Komma’s Log: Focus on French

[Komma]

Review
Not much to say this time. The last review has just been a few days ago, and the only thing I managed to do is the language tranfer lessons. And even there I struggled. Up to lesson 51 we did a few past and future tenses and the conditional (although he said it was some future tense... 'I would do that' e.g. For me that is no future tense at all, but ok..) and I mix them up a bit or just forget the endings. I guess I have to just go on and hope for more and more revisions of these forms. And finally start assimil or some grammar practice as well.
Instead of Assimil I watched half of Harry Potter 1 in spanish. I guess I can only follow because I already know the story so well, but I actually mentioned some verbs and their forms (at one time they used a verb in past tense with -aba... I directly was reminded of that language transfer lesson )

Since I finished my RL task that needed so much attention, and I have a mostly free week next week, there are no more excuses to not do the tasks I didn't manage to do. Though I cut the french movie and added the spanish one I started.

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Mini Goals
Spanish

• 20 lessons of Language Transfer (up to 71) : 4 / 20
• 2 lessons of Assimil Spanish : 2 / 2
• finish HP1 movie

French

• 3 lessons of Assimil : 0 / 3
• read chapter 3 of HP1 plus new words to goldlist

English

• find, enroll and start some MOOC or similar
• read papers : 0 / 3

[Komma]

Change of plan: no more weekly goals
So, looking back to the past week, I have accomplished far less than I wanted. I had a free week, but I used it more for other fun stuff than for learning Somehow this sentence bothers me, because learning languages should be fun too.. That is why I change my procedure again. It has been nice to test the weekly goals again, but they just don't work for me. There were days in the past week where I watched HP in spanish instead of doing language transfer, but since my goal was to do language transfer, watching HP feeled like cheating. That is not how it should be. I don't learn for a specific test to pass, but for fun, so it should remain being fun. Of course, I do have the aim of using the chance to talk to my flat mate, but to be honest, I could already have done that and I am just too self conscious about it. If I would be talking to her and taking my time to form a sentence I guess that would work fairly good. But I don't feel comfortable doing that.

So I will quit the specific weekly mini goals and just do what I like. I still have my longer term goals in mind, but I won't mind stretching my 'deadlines'. For me it will be more fun, when I can do what I want, when I want to do it. I will still keep up the weekly review, maybe with an additional halfway through update from time to time.

Review
I noticed my motivation for Language Transfer dropped a bit, since it has been too much at once in this lesson about tenses... And since it is audio only and there aren't any grammar rules or grammatical terms, i sometimes find it a bit hard to follow. I really do like his concept and I could form sentences much easier, but at some points I wish to have a rule as text on a sheet of paper or on the screen to see it visual. I know that there is a transcript and I might use that to review those passages I had troubles with and maybe also write his 'rules'/structures down. That is not his intention with the "thinking has to be all in the head", but I don't think it will do any harm if I write something down. In my opinion it is not "taking the thinking part out of my brain" (or however he expresses that), but rather a reinforcement in visual (text on paper) and haptic (writing by hand) form.

I also started Assimil (I think it's New Spanish with ease.. it's the german base edition, so I'm not sure.. It's a bit older) and it's nice to hear some native spanish, though I think that one of the speakers sometimes pronounces additional letters that aren't there. Maybe it's just a bad recording or I am just not used to it. Compared to the french assimil the first lessons are really slow. They first repeat every sentence twice and after that it's played again one after the other. Since I repeat the recordings anyway, this is actually helpful, but still just very slow with a bit too huge breaks in between. But I just looked it up and it's just until lesson 7, so I won't do any cutting of the audiofiles.

As I said before, I watched HP. Currently I am in the middle of film 3 and it gets a bit harder to understand since I did not watch the films very often. I watched films 1 and 2 VERY often, but starting from film 3 I don't know everything by heart. I still know the story though, but it means I have to focus a bit more on the spanish audio.

I also did my first head list for Spanish vocab in my goldlist notebook (I actually bought a physical book, but I got papercut and somehow the paper is not so good for ink... Maybe I stick to my electronic device and handwriting without sharp paper ).

Since I did not do any French, I still only have one headlist there, but I guess that I'd have the same problem of having no cards if I did anki or flashcards there...

