Stopping language classes ?

General discussion about learning languages
Xmmm
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby Xmmm » Sat Mar 17, 2018 3:07 pm

Elefant wrote:My french is not very good at the moment so I cant watch TV
yet.


I started watching TV in Italian when I was a third of the way down the duolingo tree --> I think you can do it.

What I did in the early stages when my comprehension of Italian was almost zero was:

1. Pick easy shows (dramas or action with dialogue that's on the easy side -- no slang, no irony, no fast-talking geniuses).
2. Watch it in Italian with Italian subtitles.
3. If I hit a scene where I didn't understand, roll it back and switch to English for that one scene, then watch it in Italian again.
4. Carry on. If I enjoyed the episode but felt I didn't understand it sufficiently, watch it again.

Netflix is enormously helpful here because of how easily you can roll back and toggle different subtitles (or even audio tracks if necessary).

When I started with zero comprehension I had to roll back and re-watch almost every scene. But after 100 hours, that dropped to 50%. And after 200 hours, maybe 25%. Somewhere around 200 or 250 hours I turned off all the subtitles too. Nowadays I re-watch a scene maybe once every three episodes.
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Elefant
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby Elefant » Sat Mar 17, 2018 6:56 pm

Xenops wrote:This Youtube channel has various cartoons that are fan-subbed: https://www.youtube.com/user/buenovelazquez/videos


Thanks.

This was exactly what I was looking for.

:)
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smallwhite
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby smallwhite » Wed Mar 21, 2018 9:42 am

Elefant wrote:
I'm not really sure about the classes, it has helped a bit ... The group better than me ... They know how to form sentences and know very strange words, ...

From your description, the class is good. Your only objective criticism was their pronunciation being worse than yours, but you did French at school for 5 years, and have had weekly one-on-one conversations with family.

I've seen students from l'Alliance Francaise Hong Kong and they spoke and wrote French very well. I was definitely impressed. I saw B1 (510 class hours) and B2 (750 hours) students attend strictly French-only classes, discuss and debate confidently in class, socialise with the French teacher over dinner, and I know they also attended current affairs discussion workshops.

If your alternative is to self-study like many of us here do, well, the average performance here is a lot lower than what I saw at l'AF. And we here are already native or pretty advanced English speakers, meaning we're already at an advantage, but still perform worse on average.

Some of us here eventually have to take classes afterall, often one-on-one classes. That could end up pricey, but then you have French-speaking family so maybe you won't need that.

There's definitely the possibility that you'd turn out way above our average, though! I can only use averages and possibilities to talk about the unknown future.
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Decidida
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby Decidida » Sun Mar 25, 2018 5:31 pm

Quitting for lack of time and money and then switching to something more efficient and affordable are reasons I quit, but I am not quick to just quit. I didn't learn English with one resource and will not learn Spanish with one resource. It is going to be the combination of sources that is going to get me where I want to be. All the resources have their strengths and weaknesses. As long as they overlap correctly, none have to be perfect. Some of my favorite resources have some incredible weaknesses.
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby Serpent » Sun Mar 25, 2018 5:54 pm

i've learned Finnish on my own without taking classes. I've passed the C1 exam (and scored C2 in grammar&vocabulary).
This is not for everyone but it's doable.
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Tristano
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Re: Stopping language classes ?

Postby Tristano » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:54 pm

Serpent wrote:i've learned Finnish on my own without taking classes. I've passed the C1 exam (and scored C2 in grammar&vocabulary).
This is not for everyone but it's doable.


True, but it is indeed something that few are able to do.
To achieve C2 in any language is a monster job, many native speakers would fail the exam. If not everyone is intelligent enough to do it, the ones that actually are may not have the necessary motivation and resources to go there.
I don't mean to discourage anyone but for most of the population a mixed approach is the way to go: classes, self study and a ton of exposure and practice, with a critical sense and a growth mindset.
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