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TAC 2015 Wish I’d been a Belgian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| plumbem! Groupie United States Joined 3421 days ago 44 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French | Message 1 of 24 24 December 2014 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I will be studying French and Dutch in 2015
My goals for both French and Dutch are to consolidate and strengthen my somewhate scattered skills around a B2, eventually using DELF preparation materials to guide me in identifying areas that need work. C1 profficiency (as in passing the C1 DELF exam) for both languages is probably about a three year goal. I will be in France through March and in the Netherlands from March to July which will give me a good opportunity to practice each in a real context. French I will be using plenty of podcasts from France Culture/France Inter, dubbed Anime (no subs, hopefully moving onto native materials, Kaamelot being a goal) and various ebooks around the Alexander Dumas/Jules Verne level (the goal being to comfortably read Les Miserables in 2015). I will be using "Grammaire in 80 fiches" for a first workbook with the Bescherelle as a reference grammar. I am also going to learn the phonetic alphabet for French as I target specific pronunciation issues. Also Anki for vocab support! Dutch I will be working through the Routledge grammar workbooks starting in March, listen to news podcasts from Radio 1, and use Dutch more as my nonfiction reading lanuage as Dutch literature is not quite as rich as French. The best thing about Dutch is that I have my family to support me and practice with, both in the Netherlands and in the US. I also have the task of helping my sister learn the language, as she will be moving to the Netherlands this spring. Of all the things I wish I'd done differently, at least she won't have to waste as much time! Wolof? Latin? I had planned on picking up Latin during the summer, a language I took in middle school and high school and really enjoyed. I had intended to pick it up again using "Reading Latin" by Jones/Sidwell. It is my intention to spend two years in Senegal with the Peace Corps starting in September 2015 and if I pass the medical, that means that Wolof will instead become my third language I take up to study,. How lucky I am that there is an Assimil course Edited by plumbem! on 10 January 2015 at 11:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3887 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 24 24 December 2014 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bon courage! It looks like you have a very detailed (and busy!) schedule for the months ahead.
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| plumbem! Groupie United States Joined 3421 days ago 44 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French | Message 3 of 24 26 December 2014 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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FRENCH
AUDIO -I have been listening to two different French podcasts;Tete au Carre and Terre a Terre. I can understand these pretty well, and what's great about both is that the hosts speak very clearly. I have been listening to one or two emissions per day, on my walks to and from the goat pasture. VIDEO - I have been watching the Animated Tintin, one episode per day, and they are so comfortable and feel easy. I know all of the plots already, the dialogue is simple, I understand everything : it is super for my confidence building. I have taken advantage of my time in France to procure French dubbed Avatar, Eva and Cowboy Bebop. From what I have seen of the French subtitles so far, well, I think I will probably do without. As to which of these will be the easiest to start with, well, I'm going to find out soon. I find it incredibly bizzare that this is a recurring problem with French DVDs: the subtitles don't match the audio. This has been posted about elsewhere but sheesh. I am also thinking about getting Planet Earth (as recommended by emk). Watching TV and movies is not easy for me. I have developed this response that kicks in the first 5 minutes that says, this is a waste of your life. Even in a second language, I don't feel particularly great cozying up for an hour of screen time. Part of this is just working on relaxing my self-judgement and letting myself enjoy it. Anyways! TEXT -I am currently staying in a house that without any exaggeration has at least ten thousand books in French and a great BD library. I am basically welcome to take whatever I want with me (sauf pour les BDs). I have cherry picked some Durkheim, Lacan and Barthes to hopefully read one day. But as for now, well, poor impulse control… I'm kind of flipping through like 4 different Bds, a book on making cheese, and a book on making wooden toys. Random, I know. I am not advancing in the 3 musketeers (stalled right at the part where all of the films ended and somehow that's only half of the book! I am indignant about this) and randomly started the 6th HP and found myself somehow again, getting into it. I'll never understand. The HP feels very easy to read now without missing really any vocabulary. SRS-I have given myself an Anki free existence till the end of the year as a Christmas present. I don't want to think about the Anki Debt that is currently piling up. It has done me a huge amount of good this year, but I need to reconsider my decks and strategy trying to balance two langages in 2015. Most recently, I