B1 French from (false) A0 until 06/2020 (FR with small doses of KO/JP)

[nagoyana]

I had a lot of fun these past days watching Star Trek Voyager in French on Netflix, without subtitles and understanding enough to follow the story just fine. It might be time to graduate to something originally French soon
Since I made myself go on the cross trainer during every first episode I watched that day, my French overdose might even have had a positive effect on my fitness

I took a little break from grammar after having finished Grammaire Progressive.
Overall, I feel like most grammar points have started to stick, but to be able to really use them spontaneously, I am going to need a lot more practise (especially when it comes to the conditionnel).

Some I just don’t get (yet), though
For instance, according the passé composée in constructions with avoir (e.g. Les pommes que j'ai mangées.) feels really weird and is most certainly something I have not heard about while I was still in school.
What is even worse, though, is NOT according the passé in constructions with être that have a direct object (or at least I think it's a direct object, like e.g. Ils se sont disputé la première place.). I sincerely hoped for another Assimil typo, but unfortunately Grammaire Progressive says otherwise...

In contrast, Il faut que je fasse is burned into my brain from my language exchange and the second to last unit, so I am probably never going to forget “il faut que + subjonctif” again.

Today I had a small success moment thanks to grammar. I had decided to try out Kwiziq (can’t go without grammar for too long, right? ) and the placement test result was C1:
A0 87,7% (10/10) / A1 84,3% (16/18) / A2 87,1% (19/20) / B1 83,8% (15/17) / B2 89,9% (18/18)
Note that this is probably not a realistic indication of my current French level, but at least all the time spent on the Grammaire Progressive books seems to have paid off.

Assimil using not yet introduced vocabulary words in the listening comprehension exercises, however, is beginning to annoy me. How can one check one's listening comprehension if part of the words used are not known yet?
This might be one of the reasons why I am prone to skip my daily dose of Assimil. By now, I am probably not going to finish French without Toil before my preparation course for the French test starts on 06 May. So I am extending my personal Assimil deadline without revision to the end of the course (18 May).

And now I am going to watch another episode of Voyager

[nagoyana]

Long time no see (again...)!
I am proud to be able to announce that I passed my A2+/B1 French test this week with 97% in the written part and a very positive feedback in the spoken part (no marks were given for speaking).
Thus, until I find out otherwise, I am going to consider myself B1 in French

After half a year of mostly intense studying (I am pretty sure that I have never studied any of my languages as hard as French), I am now allowing myself a little break.
I have, however, realised that even if I keep telling myself that I can skip French on any given day, I still tend to gravitate towards French content. 6-month habits are hard to break, I guess

So, in retrospect, what did I feel were the most useful resources to reach B1 in 6 months?
+ FSI Introduction to French Phonology to prevent pronunciation mistakes from the start
+ Assimil (still only up to lesson 92) to revise that pronunciation and for basic listening comprehension
+ Harry Potter 1-4 as audio books to improve that listening comprehension
+ Grammaire Progressive Débutant/Intermédiaire for a solid grasp of the grammar
+ Kwiziq up to 25% of A2 as grammar revision (not necessary but fun nonetheless)
+ Weekly speaking sessions via Skype to start breaking the speaking barrier starting in April
+ the 1-and-a-half-week preparation course for the test in May (this one was truly brilliant)

What would I have liked to do more of?
- I would have liked to finish Assimil but I was facing diminishing returns and motivation ^^J
- More reading would have been beneficial, as would have been more TV/Netflix
- a bit more focussed vocabulary study would surely have worked wonders... but is hard!

My VHS course was cancelled due to corona and would not have brought be far anyways. I did, however, do some of the exercises from the book and enjoyed them since they were more varied than only the Progressives (vocab and listening comprehension, for instance).

All in all, I am now feeling that I have hit the intermediate plateau and that I should start focussing on extensive input and especially on broadening my vocabulary.
I might post a new plan in some days only to change it again shortly after
For the time being I would still like to finish Assimil and the exercises in the book I bought for the VHS course just to have them not lying around unfinished any more...

Other than that I will have to think of a new title for this log and of what to log, since my day to day language “studying” is not that interesting.
Maybe I'll switch to posting more in my other languages, since writing is one of the skills where I could use some work in most of them.

But until then happy language learning everyone!

[mattf789]

Hello Nagoyana, and congratulations on passing your test! I just read your whole log with great interest as I started learning French last week. Can you tell me a bit more about your language exchange please? Did you use a teacher or was it a language partner? Do you think you started a language exchange at the right time, or should have done it sooner or later? More or less often than once a week? Sorry for all the questions I'm looking forward to reading about your future language learning endeavours.

Matt

[nagoyana]

Hello Nagoyana, and congratulations on passing your test! I just read your whole log with great interest as I started learning French last week. Can you tell me a bit more about your language exchange please? Did you use a teacher or was it a language partner? Do you think you started a language exchange at the right time, or should have done it sooner or later? More or less often than once a week? Sorry for all the questions I'm looking forward to reading about your future language learning endeavours.

Matt

Hello Matt,

Thank you for dropping by!
See below my answers to your questions

I talked with a language partner, exchanging English and French. We met twice a week for an hour each. Since changing the language after only 30 minutes breaks the flow in my opinion, one day was English-only and one day French-only.
I used the exchange to get a bit of speaking practise prior to my preparation course for the test since I knew beforehand that part of it would be speaking. So for me, it was the right time, but I would have waited longer if I hadn't needed French shortly after. (I simply do not like searching for words and having to circumscribe too much, which is why I prefer to reach a solid level before starting to speak.)

During the exchange we would take about any topic that would catch our fancy – so there was a lot of corona-talk going on as one might expect at the moment But we also talked about language learning in general, differences between France and Germany and various other topics.
I always ask my exchange partners to not correct me but note down any recurring mistakes I make to send them to me afterwards. My exchange partner wanted me to do the same so I took notes while we were speaking in a shared GoogleDoc.
Other than that not much preparation or revision was involved on my part – though it might have made sense sometimes

Currently the exchange is put on hold (since I was busy with the preparation course and won't need to speak much French in the weeks to come), but even the 8 weeks did really help to get used to speaking a bit.
I am not sure yet whether (and if yes, how) I will continue, but it has been fun for sure, even with all the stuttering and searching for words.