Still learning French, and now starting Russian

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DaveBee
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby DaveBee » Wed Apr 26, 2017 9:57 pm

Fortheo wrote:I think I'll stick with Musso books for another book or two because I find his books to be at the perfect level for me—not too easy, but not too hard. I'
I've just finished Sauve-moi, an odd story, but a page turner. I enjoyed it. Thanks for plugging Mr Musso. :-)
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norgeka
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby norgeka » Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:02 pm

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Last edited by norgeka on Thu May 11, 2017 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ani
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Ani » Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:49 am

I just finished Seras-tu là?and I absolutely loved it. You've now turned me on to my two favorite books read so far this year (and in quite a while actually). Thanks so much!
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Fortheo
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Fortheo » Sat May 06, 2017 7:50 pm

French:
I sat on my tablet, which is what I use for 90 percent of my language "studying" time, so I just ordered a new one.. I put studying in quotes because I realized that, despite my desire to really reach advanced levels in French this year, I haven't really been studying that much—I've simply been reading and watching stuff in french. I feel like I've hit yet another plateau with french and I don't think doing more of the same will help me advance. Of course I'll continue to read and watch various things, but I think I really need to study more. I've come to the relation that between the PMP books, HUGO, 13 units of FSI, grammaire en dialogues, and CLE's Exercices audio de grammaire, I've never really worked on Advanced text books. My favorite grammar course was definitely:

Image

But they didn't make an advanced course :(

So I guess I'll go back to my second favorite course, Grammaire en dialogues, which I think I left off somewhere in the middle of the intermediate book. I need to just force myself to finish it and then start on the advanced book. It's so easy to ignore studying when I can just read a book or some comics.

One last thing in regards to french: My listening ability is very weird. I find that, if I really focus I can understand just about everything, but sometimes it will take me a few listens. I still need to re-wind more often than I like and I'm not sure how to improve my listening comprehension on the first listen through, which I need to do because obviously I can't re-wind in real life. Maybe I just need to stay in a state of 100 percent focus during every second of every show I watch. The problem is less noticeable when I do listening practice as the first part of my routine when my brain is still fresh, so maybe it is just a lack of energy issue? I'm not sure.

Also, I got those movies that everyone mentioned, I'm just waiting till I finish the series I'm on before I dig into them.


Russian:

Steady as she goes. I finished Michel Thomas advanced a while ago but decided not to start the next Michel Thomas until later on in the year as I was growing very tired of it—I think during the last month of the Year I'll do a quick run through all of MT just to see how my progression has been. I'm on lesson 15 of Assimil (1973 version), and honestly I have no idea how people could do one lesson a day for this course. The vocabularly demands of each lesson is becoming staggering. I spend three days per lesson and even I still find it to be very demanding on my brain. I think that once I get to lesson 30 or so I might take a six week challenge to go through Hugo's (finally) and I'll review the first 30 lessons of Assimil during that time to keep them fresh. I'll need to mix things up otherwise I can tell I'll burn out with Assimil, yet I also need to stay consistent in order to consolidate what these courses are teaching me, so I think reviewing Assimil while I work through Hugo's will be good.


Take care everyone. And don't sit on your Tablets or kindles.
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Fortheo
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Fortheo » Sat May 06, 2017 8:01 pm

Ani wrote:I just finished Seras-tu là?and I absolutely loved it. You've now turned me on to my two favorite books read so far this year (and in quite a while actually). Thanks so much!


No problem. That was my favorite by him thus far, so I'm glad you liked it. The book has an extremely familiar theme, but he adds his own touch to it and makes it his own. I actually think I need a break from Musso now, though, because I found that book to be emotionally taxing on me haha. I was really invested in the emotions of those characters.

Anyways, I hope everything is going well with you and the new baby, and the old babies too of course.
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Fortheo
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Fortheo » Mon May 08, 2017 10:18 pm

Does anyone here have experience with the Amazon fire tablet thing? I bought it in a mad rush without really thinking. I'm used to using an android tablet, so this is obviously different. There are some apps that I used all the time that I'm having trouble finding on my fire tablet, so I'm hoping someone here might be able to recommend me alternatives, or a way to install these programs.

UB reader: I used this for epubs, but I can't find it on the fire tablet

Comic screen - comic viewer: I used this app for reading comics that were in various file formats such as cbr, cbz etc etc, even just jpgs

Google translate: I had this set so I could merely highlight a word, copy it and it would automatically translate

google keyboard: I had this so that I could switch keyboard layouts between french, english, and russian


Does anyone know how I can get these on the fire tablet, or do you know any alternatives that will work? Thanks.



*edit*

Never mind everyone. I'm returning the Amazon fire as I didn't like it at all. I'm sure it's alright for people who are accustomed to it, but I don't feel like getting used to it—I'll just get something else. It feels very strange to go a few days without a tablet and my reading is definitely suffering because of it. It's frustrating!
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Sarafina
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Sarafina » Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:02 pm

I really enjoyed reading this log.

How is your French going?
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Fortheo
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Fortheo » Fri Mar 09, 2018 4:36 pm

Sarafina wrote:I really enjoyed reading this log.

How is your French going?


Thanks for stopping by. Wow, I didn't even realize I'd abandoned this log for so long. My French is alright, well I'd say that I've achieved a pretty high level in reading and listening (although my listening isn't quite perfect yet), but I've really slacked with writing and speaking. Due to a scarcity of money at the moment I can't really afford a tutor to practice with, and I try to plan calls with my French friends online, but it seems to almost never work out. I text fairly often in French, but that's about it for output.

Basically this is my daily French routine:

Read for an hour
Watch t.v or French YouTubers for an hour
Review any stubborn grammar points
Text a bit

I've recently decided to try and write more daily and have my writing corrected by my friend, but she hasn't responded in a week. It's frustrating because I feel like she's a good friend and she said she'd be glad to correct my writing a few times a week, but then she went missing in action. I don't blame her though--it's not her job to help me--it's just frustrating.


Here's a good French comedy show that I recently watched




*Edit*

In regards to Russian, it's pretty much exactly where I left it. The second half of 2017 involved zero Russian, but I've gotten back into it as of lately. I've recently gone through Michel Thomas foundation and advanced course again (probably the fourth run through), I've reviewed the first 20 Assimil lessons multiple times, I've done 15 lessons of pimsleur, and I've started a course book.

Oh, I also really like clozemaster for Russian. I'll post more about my daily Russian routine next time.
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Fortheo
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Re: Still learning French, and now starting Russian

Postby Fortheo » Fri Apr 06, 2018 7:47 am

Image
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