Isn't it Romantic? SCMT learns Spanish and French

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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Nov 16, 2020 2:49 pm

Another week is in the books for 2020. I can't say I will miss it after it is gone.

I had a lesson with my main tutor in which we watched a short video on Mayan civilization and discussed it. I also had two lessons with my conversation tutor after having watched Casa de las Flores episode 8 again. In the first lesson, we got off topic and talked about politics, so we never got around to talking about the show. I scheduled a second lesson, in which we got off topic and talked about the Spanish use of the subjunctive, so we never got around to talking about the show. They were good discussions, at least as useful as talking about a Mexican dramedy, but i want to finish the show, and I haven't done my report on episode 8 yet! I'll probably move on to episode 9 anyway.

In my PMP workbook I finished chapter 19 on the present subjunctive. There is a lot that i still need to internalize, but I think the chapter went pretty well. I also started on the last chapter, 20, on the imperfect subjunctive, a tense/mood combination that I have never met before. I made an unholy mess out of the first exercise and quit, knowing that I'm going to have to go back and do some more groundwork before tackling this one. I will mention, though, that my biggest gripe with GdUdE was that many of the instructions and example exercises were confusing, and that PMP was much better. Well, I have not found this to be the case in the subjunctive units. It probably doesn't help that this is new and difficult material for me, but there are all kinds of tense mix-ups and irregular verbs that are never introduced in the exercises. I don't have my book with me at the moment, but i will try to post an example or two when I get back to my kitchen table Spanish workbook headquarters.

Taking Mork's advice, I tried listening repeatedly to the same material, in this case the episode of my elexplicador podcast from 5/1/14. I didn't make it to 24 repetitions yet, but I listened to the first 20 minutes or so (the first 4 topics) 5 times, and at least for the first 3 or 4 I did notice things in it that I missed before. Part of this was because in the ~5 minute segments on each topic, I found myself zoning out near the end, only to refocus when the next began, but part of it was catching more words as they flew by, too. Of course, the real test is not understanding more of this episode every time I hear it but understanding the next Spanish I encounter better, whether it is the podcast from 5/2 or Casa de las Flores episode 9 without subs or CNNe or a conversation with a native speaker. Vamos a ver.

I have read lots of news articles in ElPais and BBCmundo. I have watched CNNe several times while working out. I am 63% finished with Los Mares del Sur. I chose it in part because it is the most famous of a series of detective stories involving Pepe Carvalho, so there is a wealth of material on the same subject by the same author to continue my progress, but unless something captivating happens in the last 37% of the book , I'm not sure I will continue the series. It's better than Club Dumas, but I'm not hooked.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Tue Nov 17, 2020 12:04 am

A few examples that I think are confusing from my workbook:

"it is likely that you will win the certificate of employee if the year," is translated as "Es muy possible que ganes el certificado.". Why is "will win" present tense? I used vaya, is that wrong? Shouldn't the english omit will?

Similarly, how about "we doubt the boss will allow julia to work." Present? Ir? Some sort of secret future subjunctive?

I feel like the writers could have done a little better crafting the explanations, exercises, or both. And although this is a nitpick in the final units if pmo, I found my gdude book to be rife with these kinds of little problems. They aren't major issues, but they sure don't make it easier for the struggling learner.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby iguanamon » Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:42 am

SCMT wrote:A few examples that I think are confusing from my workbook:
"it is likely that you will win the certificate of employee if the year," is translated as "Es muy possible que ganes el certificado.". Why is "will win" present tense? I used vaya, is that wrong? Shouldn't the english omit will?

I don't usually answer grammar questions in Spanish because I am not a native-speaker. The English translation seems to be confusing to me too but I can see why they chose this example. On the surface "you will win" looks like it should be in the future tense. In this example "will win" is modified by "likely"- meaning there is some doubt involved. So, the subjunctive, "ganes", is what is used here. The clues are in the Spanish cues for the subjunctive are "Es muy possible que"... which should be followed by the subjunctive. The exercise seems to be purposely tricky. It seems to want you to think about using the future tense of "ganar" or "ir + ganar" but it wants to show you that you can express the future tense in English by using the subjunctive in Spanish.
SCMT wrote:Similarly, how about "we doubt the boss will allow julia to work." Present? Ir? Some sort of secret future subjunctive?

