Carmody's Log for French

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Jar-Ptitsa
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Location: London
Languages: Belgian French (N)

I can speak: Dutch, German, English, Spanish and understand Italian, Portuguese, Wallonian, Afrikaans, but not always correctly.
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:32 pm

Hi Carmody and Reineke

for the mobile (or laptop as well, so it can be both) you can say portable too like Carmody wrote (not only mobile), and in Belgium (maybe in France also?) you can say le GSM.
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-w- I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:20 pm

Thanks vogeltje, every bit helps.
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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:21 am

Tout d'abord, je suis revenu chez moi de la chirgurie de la cataracte. Zut, alors, maintenant je n’ai pas des excuses avec les devoirs ! Mes devoirs; toujours mes devoirs!

Maintenant je suis sur chapitre quarante-neuf de French in Action. Le livre n’est pas court, mais c’est la vie. Quelquefois je pense qu’il soit « la fin des haricots et je tomberai dans les pommes de la hausse de tension. »

Ouf, la langue Française c’est une autre chose ; il n’est pas facile…..mais, j’aime la langue parce qu’il ait beaucoup des excellentes expressions.
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Carmody
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Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:58 pm

C'est aujourd'hui le dix-neuf avril.

La semaine demain j'ai finis avec French in Action. Mais actuellement on ne peut jamais finis avec ce cours; c'est un ami pour tout mon vie.

Et aujourd'hui j'ai finis le roman Metaphysique Des Tubes par Amélie Nothomb, [/i]. C'était un livre trés intéressante. J'aime beaucoup cette auteur et c'est le troisième livre par cette auteur que j'ai lu.
Image

Aussi, je continue chaque jour écouter à Français Avec Pierre et Parlez-vous Francais avec Patricia. Les deux chaînes sont sur YouTube.

Aussi, quelquefois https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38MST1QfDAypgrjjr6FPBw

Le mot du jour est: pamplemousse. Les Amèricans disent ......grapefruit. ça alors!

Prenez soin de vous.....à la prochaine fois
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Carmody
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Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
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Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Sun Jul 02, 2017 3:10 pm

The year being half over, it might be a good time to look backwards and forwards for my French studies for 2017.

My current study methodology includes the following:

1. Daily review of French In Action, chapter by chapter. Find this second time thru FIA very productive. When I finish this, I will go back and do the same with Assmil NFWE.
2. Watch lots of French on YouTube to help with my oral comprehension.
3. Read daily, my current book, which at this time is Les Yeux Jaunes Des Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol. Am finding it very useful for the colloquial usage and I am half way through it.

What I am not doing is spending time learning to speak French at this time. Since there is no one around to practice it with and italki would be too expensive in the long haul, I am staying with my original goal of wanting to read all things French and to get to know the country and its people better in that way.

Feel I am finally settling into a daily routine, rather than bouncing around with different things, as I did last year. In a word, much better language efficiency and focus.

At this half way point through the year, I have invested 400 hrs in my French studies and look forward to hopefully putting in another 400 hrs by the end of the year.

No wrap up would be complete without a heartfelt thanks to the Forum for its phenomenal collective wisdom. Each day on the Forum is a learning experience for which I have been and will be truly grateful.

The word for day today is: aïe. Americans say ouch, but what do they know. :D
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Dec 02, 2017 7:00 pm

Today I am playing a bit of catch up. Your log shows admirable dedication and progress. You talk about being slow. Yitzak Perlman, the concert violinist, advises that the slower you learn the slower you forget.
I found myself agreeing with your assessment of Houellebecq, and I was wondering what works of Marguerite Duras you have read and whether you liked them. I read Hiroshima Mon Amour and L'Amant and enjoyed them both. Though the subject matter of L'Amant took me some time to adjust to. I had to keep telling myself, the novel is autobiographical and Duras herself was the girl.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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rdearman
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby rdearman » Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:15 am

Have you tried language exchanges on iTalki? There are people who will do 1/2 hour in French and 1/2 hour in English. I know, I've done this and there is no cost. You just exchange skype details.
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I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Mon Dec 04, 2017 2:24 am

Rick

Thanks so much for the suggestion. I have put that off due to:
1)lack of confidence and
2)not knowing what teacher I should turn to. I am not sure how to separate the good ones from the not so good.

