58 11 February 2015 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
What a great plan for the Six Week Challenge! How is this working out for you so far? I am also trying to do grammar studies this round, but it is definitely NOT my favorite thing to do! :) 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 53 of 58 12 February 2015 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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@Mohave - Oh, it's going about as well as any well-laid plan :) Two weeks into it I'm 2/18 through
the PMP workbook, 2/10 through FSI Phonology, did 1 new Pimsleur (ahead of schedule), started a MOOC class instead of doing the news-related stuff, started some free-writing instead of dictation (which is probably not as good for me right now) and kept up with Duolingo and Lingvist pretty well, (mostly because they keep me honest by keeping track of me). And shame of shames, I'm already tired of tracking my time for the 6WC. I like all of the above plans, and really want to do them, but am finding that if I gain momentum on one most of the rest fall by the wayside. In reality I need to approach this modularly, and so I have, by prioritizing the end of new lessons on Duolingo, gaining traction on Assimil, and incorporating audio resources of any type as often as possible (even if I keep changing around what am listening to). I will let the rest tease me into trying them out. The dictation part of the plan really appeals to me because I was doing that months ago and feel like I could understand more from pure listening back then. ---- Tonight I went to a meetup.com French conversation as my first time speaking with strangers (or to anyone who also speaks French TBH). There were several Americans and two French natives, one of whom I got to talk with to an extent. My French was hesitant and a few times I blurted out the English of what I wanted to say instead of making them wait an eternity for my French to show up. Honestly, I sucked, but I still think I did better than they thought I did. My French became slightly more fluid over the hour, especially if I could think of the thing I wanted to ask about first, rather than responding to a question. I did pretty well with varied topics like who among them was a regular and where the leader of the group was, but struggled on other basic topics because I didn't have a few key phrases like "are you from around here?" ready. That said, the French speaker on my side of the table dismissed me early, telling me that I needed to take classes... Considering the woman she liked talking to the most didn't even try to use French pronunciation and mostly said things like "ah, je comprends" in response to her long rants... I'm willing to ignore it as non-professional advice for now. Anyway, I really need more practice, and this meetup is going to be at best a measure of my improvement, not so much a place to get good practice. I think it's time to fund my iTalki account... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| redflag Senior Member Australia Joined 3636 days ago 123 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Indonesian, French | Message 54 of 58 12 February 2015 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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That's rather rude of that woman - if you're motivated to go to a meetup obviously you
are trying to improve! There's a French meetup every second Tuesday in Sydney which I've been meaning to go to for ages, they seem to get about 30 or more people,a mixture of native and learners, each time so hopefully that would mean more choices of speaking partner if one didn't work out. I spent a week after new year in a francophone country and came to the same conclusion you did - I really needed conversation practice for things I knew passively and have been doing conversation on iTalki since then. 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 55 of 58 12 February 2015 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||
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@redflag - I agree, although I also think the way I wrote it made it sound more confrontational than it
was. TBH it seemed like the native speaker was just there because she wanted an audience, it was much more listening than conversing. Not a bad thing, but I have a lot of other ways to work on listening - for me this was to work on speaking. I picked this Meetup instead of another because it seemed more serious but still said it welcomed beginners. The other one nearby is more of a happy- hour type of thing, as far as I can tell. I wanted to keep it serious but I'm now imagining that if I had run into that situation at a bar it would have just been easier to mosey on over to more forgiving conversation partners. As it was I was stuck at the table where I sat the whole time. There's one for the other group on Friday, so I might go to that and see if I acquit myself any better there. 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 56 of 58 14 February 2015 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wasn't feeling well last night and that coupled with the cold and wind convinced me to stay
home, so I didn't go to the happy hour meetup. Those are weekly, so maybe next week. I have a few options for classes: One place has classes of 3-5 people with a native instructor. All classes average $21 an hour, plus about $4 each class for public transportation expenses. Very easy for me to get to. Alliance Francaise around here gets mixed reviews and sounds like classes are up to 10 people. They average $14/hr for the full classes and $22/hr for the workshops. Transportation would cost me about $5 each class, but would also require an extra mile of walking round-trip. A woman in my building advertises herself as a tutor at the "B2" level and is a stay-at-home mom, so her schedule is flexible. She charges $12 an hour or $80/mo for 8x1hr bi-weekly sessions. Her name is Indian so I assume she is too. I haven't heard her speak English yet, so I don't know how much of an accent I should expect. iTalki professional instructors I like the look of are a minimum of $14 an hour. I'm a night owl so the AM time-slots for some of the Europe-based native teachers work really well for me. (I have a 1 hour session for pronunciation set up for next week.) Clearly the woman in my building is the least expensive, but it's hard to tell how good she'll be. Should I worry about the accent and non-native thing at my point in my studies? I'm starting to make contacts for free language exchanges too, but I really don't feel like my French is ready to make that useful on both sides of the conversation. I'll give it a try though - it's okay if I give more than I receive at first so long as it comes back around eventually, right? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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