While there is a future subjunctive in Spanish, it is rarely used nowadays and its use is considered archaic. Portuguese, however, does indeed have a vibrant future subjunctive in ordinary use. My shot at translating your sentence: Dudamos que el jefe permita a Julia trabaje. I may be way out of line here, I thought about using the infinitive "trabajar" instead of "trabaje"- usually if I have a 50% chance, I'll pick the wrong one! Or... I may be channeling another romance language. It can get confusing juggling them in my mind.

The thing to remember here is not to think that just because the English has a future tense that the corresponding Spanish must also have a future tense. There is such a thing as "near future" and Spanish can and does most often use a verb in present tense to suggest a near future. Reading more in Spanish will show you that where English often uses a future tense, Spanish will often use a present indicative or a present subjunctive depending on context.

I don't have enough time to search through my books translated from English to Spanish, but I did find this example on Linguee:
Linguee wrote:If several family members are exposed to the same occupational hazard, for example, it's likely that some of them will show the conditions associated with such exposure.
Si varios miembros de la familia están expuestos al mismo riesgo ocupacional, por ejemplo, es probable que algunos de ellos manifiesten la dolencia asociada con dicha exposición.

In the above example you'll find that "(they) will show" is translated in the present subjunctive as "manifesten". The subjunctive mood here implies doubt. Only some , not all , of the family members will manifest the disease. They may manifest the disease- we don't know... they may not!

Spanish cues for the subjunctive include "Es probable que..."; "Es posible que...". Something that is possible or probable can still turn out the other way. It's not a given that the event will certainly occur... it may not.
linguee wrote:It has its first member of Vietnamese descent, and it's likely that its ethnic diversity will grow with each election./Tiene su primer miembro de ascendencia vietnamita, y es probable que su diversidad étnica crezca con cada elección

Here, you have the same thing- "will grow" gets translated by the present subjunctive of crecer- it's in the subjunctive because it's only "likely" that the event will occur- it may not happen but it probably will. Just because "es probable" doesn't mean that it's a sure thing. Wherever, the English "may" works in place of "will" in this kind of sentence, this means to me I should use the subjunctive in Spanish.

SCMT wrote:I feel like the writers could have done a little better crafting the explanations, exercises, or both. And although this is a nitpick in the final units if pmo, I found my gdude book to be rife with these kinds of little problems. They aren't major issues, but they sure don't make it easier for the struggling learner.

Workbooks are often like this. Maybe it's because we just have so many options in English to say something that are more limited in other languages. When going through my "active wave" in Catalan, if I don't pay too much attention to the French tenses, I will mess up the Catalan translation- because I don't speak French and am mentally translating it into English! That's my fault, not the course authors. In English, with so many options to say the same thing, when working with a workbook, remember the topic. Usually the exercise answer is not looking for something off topic... except when it is... you're right... it's maddening!

The subjunctive mood exists in English, here's what the author of "Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish" says about it:
Joseph J. Keenan wrote:Spanish, of course, did not invent the subjunctive. In fact, the subjunctive is widely used in English, though not nearly as frequently as it is in Spanish. Take, for example, a sign hanging in the Sears restrooms in Waco, Texas: "It is important to us that our restrooms be clean." A nicer, neater subjunctive was never seen.

"Breaking Out" was the book that helped me the most to finally "get" the use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish. You can buy it used at Abe Books for around $5 USD. The subjunctive chapter is only a few pages, but it is worth the price of the book just for that chapter alone. I highly recommend the book. Hope this helps. If I've messed up the explanation (and Lord knows I can!), I'm sure a native-speaker will jump in.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:22 pm

iguanamon wrote:
SCMT wrote:A few examples that I think are confusing from my workbook:
"it is likely that you will win the certificate of employee if the year," is translated as "Es muy possible que ganes el certificado.". Why is "will win" present tense? I used vaya, is that wrong? Shouldn't the english omit will?

