La grande aventure de Thomas dans le monde des francophones.

[tomgosse]

Bonjour mes amis,

It's finally here, the New Year! 2016! After writing and rewriting my goals I've settled on these (until I change them ). I'm signed up for three challenges:

• TAC
• Output Challenge, record fifty hours of myself talking in French .
• Short story challenge, read one story per week.

To accomplish this, I'm going to use these resources:

• Practice pronunciation from:
  
  • The U. of Mich. LRC videos
  • French Sounds videos
  • Phonétique Progressive du Français.
• Write in French.
• Listen to News In Slow French.
• Study Grammaire Progressive du Français.

Bonne année et bonne santé ! Que vos voeux les plus chers se réalisent,
Tom

[iguanamon]

Tom, I like that you plan on reading a short story in French once a week. You can try some of the folktales at Potomitan. This is a site where I have gone to explore Creole but there's also quite a bit of content in French, with many of the tales having a French translation or original. All are free. Sometimes you have to look a bit for the link to the French version or scroll down past the Creole. Some of the tales are very short and some are longer. I find folktales quite useful and enjoyable in my learning. Here's a short tale from French Guyana:

La vache, la femme et le Bon Dieu

— Comment ferai-je avec mon petit, demandait la vache, qui était très embarrasée de son veau.

— Mets-le à terre, lui répondit le Bon Dieu.

Et la vache mit tout de suite son petit à terre.

— Comment ferai-je avec mon enfant? demandait la femme, qui était très embarrassée de son bébé.

— Mets-le à terre, lui répondit le Bon Dieu.

Mais la femme trouva son enfant trop joli pour le mettre à terre. Son cœur se serrait à cette seule pensée.

— Alors, tiens-le dans tes bras, dit le Bon Dieu.

Et la femme préféra tenir son enfant dans ses bras. C'est pour cela que les petits bœufs marchent depuis le jour de leur naissance, tandis que les petits hommes attendent bien des mois avant de savoir se tenir debout.

Georges Haurigot

source

[tomgosse]

2016 Starts here! 2016 commence ici !

Because there may be a question of copyright violation in reading a copyright work, I have taken this down for the time being!

My first recording for the Output Challenge. Mon accent est horrible ! This story is from Histoires à Lir Le Soir. I may upload a few more recordings at first, but most likely it will only be once a week at most.

Corrections and suggestions appreciated. Je suis très, très nerveux !
À bientôt,
Tom

[jennybenny25]

Sounded good and was reading along as you went (clicked on link and looked inside book on amazon - love that feature)

Brave and keep at it- well done and look forward to hearing more x

EDIT- i was only able to see the first three pages after that i just listened, im sure would be ok? sorry hun didnt mean to ruin your post x

[Arnaud]

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[tomgosse]

Because there may be a question of copyright violation in reading a copyright work, I have taken this down for the time being!

Honestly, I wonder what copyright you're violating by reading the texts of that book here ?
Do you intend to sell your recordings ? I don't think so.
The only effect is that someone else could follow the link and buy the book because he/she's interested in it, a rather positive effect for the author.

I agree with you. I have no intention of profiting of my recordings. And, they may be legal in the United States under fair use for educational purposes, but not in other countries. This was discussed on the Output Challenge Thread and rdearman has asked us to err on the side of caution, which I will. I don't want to cause him any trouble. He, and the other moderators, have enough work on their hands.

Of course, the authors and publishers must cringe in horror when they think of me reading their works. I will admit that I am terrified of reading aloud. I break out in a cold sweat, my hands shake, and my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. I know that the only way to improve my pronunciation is to keep practicing. But it is not easy, and can be quite frustrating. And what is most frustrating is that I can watch a video on YouTube about pronunciation, and listen and repeat it over and over again, and totally freeze up when I try to record myself.

Mais, je vais poursuivre ! Thanks to all for reading my rant, and your support.

[emk]

Honestly, I wonder what copyright you're violating by reading the texts of that book here ?
Do you intend to sell your recordings ? I don't think so.
The only effect is that someone else could follow the link and buy the book because he/she's interested in it, a rather positive effect for the author.

The server for this site is located in the United States, where the commercial effect of copying a work is only one of four factors that are considered in a copyright lawsuit. The US framework is more flexible than the French system, which limits fair use to a number of clearly described scenarios. rdearman comes from the UK, which has the concept of "fair dealing", but this is even more restrictive than the French system. (The UK provisions for research and study appear to be extremely restrictive, though there are some new rules for quotations.) If you're wondering why certain reasonable-sounding things are not always permitted, I recommend reading more about the relevant laws.

But as tomgosse said, the underlying issue here is that rdearman does not wish to spend any more of his time than necessary dealing with angry letters from lawyers. If he's uncomfortable with the size of an excerpt, then that's sufficient reason to avoid it here.

[Arnaud]

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[rdearman]

I'm not worried about angry lawyers so much as I really don't want to get anyone in trouble over a challenge I created. There are a lot of people doing cover versions of songs on YouTube and the music industry is much more aggressive about copyright than book publishers so you'd probably be ok, but you know what they say. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

So I am arguing on the side of caution, and besides worst case is you have to read a classic by Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, Jules Verne, or Émile François Zola. Not such bad company I think.

[tomgosse]

Things I did this week:

• I spent most of this week practicing my pronunciation. I'm still using the Univ. of Michigan's Language Resource Center videos and French Sounds found on YouTube.
• I started the Cette Semaine en Français thread in the Multilingual Room.
• I practiced writing out French sentences from vocabulary I learned on News In Slow French, which is a very good website.
• I recorded my self speaking in French.

One of the problems I had today is that I spent a lot of time on this forum reading and responding to posts. I think that tomorrow I will need to block this forum, Facebook and email for a few hours to get more studying done.

Vous avez une semaine heureuse,
Tom