Re: PM’s French Re-entry into the Matrix - Phase 1: 500 Hours Extensive Reading

[reineke]

God, no!

[PeterMollenburg]

God, no!

Ummm I"m not sure what you're getting at... could you spell it out for me or provide it in course format please reineke? Just make sure there's copious of basic vocabularly in there for me, wouldn't want to challenge my brain, that could hurt

[reineke]

I am happy you are taking the test (which I have been urging you to do) and it's cool that you're providing real-time updates. I am not sure you should be distracting yourself with the forum while taking the test. I am also doing other things and cannot write essays each time I post.

You write an awful lot. It's interesting reading but a reader might easily get lost and I mostly read the language learning related bits that interest me. Courses don't interest me much. Based on what I read when I visit your log, and how you write, it is sometimes easy to believe you're waffling.

Talking about "taking" or not taking dialang is already too much talk for something that takes 90 minutes to complete. I am glad you're doing it. Good luck with the DELF/DALF. I hope you take (and pass) the C1 this May.

[rlnv]

This is a 'test paste' to see if I can get this right... I'll come back and paste the rest of the images in this post later

--to be edited post dialang--



Ah I don't understand computers

For now I've posted the image into MWord as I can't even find Paint on this computer- I'll try to figure it out later. I found the web image 'paster' that rlnv used but can't find a suitable program to paste my images to and can't be bothered right now (take into account until recently I never used to use this computer until mine decided to not work anymore). I get frustrated the moment things don't work (I hate wasting time when it comes to computers).

Dialang Placement Test
In summary for the opening image I scored 781 on the Dialang placement test... now to stop wasting time..

Dialang Listening
DIALANG Test Results

Your test result suggests that you are at level B2 in listening on the Council of Europe scale. At this level, people can understand longer stretches of speech and lectures and follow complex lines of argument provided the topic is reasonably familiar. They can understand most TV news and current affairs programmes

Your test result suggests that you are at level B2, and your self-assessment broadly agrees.

You have a good sense of your own proficiency. This will help you to set meaningful and realistic goals for your language learning.

Dialang Writing
Your test result suggests that you are at level B1 in writing on the Council of Europe scale. At this level, people can write simple texts on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. They can write personal letters describing experiences and impressions.

In the self-assessment task you gave responses which we would normally expect from a learner at level B2. However, your test result suggests that you are at level B1.

If you have a tendency to over-estimate your own proficiency, this could prevent you from setting meaningful and realistic goals for your language learning.

Hmmm. It seems rlnv was onto something. Writing it appears is a weak point

Good results. If Dialang is in at all accurate, it would seem to put you in the ballpark of where you need to be for when sitting the real test. Regarding the writing, I did not mean to imply that as a week point. I just noticed that it was not in your plan, but it looks like you have that covered through the preparation materials that you are using having writing elements, as you mentioned earlier.

[smallwhite]

Un roman
Think French
RFI journal en français facile
15 min SRS

I'm trying to use resources similar to yours, so,

* I'm reading the translated novel I borrowed yesterday
* I'm re-listening to audio from the paper version of Think French and RFI Journal en français facile
* I'm re-doing old flashcards that I happen to have uploaded to Quizlet recently

and the only thing different from you is

* I'm reading aloud the B1-ish textbook I borrowed yesterday.

I hardly ever maintain my French so this should be good for me!

[PeterMollenburg]

Un roman
Think French
RFI journal en français facile
15 min SRS

I'm trying to use resources similar to yours, so,

* I'm reading the translated novel I borrowed yesterday
* I'm re-listening to audio from the paper version of Think French and RFI Journal en français facile
* I'm re-doing old flashcards that I happen to have uploaded to Quizlet recently

and the only thing different from you is

* I'm reading aloud the B1-ish textbook I borrowed yesterday.

I hardly ever maintain my French so this should be good for me!

Excellent, tnx for tagging along. It seems of late my biggest issue is remaining consistent. I aim to change that for these 6 weeks, let's hope we both do very well. Good luck smallwhite!

[rlnv]

Salut Peter.

I recall recently you posted some of your study notes not long ago. I was looking for them with no success, and am not sure if you posted it in your log or in the French group thread.

I'm wondering if you keep notes on many or all points of grammar that you study? I'm thinking of doing the same as I start PMP Complete French Grammar. I've never really kept notes to any degree and am trying to decide how thorough I should be, as well as how I can do it to get the most value out of it. Perhaps I would just review notes I create, or even create Anki cards on certain things like verb to preposition matching.

