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.

[nagoyana]

I have been thinking this past week about what to do with my remaining free time (June, that is) in terms of language learning. And I have not really reached a conclusion for all languages yet, but since it’s June already I might as well start with one of my resolutions
Namely I’d like to start keeping this log in English and Japanese instead of only English. For now I will probably try to keep my ramblings concerning English and Japanese in Japanese and everything concerning Korean and French in English. I might try to mix in some French and Korean eventually, but let’s keep it easy for the moment

It still is more difficult than I had expected to stop studying French, so I decided to just stop trying and continue where I left off, just at a slower pace. I’d love to finish my B1 textbook (currently working on lesson 5 of 12) and Assimil by the end of June. The textbook part should be more than doable, Assimil not so much But it can’t be that hard to finish those 21 remaining lessons!
Whenever I don’t feel like studying, I am continuing with Star Trek Voyager and Harry Potter (where I am still stuck at about 1/3 of the second book, but that has to do with way too much reading in English, but more on that below in Japanese).

What do to with my Korean still eludes me. I reached one milestone about 2 weeks ago when I finished Breaking Dawn (and yes, 821 pages took the better part of 5 months...), but I could probably use a re-read for the vocabulary. Not that I shouldn’t start studying vocabulary again anyways, but I am not sure how this will work out mixed with vocabulary study in French.
Depending on my success with Assimil and my textbook for French I might simply try to finally finish my TOPIK grammar and vocabulary books. Until then I will do my best to keep reading something every day just to keep that habit.


英語と日本語に関してはやっぱり本格的に勉強する気はないから,相変わらず勉強しない様にしている:lol:但し,両方とも使わないと忘れてしまうので,何かはしなきゃいけない.

最近,普通に小説だけ読んだりしていれば上達しないと考える様になった.英語の場合それは多分問題ないが,日本語能力は残念ながらもうちょっと頑張らないと段々衰えてしまう…
と言うことで色々考えてみて結局ある結論に至った:もっと頑張るのであれば先ず日本語にもっと触れるべきだということ.
それでこのログも一部日本語で書いた方がいいのでは?という考えで一応書いてみた
今のところ思ったほど時間もかからなさそうからいいかも.

また,日本の友達に借りた世界史と政治学の教科書もあるので,それを使って言語ではなく色んなテーマについて勉強することにした.大学生時代を振り返ってみると英語能力もやっぱりそうしてもっと上達させたから少なくても損はしないと思う.
後はもちろん日本の友達とのお喋りも続けるので,それでいいかな?

問題は英語なんだ ここ2,3年レジャー読書をほぼ100%日本語に切り替える様努力をしてきたけど,一旦また英語の本に手を出すとついその次も英語の本にする傾向がある.この間フランス語でTamora Pierceのシリーズを読んだからなおさら!
本当に日本語でも何回読んでも飽きない本を見つけないとな…
とにかく,日本語も毎日少し使えば(どうせ上記の教科書を使ってみようとするから)しばらく英語で読んでもいいと自分に言い聞かせる

年始に立てたの言語の目標をチェックすると一番遅れているところは漢字の復習.3000字ぐらいのankiデッキをそろそろ終わらせたいから6月の残りの勉強時間をそれにあてようと思う.
カードは読みと書きがあるけど,読みのカードは既に全部やったから残るのは一部の書きカードだけ(1000枚ぐらい).全部6月中にやるにはちょっと多いので(フランス語も韓国語もあるから),毎日10枚やったら満足する.

時間はそんなにかからないけど,日本語で書くとあまりまとまった文章にならない感じがするのでちょっと気になる(笑)
もっと慣れたら直るといいね.


It really has been a while since I wrote anything longer than short LINE messages in Japanese, so bear with me Anyways, it feels good to give my Japanese brain some work

I am going to give Assimil lesson 93 a try now (maybe writing this here will really make me do that…) and afterwards work on my plans for Korean. If anyone has recommendations for ressources at the upper intermediate level, I’d be happy to hear those!

In the meantime I hope your language studies are going well

[nagoyana]

Okay, so getting into a weekly posting rhythm might still need a bit of work
I had rather unproductive week in terms of all languages except English. More on that below.

