Lawyer&Mom wrote:...with loads of learning material and reasonably available native content.
It's not in your progress bars, but were you doing Le Français par la méthode nature at one time, or was this someone else? If so did you complete that?
Lawyer&Mom wrote:...with loads of learning material and reasonably available native content.
Le Baron wrote:Lawyer&Mom wrote:...with loads of learning material and reasonably available native content.
It's not in your progress bars, but were you doing Le Français par la méthode nature at one time, or was this someone else? If so did you complete that?
Lawyer&Mom wrote:Found something in Amanda’s language log that is a total game changer for me: https://bonpatron.com/
It’s a free website aimed at language learners that checks your French writing for grammar mistakes. This is a dream come true. I need to practice my writing but I often avoid the writing prompts in my Grammar books because I can’t easily correct them. Now I can!
Obviously a website can’t find every mistake, but it more than meets my current needs.
Can’t believe I hadn’t even heard of this site before now.
galaxyrocker wrote:I can say I've never really gotten very far by myself. It's always required the kick-in-the-butt that courses have provided. Whether those courses involve going to the country or lessons through school (French and Irish for the former, Irish for the latter), that's been the only way I've been able to get to a reasonable level. I hope to change that having learned more about how I learn, especially given that courses don't always help (I spent 6 weeks in Spanish immersion...and still can't speak Spanish) without some self-learning, but all my true self-learning attempts have failed.
Again, hopefully that'll change on my next project.
Cavesa wrote:
It's interesting, how people mentioned this kind of motivation. I have never experienced it. Nearly all the language classes I've ever attended were simply too slow paced and easy going to give any "kick-in-the-butt" and the only exception was instead a "wish-for-death" kind of kicking.
I wonder why it is so. And what is missing in the self-study routine of people that find the classes more motivating. I personally find participation in challenges on the forum to be extremely good as motivation. Anything quantifyable is great as well.
As I see the same issue recurring so often, I simply wonder what we can do better as a community to support each other in self teaching. Not sure. We have failed various study groups projects. Logs are working really well for some people, not that much for others. Challenges are awesome. Hard to think of something more, but it would be definitely worth it to come up with some new ideas.
Cavesa wrote:galaxyrocker wrote:I can say I've never really gotten very far by myself. It's always required the kick-in-the-butt that courses have provided. Whether those courses involve going to the country or lessons through school (French and Irish for the former, Irish for the latter), that's been the only way I've been able to get to a reasonable level. I hope to change that having learned more about how I learn, especially given that courses don't always help (I spent 6 weeks in Spanish immersion...and still can't speak Spanish) without some self-learning, but all my true self-learning attempts have failed.
Again, hopefully that'll change on my next project.
It's interesting, how people mentioned this kind of motivation. I have never experienced it. Nearly all the language classes I've ever attended were simply too slow paced and easy going to give any "kick-in-the-butt" and the only exception was instead a "wish-for-death" kind of kicking.
galaxyrocker wrote:Cavesa wrote:
It's interesting, how people mentioned this kind of motivation. I have never experienced it. Nearly all the language classes I've ever attended were simply too slow paced and easy going to give any "kick-in-the-butt" and the only exception was instead a "wish-for-death" kind of kicking.
For my school classes (so, Irish), it was a combination of two things: (1) I needed to do well for a grade and (2) I had teachers willing to go the extra mile. They saw I was interested, and would meet with me outside of class to go quicker than the class. My last two years at uni, I literally met with my professor multiple times a week outside of class just to speak Irish, and to learn extra stuff she thought I'd be interested in. At one point, she'd basically become like a second mom, and a few of us would even meet up with her and her husband for an Irish-speaking breakfast on the weekends. She offered to let me stay at her house once if I needed to when I was doing an exam. My first teacher was the same way, though less as I was still a beginner. But we'd meet during office hours regularly, and I'd learn stuff we hadn't covered in class yet. Still only got an A- instead of an A 'cause I was too lazy to memorise vocabulary lol.
As for immersion schools, they've been the best precisely because they're fast paced and pretty much all day. The ones I've done in Ireland force you to keep up, and it's sink or swim in a lot of ways. I've loved this, and was using the language literally 6-8 hours a day just in structured classes. Same with the one in France, though it was 4 hours a day 2 days and 7 three days a week, with less interaction on the weekend. And then it was slower paced than me as I was in a class that was below my level, but I was still able to get practice and solidify my understanding. In Spain, class was slightly above my level and total immersion, so it forced me, again, to work at it and that's why I enjoyed it so much. It was great, not so much the one I did in Mexico, though I did enjoy it (it was more conversational focused, whereas I was wanting more grammar structure)
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