Basically, I'd like to hear your thoughts or any insights you may have on note keeping, as I suspect you may have done a bit with your courses. I don't mean to burden you to write anything massive, just if you have any words of wisdom.

[PeterMollenburg]

Salut Peter.

I recall recently you posted some of your study notes not long ago. I was looking for them with no success, and am not sure if you posted it in your log or in the French group thread.

I'm wondering if you keep notes on many or all points of grammar that you study? I'm thinking of doing the same as I start PMP Complete French Grammar. I've never really kept notes to any degree and am trying to decide how thorough I should be, as well as how I can do it to get the most value out of it. Perhaps I would just review notes I create, or even create Anki cards on certain things like verb to preposition matching.

Basically, I'd like to hear your thoughts or any insights you may have on note keeping, as I suspect you may have done a bit with your courses. I don't mean to burden you to write anything massive, just if you have any words of wisdom.

Salut rlnv,

I honestly don't remember if I posted grammar notes somewhere. I mean I have in some capacity when topics have been relevant to notes I've had on hand, but I don't think I"ve necessarily done it at length, if that's what you meant. Also, around a year (or less?) ago I deleted a deck which had 10,000 French cards in it, including many grammar cards. The deck was too messy in that early on many cards were one word cards with notes to indicate which version of a word I was looking for the translation of (single word cards are problematic imo). For example if you want to translate 'right', then which version of 'right'- wrong/right, left/right, right(winged) in politics, yeah ok, right, i get it etc. Thus I moved on to sentence/cloze cards. Much better. I opted to delete the deck including all my grammar cards as I wanted to get away from SRS.

I came back to SRS but was not necessarily unhappy I had deleted the old one (although I'm sure there's a backup somewhere floating around), I felt overburdened by the old deck with a majority of cards that were far from perfect and whether I should waste time editing them. Not only that I had included basically EVERY word I had learned up to that point- not conducive to good time management.

My latest deck has some grammar cards, but only those I feel I am a bit scratchy on, or are technical and worth having details on. The subjunctive in particular.

If you want a copy of my subjunctive notes, no probs, just ask (those notes came from numerous mainly grammar/course books).
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Exam prep week one

On another note... terrible start to my exam prep. I have distracted myself, been bored, been overwhelmed, been too busy, too tired, distracted while listening to podcasts to the point I wasn't taking anything in much, and you name it. I've fallen apart a bit in this first week with no routine and when there is one I stick to it for one day and lose the plot. I will still sit the exam as planned but I feel very underprepared at the moment. I'm also realising (yet again) that my course only approach was indeed holding me back - too much has been neglected for too long (although it has been good in some ways too). I don't care (too much, well maybe a bit) if I fail the exam, I will try to get it together now with an aim to pass, but with such a busy life now, discipline is key- I must discipline myself like a soldier. I do hope to pass, so i can introduce Dutch as I'm getting that frustrated feeling again of too much time having passed and only studying French, and to add to all that I think 'whatiftheblog' was onto something, I think there's an element of boredom, or at least 'staleness'. Let's hope my next post is radically different still, I'm alive, my family are well, it's not the end of the world, I shall proceed Hope you're going well out there smallwhite!

[luke]

Courage, mon frère!

[Fortheo]

Salut Peter.

I recall recently you posted some of your study notes not long ago. I was looking for them with no success, and am not sure if you posted it in your log or in the French group thread.

I'm wondering if you keep notes on many or all points of grammar that you study? I'm thinking of doing the same as I start PMP Complete French Grammar. I've never really kept notes to any degree and am trying to decide how thorough I should be, as well as how I can do it to get the most value out of it. Perhaps I would just review notes I create, or even create Anki cards on certain things like verb to preposition matching.

Basically, I'd like to hear your thoughts or any insights you may have on note keeping, as I suspect you may have done a bit with your courses. I don't mean to burden you to write anything massive, just if you have any words of wisdom.

I have an anki deck with closed deletion grammar exercises for just about every chapter out of the grammaire en dialogues books that I've used. I've never used Anki for vocab, but I've found it to be great for stubborn grammar points. The key is not to overwhelm yourself though—only pick the exercises that you feel will help you the most. I only spend about 10 minutes a day on these decks, but I find that it helps to keep the grammar points fresh in my head. If you have some stubborn grammar points that you constantly second guess yourself on, then I highly suggest making a small anki deck with a few key exercises in it. Here's a random example card from one of my decks: