Still learning French, and now starting Russian

[Carmody]

Fortheo
Also, I find that I spend so much time learning French, that I don't really have many other hobbies lately ,

I find this to be an excellent observation and extremely empowering. The idea of learning a language and balancing that with the rest of one's life is important. It is all about balance and I find balance very hard.

Thanks Fortheo

[Fortheo]

Congratulations on your perseverance and your accomplishments.Your schedule is very similar to mine.

Also similar is the fact that I don't do any output, which I realize is a big thing but for the moment I can't do everything and there are time limitations.

Thanks also for the heads up on the Animorph books; they are new for me. I do want to try them. I enjoyed the Harry Potter when I read 2-3 of those.

Judging from the books that I've seen you reading, I doubt you'd benefit from the Animorph books, but if you enjoy young adult books, then give it a try. A lot of people seem to suggest Harry Potter as the first books to read, but I was never a huge fan so I found other children's series to read: Chair de poule, and Animorphs. Fast forward to now and I find these books easy to read, but I keep reading them because I've invested so much time in the characters that I want to see how things end. Also, I'm just a sucker for young adult/children novels.

I write fantasy scripts for my comics now. I mostly type things now, but with Frenglish I'll write in a notebook so I don't have to worry about autocorrect.

You know what, I actually read a few chapters of your comic a few months ago and I remember being really impressed! Is it finished now?

[Xenops]

I write fantasy scripts for my comics now. I mostly type things now, but with Frenglish I'll write in a notebook so I don't have to worry about autocorrect.

You know what, I actually read a few chapters of your comic a few months ago and I remember being really impressed! Is it finished now?

Thank you! It is finished now; I just have a few pages of epilogue left. Here's the link: http://rosamondgrey.smackjeeves.com/

[Carmody]

Re: young adult books

Just for the record, my wife the retired librarian reads young adult books most of the time. She says many people do but it just is not widely known.

I think people should go with what they enjoy vs. what they should enjoy.

[Xenops]

Re: young adult books

Just for the record, my wife the retired librarian reads young adult books most of the time. She says many people do but it just is not widely known.

I think people should go with what they enjoy vs. what they should enjoy.

I like children's and young adult books, because I don't have to worry about R-rated material. I also discovered Brandon Sanderson, who writes fantasy sans the R-rated material. His stuff is entertaining too.

[Fortheo]

Re: young adult books

Just for the record, my wife the retired librarian reads young adult books most of the time. She says many people do but it just is not widely known.

I think people should go with what they enjoy vs. what they should enjoy.

I like children's and young adult books, because I don't have to worry about R-rated material. I also discovered Brandon Sanderson, who writes fantasy sans the R-rated material. His stuff is entertaining too.

I agree with your reason for enjoying children's and young adult books! I also like them because I find that the issues that are touched upon in children's books are timeless and affect us adults too.




Anyways, here's a quick update for my log:

French

It's very interesting, for lack of a better word, how much confidence plays into my listening abilities. I do believe that I have good and bad days with listening, but I also believe that what changes most on those days is my confidence. It's no coincidence that when I'm feeling upbeat and hopeful that my french abilities feel amazing, just like it's no coincidence that the opposite is true. There are days where I think, "ugh, I missed yet another word, this is so frustrating" then there are other days where I think, "oh, I missed a bit here and there, but I understood the majority, I'm awesome!" Long story short: when my mood is positive, i'm more focused, and my studying goes smoothly.



Russian

I Just finished Disk 5 of Michel Thomas; it's as annoying as it is helpful, which is to say that it's very helpful. I'm also anxiously waiting for my copy of Hugo's Russian in three months to be delivered.

[Carmody]

I do believe that I have good and bad days with listening,

I find that also.

I also notice that a good nights sleep and a proper meal is helpful.

[Fortheo]

A reflection on some progress that I've made:

I wanted to boost my moral and kind of gauge my progress, so here are some things I've revisited:

One tree hill is frustrating me only because I know for a fact I understand what they're saying (I've read the scripts a day before) but I still need to listen to each scene about 2-3 times to catch what they're saying, and that takes a long time; a 40 minute episode ends out taking me close to two hours.

That was from 11 months ago, so almost a year. I've came back to One Tree hill in french and watched the first 13 episodes recently, and while not perfect, I've made a lot of progress: I don't refer to the script at all anymore, and while I do re-wind and re-watch scenes rather often, it's usually more-so just the perfectionist in me verifying that what I heard was actually correct, which it usually is. I'm spending about 50 minutes to an hour on a 40 minute episode and understanding around 98 percent (I miss a random slang word here and there), but if you compare that to the two hours I use to spend on an episode last year while also being overly dependent on the script, I'd say there's been definite improvement. I'm guessing watching 3 seasons of Avatar, a season of Maison Ikkoku, a season of Nana, and listening to a bunch of podcasts have helped bridge the gap


Here's something I revisited in the reading department:

I feel like I'm knocking at the door of using real, authentic, french media (not translations), but my experience with Musso right now has sent me crawling back to translations for a little bit. I can read Musso, but I run away when there are numerous dense paragraphs of descriptive phrases

That was from August last year.

This is the book in question:




I picked this up two days ago, determined to finish it this time; and although I haven't finished it yet—I've been reading a chapter, then reading it again while listening to the audio book (the audio book is great, by the way)—I've already made it further than I did 6 months ago. There are still a few descriptive phrases here and there that give me problems, but they just seem a lot less intimidating now, and other than those few descriptive phrases here and there, I'm actually finding this book relatively easy. Don't get me wrong, it's at a good level for me, but compared to how much I struggled with it 6 months ago, I'm really happy with how simple the language seems to me now, so much so that I can actually enjoy the book this time around! I can't believe that it was only 6 months ago that I struggled with it



One last thing: do any of you notice that as your listening comprehension improves, your brain kind of starts to predict the end of peoples sentences before they're finished? A lot of times I'll hear the beginning of a phrase, which starts my brain off on a track, then my brain feels like it just fills in the rest before even hearing the rest, and after the person finishes the sentence my brain verifies, "yep, that was indeed what we expected, no need to pay extra attention to it." It's a very strange sensation to explain. It's almost as if my brain is economizing its resources as I don't really need to focus hard while I do this unless the prediction that my brain made turns out to be wrong, then my brain has a "hold up, what?" moment and I need to re-watch the scene.

Yeah, that's really abstract and difficult to explain, but hopefully someone understands it haha.



Russian:

Slow, consistently slow. I hope to finish michel thomas within the next few weeks, but we'll see.

[Fortheo]

4 dollars and 3 weeks later, my book has finally arrived from England:



Actually, the book itself was only a penny, but the shipping was 3.99

I really enjoyed how clear and concise the layout and explanations were in the Hugo's French course, so I hope the Russian course is similar. I'm tempted to start it right now, but I've learned not to jump around courses too much, so I'll have to hold off until I finish Michel Thomas.

[Carmody]

Congratulations!

Is this the Hugo French that you have?
https://www.amazon.com/Hugo-Complete-Fr ... ugo+french

I am not familiar with it.