I don't usually answer grammar questions in Spanish because I am not a native-speaker. The English translation seems to be confusing to me too but I can see why they chose this example. On the surface "you will win" looks like it should be in the future tense. In this example "will win" is modified by "likely"- meaning there is some doubt involved. So, the subjunctive, "ganes", is what is used here. The clues are in the Spanish cues for the subjunctive are "Es muy possible que"... which should be followed by the subjunctive. The exercise seems to be purposely tricky. It seems to want you to think about using the future tense of "ganar" or "ir + ganar" but it wants to show you that you can express the future tense in English by using the subjunctive in Spanish.
SCMT wrote:Similarly, how about "we doubt the boss will allow julia to work." Present? Ir? Some sort of secret future subjunctive?

While there is a future subjunctive in Spanish, it is rarely used nowadays and its use is considered archaic. Portuguese, however, does indeed have a vibrant future subjunctive in ordinary use. My shot at translating your sentence: Dudamos que el jefe permita a Julia trabaje. I may be way out of line here, I thought about using the infinitive "trabajar" instead of "trabaje"- usually if I have a 50% chance, I'll pick the wrong one! Or... I may be channeling another romance language. It can get confusing juggling them in my mind.

The thing to remember here is not to think that just because the English has a future tense that the corresponding Spanish must also have a future tense. There is such a thing as "near future" and Spanish can and does most often use a verb in present tense to suggest a near future. Reading more in Spanish will show you that where English often uses a future tense, Spanish will often use a present indicative or a present subjunctive depending on context.

I don't have enough time to search through my books translated from English to Spanish, but I did find this example on Linguee:
Linguee wrote:If several family members are exposed to the same occupational hazard, for example, it's likely that some of them will show the conditions associated with such exposure.
Si varios miembros de la familia están expuestos al mismo riesgo ocupacional, por ejemplo, es probable que algunos de ellos manifiesten la dolencia asociada con dicha exposición.

In the above example you'll find that "(they) will show" is translated in the present subjunctive as "manifesten". The subjunctive mood here implies doubt. Only some , not all , of the family members will manifest the disease. They may manifest the disease- we don't know... they may not!

Spanish cues for the subjunctive include "Es probable que..."; "Es posible que...". Something that is possible or probable can still turn out the other way. It's not a given that the event will certainly occur... it may not.
linguee wrote:It has its first member of Vietnamese descent, and it's likely that its ethnic diversity will grow with each election./Tiene su primer miembro de ascendencia vietnamita, y es probable que su diversidad étnica crezca con cada elección

Here, you have the same thing- "will grow" gets translated by the present subjunctive of crecer- it's in the subjunctive because it's only "likely" that the event will occur- it may not happen but it probably will. Just because "es probable" doesn't mean that it's a sure thing. Wherever, the English "may" works in place of "will" in this kind of sentence, this means to me I should use the subjunctive in Spanish.

SCMT wrote:I feel like the writers could have done a little better crafting the explanations, exercises, or both. And although this is a nitpick in the final units if pmo, I found my gdude book to be rife with these kinds of little problems. They aren't major issues, but they sure don't make it easier for the struggling learner.

Workbooks are often like this. Maybe it's because we just have so many options in English to say something that are more limited in other languages. When going through my "active wave" in Catalan, if I don't pay too much attention to the French tenses, I will mess up the Catalan translation- because I don't speak French and am mentally translating it into English! That's my fault, not the course authors. In English, with so many options to say the same thing, when working with a workbook, remember the topic. Usually the exercise answer is not looking for something off topic... except when it is... you're right... it's maddening!

The subjunctive mood exists in English, here's what the author of "Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish" says about it:
Joseph J. Keenan wrote:Spanish, of course, did not invent the subjunctive. In fact, the subjunctive is widely used in English, though not nearly as frequently as it is in Spanish. Take, for example, a sign hanging in the Sears restrooms in Waco, Texas: "It is important to us that our restrooms be clean." A nicer, neater subjunctive was never seen.

"Breaking Out" was the book that helped me the most to finally "get" the use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish. You can buy it used at Abe Books for around $5 USD. The subjunctive chapter is only a few pages, but it is worth the price of the book just for that chapter alone. I highly recommend the book. Hope this helps. If I've messed up the explanation (and Lord knows I can!), I'm sure a native-speaker will jump in.


Thank you, iguanamon. All of that discussion is very helpful, and it is kind of what i figured after consulting the answer key and going back through the exercises again. The subjunctive is notorious for being hard on English learners for a reason. And while I give my PMP book a solid 'A' for the first 18 chapters, I think they did much poorer work on the last two, so I'm marking the subjunctive uniits 'C+.' I really don't think the book has done a great job explaining the imperfect, either, but I'm not overly concerned about it. I'll finish the chapter and go find other resources.

I actually bought the Breaking Out book on your recommendation. I think it was $4.11 US, and well worth it! I will go back and review the chapter on subjunctive. Thanks again!
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:25 pm

I had a strange week of Spanish learning. I'm going to list the activities I did, and it is going to seem like the week was productive, when really I know that it wasn't, so I may also list the activities I didn't, just as a motivator to do better.

First of all, I finished Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish Grammar. I did every chapter, front to back, and every exercise except the few completely useless, "Mark V or F as it applies to your own life: 1) Me gusta mucho la leche chocolatada," type. I found the book overall to be excellent, although the last two chapters on the subjunctive to be less helpful than the first 18 on everything else. I posted earlier that I identified several areas in which I needed work, and i will list them here again so they're easier to find:

SCMT wrote:1. verbs that have irregular forms in future and conditional
2. verbs with irregular preterite forms
3. expressions
4. anything subjunctive

Also, although I undersand the rules, I need practice (expecially in conversation,) with:
1. choosing ser and estar in past tenses
2. choosing imperfect or preterite
3. double pronouns

Edit: also need to review irregular past participles


So I found all of the lessons involving the first item, verbs that have irregular future and conditional forms, in Shaum's and GdUde (both A&B,) and completed them, probably 12 exercises in total, even if I had done them before. I'm not saying I won't confuse the conditional and subjunctive stems anymore, but I do think that i know the future and conditional forms of salir, tener, poder, etc. i will try to do the same with at least one other item from the above list this week.

I had one italki lesson with my main tutor in which we worked on a couple of vocabulary issues. We discussed fractions, which were new to me, and then finding the noun forms of certain verbs, e.g. conquistar=conquista. It was a stupid, beginning Spanish exercise, but I had a surprising amount of trouble with a few of the words that I didn't know already. Rerir=retirada; asesinar=asesinato; coronar=coronación; conquistar=conquista. There are 3 or 4 ways of nounifying those verbs, and they don't really follow any pattern I can discern, so when I had to guess at a word I didn't already know, I chose wrongly. It was a humbling attempt at trying to pass what I'm sure is standard 3rd grade grammar homework in Spain.

I read lots of articles on BBCmundo.

As for the didn'ts, I didn't read much of anything in my novel; I didn't listen to my podcast; I didn't watch the news or my Mexican TV show; I didn't interact with Spanish at all for 2 days last week, which is very unusual, as I have been able to incorporate at least some of the language into my day almost every day since I started this project 2 years ago.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Dec 07, 2020 3:58 pm

No update last week, mainly because I was south of the border, so instead of flipping through books and rewinding to catch TV scripts, I was actually using the language. I did get lots of compliments on my improvement in the language, but the people are generally nice people, so it's difficult to tell what is sincere and what is sincerely polite. Anyway, I still have some vocabulary holes, and I still have trouble operating smoothly in past tenses, but overall I think I did pretty well making myself understood. I also felt my language ability "warm up" as the week went on, and I was much smoother and faster when I left than when I arrived.

Listening comprehension is still tough, especially with a lot of ambient noise and muffled mask speech. The language is fast, although generally speakers were considerate enough to slow down when talking to a gringo. I suppose it is part of the local accent, but I also noticed the tendency for many speakers to swallow the "s" sound, so that they wish you bueno dia, for example. Anyway, it's another complication, although I really thought communication was fairly well. Most people got a laugh out of the fact that I was learning Spanish from Casa de las Flores, as well. Evidently, everyone in Mexico knows that show, but nobody admits to watching it!

Anyway, I thought I could tell my Spanish has improved since my last trip there about 6 months ago, so I'm relatively happy, and I do feel like using Spanish so much helped consolidate a lot of the things I've been studying. After all, trips like that are the reason I'm doing all of this study.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:08 pm

I was a slacker last week, at least as far as Spanish study. Work has been busy, and I moved houses, but I have also found it a little hard to get motivated having just returned from Spanish land with no other immediate trips on the horizon. Anyway, I will try to get back on the horse this week. I started yesterday by catching up on reading my Spanish language newspapers and listening to about an hour of my podcast, the first half of which was a repeat.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Dec 21, 2020 5:08 pm

The past week was hit or miss with Spanish stuff. It started strong and faded down the stretch. Hopefully, I will have a little more consistency going forward, but with the holidays upcoming, who knows?

I had lessons with both of my italki tutors. With my main tutor, we watched a video on the upcoming Estrella de Belen, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and also spent some time discussing my recent travels. The conversation in the past was a bit difficult, reminding me of that list of things I'm supposed to review that I posted a little over a month ago which included practicing preterite and imperfect tenses. With my conversation tutor, I discussed episode 9 of Casa de las Flores. I had to watch it again to review for the lesson, and i was again struck at how difficult it is to catch conversation without subtitles. I don't exactly have a study plan for 2021 yet, but it has to address this weakness. My listening comprehension--without crutches of subtitles, or slowing audio, or rewinding, or listening 4 times to the same material--must improve. There are two more episodes left in Casa de las Flores, and watching the show and discussing it has been helpful and interesting, but once I finish, I am going to reevaluate what I'm doing.

I read quite a bit of stuff in El Pais and BBCmundo this week, and I listened to ElExplicador for a couple of hours total.
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Dec 28, 2020 4:51 pm

And so 2020 comes to a close, at least for updates to the language logs. Like a lot of people, I am looking forward to the calendar turning and having a new number at the top of it. A look back at the resolution thread for this year shows:

SCMT wrote:This year, I want to improve my speaking and listening skills to the point that I am comfortable and fluid in general conversation. It is much easier for me to do grammar or translation work and to read in my TL (Spanish) than it is to find or schedule opportunities to speak it, so my resolution is to create circumstances to converse and then to practice conversing until I am good at it.


I think a fair grade on that assignment would be C+, maybe B-. My conversation skills have improved, although not as much as I would have liked. My last trip to Mexico showed marked improvement in holding one on one conversations with native speakers; there are still vocabulary gaps, I still have a few problems catching every word at native speed, and operating in past tenses is still a challenge, but I really didn't have any problem communicating. I feel less good about my progress in listening comprehension, though. I am not happy with my skill level in understanding conversations between native speakers or listening to TV shows or movies without subtitles.

I don't know how many occurred this year without doing a bunch of mindless counting, but overall, I have had 88 hours of tutoring on italki, and almost all of it during 2020 was basically conversation practice. I have read news articles pretty much every day, and I have read several Spanish novels. Meanwhile, I have been cheating watching my TV programs and several movies with subs most of the time, and most of the time when I'm watching the news, I'm giving it half-attention as I work out. So guess what? The things I practiced got better, while the things I shortcut because they were uncomfortable did not show as much progress. 100 years ago, when I was playing basketball, I had a coach that made us use our left hand during ball handling drills twice as much as our right hand. I will post my goals for '21 next week, but they will certainly include some left handed use.

I took a placement test on the Cervantes website. It is a short test, and there are only exercises, no speaking or listening practice, but it placed my ability at B1. I answered, I think, 7 out of 12 questions correctly for B2, when 8 would have passed. Almost all of the questions for B2 dealt with the subjunctive, which I thought was odd and a bit unfair, possibly because I didn't pass it. But that aside, I don't think that level is far from accurate. I'm pretty close to being fairly good, but there are skills and areas that I really need to clean up in the coming year.

