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Tiy’s Language Log (French/German)(TAC15)

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3468 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 1 of 20
01 January 2015 at 3:40pm | IP Logged 
This is my first Language Learning Log, which I will be using to document my
progress
in the 2015 Total Annihilation Challenge.

Background

I am 18 years old and currently studying for my A Levels. I have been studying
French for
just over 6 years but for the first four or so years this was only in the
classroom. I
reached CEFR A2 level at most. In recent years, however, I have begun to take
French more seriously, doing a GCSE (CEFR A1-2) and then an AS Level in French
(CEFR
B1?). I am now studying for the full A Level in French (CEFR B2) along with my
other A
Level subjects, though my long term goal (5 years time, maybe?) is near-native
fluency. I plan to spend some time this summer in France and have applied for
degree
programmes with a year abroad there.

I have some experience with studying Romance languages in general. I studied
Spanish
to GCSE level as well, learning basic phrases and expressions, but unfortunately
I
have only retained passive skills. I also studied Latin to GCSE and AS Level.
This
year I would like to begin studies in German - I have done basic studies in
quite a
few Romance languages and I think it would be nice to study a Germanic language
which
is not English.

Goals

French

Listening: I would like to be able to watch French movies and understand the
majority
of the dialogue without using French subtitles. I would also like to listen to
radio
programmes (for instance, RFI's radio podcast in Français Facile) and understand
the
important parts of what is being said there.

Speaking: Speaking is by far my weakest skill and I am probably at a low B1
level with
it. I would like to be able to have conversations with native speakers without
long
pauses or major communication issues. I can already do this when it comes to
small
talk but I would also like this to be the case with more intellectual topics,
such as
culture, politics, etc.

Writing: Here I would like to get my verb conjugations sorted out once and for
all
(Regular verbs/Important Irregular Conjugations). I would like to be able to
write a
small essay without having to turn to the dictionary for conjugations or
vocabulary,
unless that vocabulary is very technical.

Reading: This is my strongest skill and I am probably at a mid-high B2 level. My
goal
here is to really to keep learning more vocabulary so that I can read a
newspaper
article without encountering any unfamiliar words. (Currently, I can read a
newspaper
article and fully grasp the meaning but there are always 5-6 words that I have
not
previously encountered.)


German

My plans for German are a little less ambitious. I don't have many fixed goals,
but I
would like to learn the most essential high frequency words and the most
important/basic conjugations this year. I would also like to gain enough
vocabulary to
be able to read a simple children's book with relative ease.

I think this post is getting a bit long, so I will post a list of the resources
I plan
to use in the next post. If you have any suggestions for resources I could use
for
French or German, please let me know. Please remember though that I am a student
so I
do not have a big budget!

Edited by Tiy on 18 January 2015 at 9:40pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Mohave
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Mohave1
Joined 3795 days ago

291 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 2 of 20
01 January 2015 at 8:56pm | IP Logged 
Bienvenue et Bonne Chance! I am also studying French, and have fairly similar goals to yours. I plan to
follow your log to see what is working for you, and to consider incorporating your successes into my studies.

Have you considered joining us in the Super Challenge? You are at the perfect level!   For the Super
Challenge, one must read 100 book units of 50 pages each, and watch 100 films of 90 minutes each by
December 2015. We are not quite halfway through the challenge, so you could sign-up for a half challenge if
you want. Here is the
Super Challenge
Rules and Registration Thread


Best of luck for a great 2015!

2 persons have voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3468 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 3 of 20
02 January 2015 at 4:26am | IP Logged 
Mohave wrote:
Bienvenue et Bonne Chance! I am also studying French, and have fairly
similar goals to yours. I plan to
follow your log to see what is working for you, and to consider incorporating your
successes into my studies.

Have you considered joining us in the Super Challenge? You are at the perfect level!   
For the Super
Challenge, one must read 100 book units of 50 pages each, and watch 100 films of 90
minutes each by
December 2015. We are not quite halfway through the challenge, so you could sign-up
for a half challenge if
you want. Here is the
Super
Challenge
Rules and Registration Thread


Best of luck for a great 2015!


Dear Mohave,

Thank you for the suggestion that I try the Super Challenge. I've signed up for the
Full Challenge in French, which should be interesting!
1 person has voted this message useful



Mohave
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Mohave1
Joined 3795 days ago

291 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 4 of 20
02 January 2015 at 4:39am | IP Logged 
Tiy wrote:
Mohave wrote:
Bienvenue et Bonne Chance! I am also studying French, and have fairly
similar goals to yours. I plan to
follow your log to see what is working for you, and to consider incorporating your
successes into my studies.

Have you considered joining us in the Super Challenge? You are at the perfect level!   
For the Super
Challenge, one must read 100 book units of 50 pages each, and watch 100 films of 90
minutes each by
December 2015. We are not quite halfway through the challenge, so you could sign-up
for a half challenge if
you want. Here is the
Super
Challenge
Rules and Registration Thread


Best of luck for a great 2015!


Dear Mohave,

Thank you for the suggestion that I try the Super Challenge. I've signed up for the
Full Challenge in French, which should be interesting!


Awesome! I have seen so much improvement in my reading and listening skills as a result of this challenge.
Even if you don't quite make 100/100 prior to the end, or just complete a half challenge, you will still see
enormous benefits!
1 person has 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 20
02 January 2015 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
Hi, good luck! French is an enchanting and rewarding language. If you stay motivated nothing can stop you to learn
it!
1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3468 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 6 of 20
03 January 2015 at 11:47am | IP Logged 
Resources Post
1 person has voted this message useful



Tiy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3468 days ago

16 posts - 21 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 7 of 20
03 January 2015 at 12:05pm | IP Logged 
Ma Journée (le 2 janvier 2015)

Français

Aujourd'hui (en fait, c’etait hier mais j’etais trop fatiguee d'en ecrire) j'ai lu
cinquante pages de "L'Aventure des Langues en Occident" de Henriette Walker pour "le
Super Challenge". J'ai lu les pages 341 - 391 et il s'agissait des langues
germaniques, en particulier le danois et l'allemand. C’etait tres interessant mais je
pense que je ne essayerai pas de lire cinquante pages tout de suite demain - c’etait
trop fatigant. Cela dit, je suis en vacances en ce moment et si je veux finir le Super
Challenge, je devrai lire beaucoup de livres maintenant, avant de retourner a l’ecole.

En Anglais:

Today (actually it was yesterday, but I was too tired to write about it) I read 50
pages of "L'Aventure des Langues en Occident" by Henriette Walker for the Super
Challenge. I read from pages 341 to 391, which were about the Germanic languages and
Danish and German in particular. It was very interesting but I don't think I'm going
to try to read 50 pages tomorrow - it was too tiring. That said, I'm on holiday at the
moment and if I want to finish the Super Challenge, I will have to read lots of
"books" now, before I go back to school.

German

For German, I used Memrise to learn my first basic German vocabulary. I'm starting to
see a logic with German words (putting words together to make new words, etc.), though
I think German spelling might turn out to be harder than French with all those long
words!
1 person has 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 8 of 20
03 January 2015 at 2:15pm | IP Logged 
Hello Tiy, and Bienvenue à Team Français 2015!

To develop your listening skills, work on a lot of audio which has transcripts. "7 jours sur la planète" is a video news program for students of French, with almost perfectly matching French subtitles. L'avis de Marie is a podcast with clearly spoken language, and a matching transcript. The more recent episodes have active highlights which follow the audio sentence by sentence.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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