have been using two decks made by other users, doing 10 and 20 new cards a day respectively. a. SDCC A2 En-Fr (800 seen out of 1200 cards) This deck, while only text, has been amazing for learning vocabulary for modern life/politics. SMIC/IVG/CRS/Magrehb/ecology/race/immigration/OGM/SIDA tons of stuff that is indispensible for being able to carry on a conversation here. I probably want to finish it. b. Saids French Deck. (1400 seen out of 4200 cards) This deck has the triple threat of image/text/audio (although inconsistently) but is enormous, trying to do too many things, and probably half of the deck is things I don't need or like. For example an isolated conjugation of a verb in a specific tense/person/number (this might make up about 1/3 of the deck) as well as like, ALL of the numbers from 1-99, colors!, lots of things I don't need and lots of things I do. I wish so much that there was a way to suspend cards in Ankidroid as they came up in review. It would probably take me about an hour or two to go through all 4200 cards and suspend the ones I don't care for from the card browser, and it would be time well spent, I just haven't done it. Edit: I was able to find time on a computer to edit the decklist (something that is harder on my tablet) and am really excited to get back into Jan 1st. I also have some self created decks for gender rules for nouns, prepositions and opposites (word pairs I focused on a bit earlier). I would like to continue creating my own decks especially for grammar rules, but with just a tablet and a bluetooth keyboard that doesn't even work after the Lollipop update, I think I will stick with using others' decks and take a heavier hand in suspending cards. The 'French 500 coloured words with pictures and sound' is still my idea of what a shared Anki deck should be like and, while no longer of use, I still might go through the whole thing in a sitting once in a blue moon. VIS A VIS- While it is true that I am in France, finding conversation has been hard this month as I am in a petite village. I dined with the neighbor Christmas eve and we talked about politics, Buddhism, other neighbors etc. until 2 am. It was a great workout even though I was tired. Even better was four days ago when all of the goats escaped and I had to go stumbling about in the rain knocking on doors, asking if anyone had seen them. Everyone had a theory, advice to give and was really nice, especially considering I was not very presentable and speaking a mysteriously foreign French. I have also created an italki account as of a week and found practice partners there, but none of these interactions have been too stellar. Two sessions with a very reasonably priced tutor (8$ an hour considering he has a pHD in pedagogy????) have been really useful and motivating. DUTCH MIJN MOEDER-I have been skyping my mom once a week and this is still the best thing ever. She said I needed to work on sterke werkwoorden. I thought she meant KOF SCHIP or whatever at first but no, onregelmatige werkwoorden. Ja hoor, ik hoor je ! She doesn't really give grammar advice so I better take this one to heart. REGELS- I have started Routledge's Basic Grammar and Workbook and while I will probably not pick up a vocab word in the entire book...It is awesome. For example, yesterday I did the first chapter on subject pronouns and verb conjugations, whatever right, but then, an explanation of open and closed syllables and why consonants or vowels are dubbeled in conjugation of verbs (The best example being the difference between spelen and spellen)….OMG...Today I did the second chapter on modal verbs and it was similarly a breath of fresh air ; understanding more clearly what I had previously called helping verbs or handles are doing in terms of mood. I didn't expect that I would like this so much. I am going to continue doing one chapter a day as their length permits. SNOEPJES- I have been doing 3 Duolingo lessons a day and doing a chapter review of Rosetta Stone (Its that damn HARP SOUND). I think that the Dutch duolingo content is arguably better written than the French in terms of both how amusing it is and its clarity. SRS-I desperately want a good anki deck for Dutch because of how much mileage I've gotten out of them with French. I have one I think I will definitely be using that is just the irregular forms for 82 verbs. I have another called Dutch Master List (2600 cards) which has quite a few errors but I still think might do the trick. I will take another look at the shared decks before the new year. AUDIO-I have listened to some Sinterklass stories online this week. Honestly I am having quite a bit of trouble finding interesting Dutch podcasts about organic agriculture, ecology, DIY, or even just science (things that interest me) in 30+ minute episodes that are downloadable, for free. It seems too much to ask! VIDEO- I have no idea where to start with this. I may wait until April, when I am in the Netherlands. TEXT- I should read something, yes, good idea that is, but this has just been limited to correspondence with my family. Edited by plumbem! on 30 December 2014 at 1:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| plumbem! Groupie United States Joined 3421 days ago 44 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French | Message 4 of 24 27 December 2014 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I have really settled on the Routledge Grammar workbooks for my daily grammar work in Dutch. The exercises are not the best but the quality of explanation is.
I have not settled on a similar resource in French, probably because there are so many options. In the last couple months what I have done is this: Choose a limited topic (for example the use of y + en), read and take notes on the explanation of that topic as well as complete exercises in each of the following seven books: 1.A Student Grammar of French (Oxford) (My favorite! but no exercises) The best reference grammar: I will keep it around, although my Skype tutor suggested I get the Bescherelle (on my to do!) 2.Collin's Easy Learning French Grammar (Concise, good, but no workbook) 3.French Grammar Drills (McGraw Hill, weak explanations, decent exercises) 4.Schaum's Outline of French Grammar (mediocre explanations and exercises) 5.Practice Makes Perfect Complete French Grammar (mediocre explanations and exercises) 2-5 All forgettable 6.Modern French Grammar a Practical Guide (Routledge) Very Unorthodox, has a separate workbook. Instead of presenting a lot of separated grammar topics, there are A) Structures (Noun Group and Verb Group) and B) Functions (Exposition, Attitude, Argumentation).This seems really cool and I will have to investigate some more, but I am not sure that its what I need at this point. 7. Grammaire Practique du Francais en 80 Fiches (Hachette) Also very cool, somewhat unorthodox (although its obviously not claiming to be a grammar guide). I really loved the explanations in this book, the exercises were okay. The idea was that after taking notes from these books I would then write my own explanation of a given topic to take the best from each and demonstrate that I had really understood it. But all the book switching is a bit much, and it leaves me choosing what grammar knowledge I need to improve which is not for the best. Also sitting down and thinking about all of them, I have to say, I am not even sure what a "good" grammar exercise looks like. I think the trick will be using the grammar topic du jour in my daily writing. Nonetheless, I will try and pick one to go through sequentially before the end of the year. Edited by plumbem! on 27 December 2014 at 6:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3835 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 5 of 24 30 December 2014 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi!
I will also follow your log :) Your level of Dutch and French is much higher than mine in both language, I can just dream to reach your level of Dutch in two years and of French in one year: I'm a B1--- in French and A1+ in Dutch. By the way, I'm joining the team rare with Dutch because doesn't seem that will ever be a team dutch this year. Veel succes! :) Looking forward to see your progresses. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4697 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 24 03 January 2015 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Bienvenue à Team Français 2015!
If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing in France? Something to do with goat herding? Sounds intriquing. If you like grammar, and you practice your learnt grammar in a real context as you do, I think your method of study is good. But narrowing your set of grammars regularly used down to the 2 or 3 best ones might be a good idea, and allow you to study more. You mentioned possibly getting Planet Earth. Since you are in France, it might be easier to find Le Peuple des océans, and Océans, two great documentaries by French director Jacques Perrin. There are no English subtitles but one of the two has French subtitles. There is a set of both for Eur 11.99 on amazon.fr.
Edited by Jeffers on 03 January 2015 at 1:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s.mann Groupie United States lang-8.com/973514/jo Joined 3426 days ago 55 posts - 76 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 24 04 January 2015 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm jealous of your Dutch. All of my Dutch-speaking relatives have now passed away,
having neglected to even pass along a scant bit of vocabulary. All I have left are some old books and journals that I wish weren't indecipherable for me. That's not quite enough to motivate me to study it right now though :( Good luck with your TAC, I'll be following your progress of course :) ---- EDIT: Thanks for the great resource pointers on my page by the way. I started on the 500 words Anki deck, and while I've suspended about half I've run into so far, that would still be 250 new words for me, in a format that I think will really work for me. Edited by s.mann on 04 January 2015 at 4:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5429 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 8 of 24 04 January 2015 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
Are you aware that you can watch Dutch TV abroad via NPO Uitzending Gemist? They have lots of factual programmes as well as some dramas. You can even watch Dutch Sesame Street ^_^ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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