ここ2週間に英語の本を3冊(1200ページ)も読んだので、それ以外ほとんど何も出来なかった。
読んだシリーズは一応その3冊で終わったので、これからま普通の勉強リズムに戻れるといいね。

と言いたいが、今引っ越しの準備でやることに追われているから、来週かな？
(実はこの投稿も掃除やリフォームの合間を縫って新しいアパートで書いている。)

日本語においては世界史、政治学の教科書を使った勉強は割と順調だ。それぞれのテキストを読んで理解しているつもりなんだけど、たまには思いも寄らない話になっているので、一時苦労する。(多極共存型自由民主主義と福祉国会的自由民主主義の違いなど。多分ドイツ語で読んでも先ず何も分からない(苦笑))
世界史ではヨーロッパの歴史は一番馴染みのあるテーマで、中国の歴史は訳の分からない漢字がたくさん使われて難しい。ドイツの学校であまり教わらないから面白いのは中国の歴史の方だけどね！

今までのスピードで両方の本を今月中に読みきれそうなので、そのゴールに向かって引き続き頑張ります。

So while I am more or less on track with Japanese, the picture looks a lot less rosy for Korean and French (I seem to have finally managed to not do much for French right when I had decided to re-start studying... ).
I did actually do 2 lessons of Assimil, which brings me to 94, and a bit of vocabulary study for French. Since I am still dragging my feet with Assimil, I spare you all the repeated tale of how far I was planning to study up until today

As for Korean... was I supposed to do some actual studying? I did read some pages and I did search for a source for further reading material (reading the same book again right after finishing it is not my cup of tea), but that is about all.
Still not sure what to do with Korean goal-wise as well. I should probably get Korean Grammar in Use Beginner and start revising to have something to do ^^J

Anyways, since I am moving next Monday/Tuesday, I decided to keep it easy until then.
I probably won't manage much studying anyway.

Happy language learning nonetheless

[nagoyana]

So, what have I learned these last 2 weeks?
Not much – except perhaps to never make plans to do anything when a move is involved

Well, I have been cleaning my new apartment, moving and assembling furniture, unpacking boxes... you get the idea. Actual study time was probably zero, although I did find the time to do quite a bit of reading during breaks. And a bit of Netflix in the evenings

I have given up on finishing Assimil by the end of June, but I am not prepared to give up completely just yet, considering I have only 20 lessons to go.
Instead of beating myself up about that, I decided to do a bit of catching up towards my yearly goals (where I was behind for everything except English pages read ). Currently I am on my way to be back on track for all almost all goals by the end of the month.
Only my Cello continues to be sorely neglected.

I finished the second volume of Harry Potter in French and started the third volume, which I probably won’t finish before the end of the month. Since I am going to be busy in July, I will have to see how to reorganize my study goals around my remaining free time then.

In Korean, I only read a little more of Breaking Dawn. While I had serious doubts about my Korean level after starting to read in French, re-starting Breaking Dawn made me feel a little better I guess. Reading a book for the second time really is easier. I certainly have the feeling that I am encountering less unknown words than last time, so I must have learned something in the meantime.
Google Play Books seems to have some Korean eBooks available in Germany, so maybe that solves my problem of not having anything else to read. I might try some Higashino Keigo next, although I knew none of the titles available.

英語ではここにぶらついて投稿をたくさん読みすぎただけかな…

でも日本語では一応世界史の教科書を読み終えた.中々面白かった.但し,最近フランス語をあんなに頑張って勉強したのに「クーデタ」の由来に気づくのに結構時間がかかったな ^^J
それ以外たくさん見すぎてもう忘れられない語彙ときたら…「蜂起」かな?
やっぱり世界史の本を読むとこうなるのかしら.

政治学の教科書も後ちょっとで終わり.こっちの方は内容がもっと難しいからたまに本当に文章を2,3回読んでも意味が通じない.言語ではなくてテーマの問題だと信じたいが(苦笑)

気分転換として日本の友達に送ってもらった「絶対零度 未然犯罪潜入捜査2020」を読み始めた.100ページぐらい読んだ時点で感想はちょっといまいちかな?
会話が多くて描写はほとんどないから早く読めるが,ストーリーはちょっと微妙というか…日本でドラマにもなった話だから,ドラマを見たことがあったらもっと面白かったかもしれない.とにかく最後まで読むつもりなんだけど,その後はまた違う本を選ぶと思う.

Netflixでは最近面白いことにアニメを見ている.何年ぶりかな… 話も使われる言語も難しくないから気楽に見られて案外楽しいね.
今見ているアニメを見終えたら次は韓国ドラマにしようかと考えている.

What still irks me to no end is how my tablet manages to get the Japanese punctuation right when I am typing on the screen, but all wrong as soon as I connect my wireless keyboard…
So I will probably have to try out a Japanese one when I am in Japan the next time. Whenever that is going to be ^^J

While I am waiting to see how my available time is going to change from July, I hope your studies are going well – happy language learning

Edit: Typos

[nagoyana]

I have rediscovered how hard it is to juggle work and languages and everything else since the start of the month
Thus I decided to put my languages on the back burner a bit and to terminate this log for the time being.
The original idea has been to document my progress studying for my B1 exam in May, which is basically what I did until some posts ago

I will certainly be around on the forum (probably reading more than writing as usual) and still be doing something in English, Japanese, Korean and French as often as possible, just nothing noteworthy enough to log.

Thanks for everyone who stopped by and, as always, happy language learning to all of you!