Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

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issemiyaki
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Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby issemiyaki » Tue Aug 04, 2015 11:50 am

Okay ... this might be the elephant in the room. Should I bite the bullet and just start doing conjugation tables? Or am I just being impatient?

I'm just frustrated with getting writing corrections back with verbs that were not conjugated correctly. This seems to also be the source of some of my difficulties when it comes to listening, too. The other day I was listening to a recording and misunderstood what was being said because I was unfamiliar with the pronunciation of the 3-person singular form of "acheter." (Yes, I feel foolish!) But the speakers were speaking quickly, and the stress on "achète" caught me off guard. When I checked the conjugation tables on wordreference.com, it all made sense. Also, the more I write, speak and listen, the more I'm noticing, over and over again, that poor verb conjugation seems to be, at least in part, at the center of my problems.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if doing 50 million verb-conjugating exercises is the key either.

Maybe this will all work itself out? Am I just being impatient? While frustrating, maybe it is only through writing and speaking and being corrected that these problems will eventually work themselves out?

I just feel uncomfortable leaving something like this to chance. I'm the type of learner that when I see something going wrong, I want to work on that weak spot and FIX IT!

What's your take?
Last edited by issemiyaki on Tue Aug 04, 2015 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby basica » Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:02 pm

First thing I did was write conjugation tables for Serbian, also declensions as well since nouns and adjectives need to match gender and each gender declines differently. While I definitely do have case issues (7 cases, 3 genders and different forms for plural and singular means there's a lot of opportunity to mess up), I hardly ever make conjugation errors because I practiced them early on. You will probably pick up on them eventually, but I definitely think working on this specific problem with some good ol' fashioned brute force will help speed up your improvement in this area.
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby issemiyaki » Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:22 pm

@basica:

Thanks for the feedback. I think you might be right. Might be time to put some elbow grease in this project.
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby Elenia » Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:32 pm

Do it. If there is an area you are unsure about, I see no problem with taking extra measures to fix it. Maybe you don't need to go through every verb you get wrong, writing out its full conjugation, but working on the rules for each group, and perhaps testing yourself on them every now and again by picking a random verb and writing out it's conjugation.

Le nouvel Observateur have a website and an app dedicated to conjugation. I don't know if the app is available on Android, but it's useful for checking conjugations you're unsure of and also has exercises which test your knowledge of the rules. Some of the verbs thrown out are a little weird, if I remember correctly, but knowing the rules means that, as long as the verb is regular, you should be able to conjugate it without problem.

Good luck!
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby issemiyaki » Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:16 pm

@Elenia - thx for the tip.

The regular present verbs don't give me a problem. It's the irregular ones and I'm starting to move into the different past and future tenses, which can be complicated.

So, thanks again.
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Aug 04, 2015 2:17 pm

A very common problem, I'd say most of us were there at some point :-), don't worry, don't lose hope.
It is not a popular solution in today's learning environment (all that "oh, a language is not about grammar", "tables are sooo old fashioned" attitude) but memorisation of the tables, at least of the verbs you tend to have problem with, helps immensely.

What helped me:
1.SRS
I am now making a French conjugation deck on Memrise you might like but there are others as well and Anki is a great option too. The deck should hopefully be complete soon (the review is obviously useful to me as well as I don't encounter some of the verbs that often), you might like to have a look at it when it is done. Even though it might be less comfortable for some of the beginners and I don't know your level.

2.tons of exercises, as you mention. But really, sometimes you need a lot of them, more than just the few pages most courses give you. You might consider getting an extra exercise source. But you can easily "make" more by yourself, just by good old substitution to sentences. Funny examples sometimes work just great or remembering the word used by a movie character etc.

3.large amounts of input help with conjugation as well (just as with quite everything). Both with getting used to where should each tense be applied (a learner who reads/listens a lot won't struggle with subjunctif, imparfait vs. passé composé or conditionals by far as much as a learn who doesn't expose themselves to enough input). But you internalize the proper forms too, simply by having enountered them enough times.

Really, you can go on and you have a chance the problem will get solved without extra work over (lots of) time. But it will probably keep frustrating you, it will make you speak and write worse than necessary and you risk fossilizing mistakes. (Mistake fossilization shouldn't be underestimated. I still need to pay extra attention every time I write "beaucoup" because of a mistake learnt 15 years ago).

Apart from that memrise course I am creating (based mostly on a book I am about to recommend, with some additions and changes), you can use other references, tons of books and websites and apps. But I found one that is probably the very best and can be a faithful companion from later beginning/lower intermediate level up to very advanced learners and native speakers.

http://www.albin-michel.fr/Toute-la-con ... 2226143938
unfortunately, there is no photo of the inside of the book, I might make a few, since some people already put them in their logs, but no promises. I've already mentioned the book elsewhere. There are explanations of quite everything you need to know about verbs. There are the model tables and a huge list of verbs linked to each model. All the temps, modes, root changes and ortograph etc. And the author is funny! In a grammar book! Awesome. And it is really colourful, that makes it much easier to learn, for example, you can see various roots of a verb in various colours and so on. I need to take a picture.
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Aug 04, 2015 2:36 pm

Hmm, I am perhaps stupid but I didn't find a way to upload an image. Or to separate my two attempts to scan an example table page, so the pdf (1MB) includes two pictures of the same page.

https://1fichier.com/?58err6dgon

As you can see, if everything went fine, the colours are awesome and help remember the conjugation. The design brings order to the apparent chaos.

And the red border of the page: that is for the tables. Apart of that, there are as well different parts (marked with different colours) with explanations of general rules and concepts, explanations of each tense and mode, how it is formed, how it is used, notes on some particular verbs, list of verbs etc..

There are no exercises, that is not the purpose of the book.
I missed there only two things. An exhaustive list of semi-auxiliaires, that chapter is a but too brief, in my opinion. And an exhaustive list of verbs+preposition combinations, which my German verb book includes. Neither is that important to a native, that's probably the reason. And both can be found elsewhere, fortunately.

And no, I am not paid by the publisher. I just love the book and wholeheartedly recommend it :-)
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby Arnaud » Tue Aug 04, 2015 2:53 pm

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Last edited by Arnaud on Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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issemiyaki
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby issemiyaki » Tue Aug 04, 2015 3:09 pm

Merci à tous !

You all have helped me answer my question. I'll be getting some type of book.

Cavessa thanks for all the recommendations. The Albin Michel book looks great. I love how you put it ... the colors bring order to the chaos. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Thx again!
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Re: Poorly Conjugating Verbs - How To Stop It?

Postby garyb » Tue Aug 04, 2015 3:19 pm

I learnt my French verbs the traditional way: at school, with tables, example sentences, and exercises. And it worked. While I criticise my high school classes as much as most of us, the verbs are the one thing that stuck, and they came back very quickly when I picked up the language again years afterwards. There were a few forms we didn't learn at school, like the subjunctive, but I filled in the gaps pretty quickly in much the same way, with tables and exercises on french.about.com.
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