Just a note that I am currently corresponding with 4 different French people as pen pals from Conversation Exchange website and am finding that useful.
https://www.conversationexchange.com/

Also, tomorrow I have a Skype session scheduled with one of my long time pen pals who lives in Nantes, France. She is a high school level teacher of French and we are having an excellent correspondence.I have my script all prepared and will do my best to be polite and not too heavy duty about this.

If I can come off as even half as easy going as you do on lollygagging then I will count myself a total success. Really.

I congratulate you on meeting your goal in French. Well done!!! I think it is very important for people to announce when they have reached a goal and share that. Like you I am trying to go deep and will see what the future brings. Most of my time is spent reading at the moment. I am not racking up the 1000 hrs. that Peter Mollenburg does (and I greatly respect him) but I will have put in 800 hrs. by the end of the 2017 year, so on the discipline side I can look back on having on having achieved at least that. (Also for the record, I am very careful and honest with my record keeping for time.)

Any success along my way is the result of my standing on the shoulders of all the people here. I could not do it without this community and its positive reinforcement.
Last edited by Carmody on Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:01 pm

If anyone has suggestions re good French fiction authors to read, I would love to hear about it. I don't really do scifi, mystery or detective, but I do like French fiction.

In the past 2 years I have read:

Le Petit Prince, Saint Exupery*
Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue, A. Gide*
Bonjour Tristesse, F. Sagan*
L'Amant, M. Duras*
La Symphonie pastorale, A. Gide
Stupeur Et Tremblements, A. Nothomb*
L'Élégance du hérisson, M. Barbery
La Carte et le Territoire, M. Houellebecq
Le Sabotage amoureux, A. Nothomb*
Métaphysique des tubes, A. Nothomb*
Histoire du lion Personne, S. Audeguy
Le lit defait, F. Sagan
Les yeux jaunes des crocodiles, K. Pancol
La Peste, A. Camus
Le Sud, Yves Berger
Mercure, A. Nothomb*
La biographie de la faim, A. Nothomb*
Thérèse Desqueyroux, F. Mauriac
Poil de carotte, J. Renard
La Place, A. Ernaux
Les Années A. Ernaux

*Designates what I consider exceptional.

I have reread each of the above books 2-4 times. Doing so helps me pickup more vocab, idioms, syntax, etc.
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Carmody
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1747
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:00 am
Location: NYC, NY
Languages: English (N)
French (B1)
Language Log: http://tinyurl.com/zot7wrs
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Re: Carmody's Log for French

Postby Carmody » Tue Dec 19, 2017 8:27 pm

2017 End of Year Wrap-Up

For starters, my thanks to everyone on this Forum for their help. Without Tom Gosse, Rick Dearman, and the whole community, I simply would not have been able to get this far.

Hours Studied: 800

Written Word:
Métaphysique des tubes A. Nothomb
Histoire du lion Personne S. Audeguy
Le lit defait F. Sagan
Les yeux jaunes des crocodiles K. Pancol
La Peste A. Camus
Le Sud Yves Berger
Mercure A. Nothomb
La biographie de la faim A. Nothomb
Thérèse Desqueyroux F. Mauriac
Poil de carotte J. Renard
La Chambre Rouge Mallet-Joris
La Place A. Ernaux
La Douleur M. Duras
Le Château de ma mère M. Pagnol
Les Année Annie Ernaux
Note: Each of the books has been read 2-3 times for vocab, idioms, syntax, etc.

Spoken Word:
Watched countless videos on YouTube that include but are not limited to:
Français Avec Pierre
Français Authentique
Home Language with Patricia
And
A large number of documentaries from the following channels: Documentaire Animalier, Secrets d'Histoire Officiel, Comme une Française, and numerous videos on the building of Guédelon Castle and of course the French Foreign Legion.Thanks Tom

During this year I have also set up correspondence with 4-5 people in France on a regular basis and had a few Skype chats.

In summary, my shift of focus will be from written word of last year to the spoken word via Skype, italki, etc. However, my love of French literature will, I hope, always keep me reading French literature.

My thanks again to everyone for being such a supportive community and showing me the way……..

edit: deleted the word countless and added "a large number" in the sentence on documentaries.
Last edited by Carmody on Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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