This past week, I had lessons with both of my tutors. I read news daily, and I watched news several times--Noticias Telemundo rather than CNN due to a change in content provider that happened with my move (I'm now a cord cutter!) I listened to my regular podcast, as well as Easy Spanish (how do you turn off the subtitles?) and Habla Divertido, which I liked very much but had to slow down to .75x speed. I read some in my never ending novel, and I watched the penultimate episode of Casa de las Flores twice and the first episode of the 6 part miniseries Los Favoritos de Midas, all with my subtitle crutch, with the intent to view again without. I didn't do any work with the list of weaknesses I posted before, partly because my grammar books were misplaced in my move, but I found them, so I don't have any more excuses.

¡Felice año nuevo a todos!
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Re: 40something Spanish Log

Postby SCMT » Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:26 pm

I posted my New Year's resolution in the thread for it:

SCMT wrote:For 2021, I am going to improve my listening comprehension to the point where listening to Spanish tv and movies is easy. I am also going to improve my fluidity in conversation, especially in past tenses and the subjunctive.

Oh, yeah...and I'm starting French.



My 2020 resolution was:

SCMT wrote:This year, I want to improve my speaking and listening skills to the point that I am comfortable and fluid in general conversation. It is much easier for me to do grammar or translation work and to read in my TL (Spanish) than it is to find or schedule opportunities to speak it, so my resolution is to create circumstances to converse and then to practice conversing until I am good at it.


Which I'm going to judge as partially met. I'm definitely better in conversation, although not as better as I really want to be.

Anyway, what i didn't mention in that thread was how I was going to try to improve my listening comprehension, partly because my log seems like a more appropriate place and partly because i don't really know how. I do believe in the idea that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect, but it usually does make better, so the initial plan is to practice listening more and then adjust the plan as needed. So for January, I'm going to set the goal of listening for at least an hour a day, at least 6 days per week, of authentic, native, Spanish language content. I may listen to content multiple times, or break it into small segments, or slow down the speed, but I'm going to do it without subtitles. That is going to take the form of the El Explicador podcast, youtube videos, movies and TV shows on Netflix, and Spanish language news. I may watch stuff like movies or Netflix with subtitles on, but I'm not going to count it towards my hour. If I watch it a second time without subs, it will count. That's a minimum of 1 hour a day, every day, with a one day cushion in case life gets in the way. If I miss a day, I will either flagellate myself with the green branches of an olive tree or make it up the next time I can. Sounds reasonable, right?

I plan to post the things I use here, just to keep up and try to make myself accountable to the internet. So far, I didn't do anything 1/1 but got my hour in Saturday and Sunday with

Favoritos de Midas episode 1(1 hour,)
Noticias Telemundo (25min,)
El Explicador (15min,) and an
Easy Spanish video twice, with special attention to ignoring the subs (2x10min.)

Along with this, I am going to keep reading the news daily, and i will read Spanish novels when time allows. I'm going to have to rethink my tutoring strategy a little bit to get the most out of my time there, I believe, but there's no hurry. And I am going to go back and review all of those areas on my weaknesses list. But my first priority every day is going to be to get in my listening practice and see if I think it has made a difference in a month. Initially, I'm humbled and disappointed in how little I understood of Midas without subs. The gap between that and the news is very wide.

As for French, I've gathered some resources, but I will probably just pick at it until at least my small personal January listening challenge is over. Just to list them, I have Assimil versions in both English and Spanish, and judging by the first couple of exercises, they are different.
I also have Practice Makes Perfect Complete French Grammar and French Vocabulary. And I have bookmarked the French in Action videos and downloaded the book from somewhere, although I don't know exactly how I'm going to use it yet. In any case, I think it will be interesting to see how much I remember of the language from my school days and how quickly I can ramp it up after having learned one of its siblings. Now all I've got to do is think up a clever new title for the log...
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