For having less than 25 words I decided to add some from dictionaries and wait for more words I encounter and just write them down in my tablet and once i got 25 do a headlist. I just combine both as I want. For spanish I picked some from the dictionary, which contains the basic words with some very helpful notes in between (e.g. which word goes with estar or ser or how the meaning changes with some..)

In English I read only one paper today and a chapter of a textbook last week. I realize there are only very few new words in these readings, as I am quite up to date with chemistry vocabulary. For the SC I probably start reading other material, like new fictional books I haven't read in german or non-fiction of other topics. I think in fiction books I tend to have more vocab I really don't know. Scientific papers in chemistry tend to use almost the same set of words, so there barely is something new.

So, my only 'goal' for this week is to have fun and try to do at least something in all my languages

[Komma]

It has been a good decision to stop the weekly goals. I haven't had much motivation last week, but I still did something. And probably something else than I would have planned via the mini goals

Spanish
I continued with Assimil lessons 5-7 (7 has been a repetition lesson, though this time it rather was some info about how the first lessons are structured, the pronunciation and stress, which I actually already know very well)
I am quite happy that the forms with haber were discussed in language transfer already, because for the moment it's not very well done in Assimil. They only say there are two versions of 'to have', with haber being just a auxiliary and all forms after haber end in -o. That is not very precise. Sure, it's some assimilation method, but I actually like to still have explanations etc. I guess, as the first lessons were more aimed towards pronunciation, the info about these participles will follow, but so far, language transfer has been better in explaining it directly. But I also started Assimil for a native pronunciation as audio, so that is completly ok for now.

I also finished HP3 (and just realised I didn't log it into the SC bot yet).

Method/Tips/Links
I also just encountered a nice blog about learning languages. It's in German, but there are some interesting post there. One was about conquering a learning plateau. And one of the ideas was to write down some learning activity on small pieces of paper and chose one randomly. I made a list in word and used random.org.
It's simple and may help you decide what to do I haven't yet decided how specific I want to make the activities. Maybe I do something like activities for 10 minutes, 30 minutes etc. So like "translate 2 sentences", "listen to 10 minutes of podcast"... or for 30 min "read ... pages of book and write down vocab".
If someone has creative ideas what activites to do, please leave a comment

[Komma]

(thank at jennybenny for liking my last post and reminding me of posting again)

Spanish
I've been lazy lately, though I did not completly stop. I've been only watching Friends in Spanish. I understand just a little bit, but most of the time I can still follow (have seen all episodes before, though I don't remember everything of it).

I had to bring Assimil back to the library before I had the chance to extend the borrowing period. I am not sure whether I want to buy the course. Or rather which one. They seem to have published a new course which is not translated to german (from the library I got the german base course..) So, I'm not sure whether this new course is better, worse or just equal to the old one (concerning quality. from the sound samples it should be completly different dialogues). It only has 100 instead of 109 lessons, but that does not necessarily mean there is less in there. So if someone got this new course, I'd be very interested in a short opinion. I might as well just try it out. Just saw a good offer on Amazon. (Although that was the new edition of the new version. I think they made the highlights red instead of blue.. I prefer blue, but not for 20€ extra )
And maybe buying the course motivates me to actually use it instead of thinking, 'hey, I just borrowed it and can borrow it again, so why should I do too much learning'.
The second option would be just buying the book of the old course and using the library audio.. That would be cheaper.
EDIT: Also this new Assimil would be French base. I am not quite sure this would prevent or intensify interference of the two..EDIT END

I also started reading 'el principe de la niebla', but I guess that is a bit out of my league. I read one page looking up every second word, read the second page without looking something up, but also without understanding very much. I decided to stay with textbooks and graded stuff or websites like veintemundos.

I have also not returned to language transfer and now that I had this break I think I need to redo some lessons. i've had problems since he started presenting the different past tense forms in one lesson, although I think he focused on one for a few lessons before going to the next, but I missed which past tense form that was, and what it is good for etc. However, like with most things I revisit, I think I heard it already and my attention is soon somewhere else.

I am also very self-conscious about talking to my flat mate in spanish and maybe cross out that aim, to take away pressure. I will eventually talk to spanish people when I am ready. And there are many spanish people in my town, so even if she moves out before I've had the confidence of talking to her in spanish, there will be other opportunities to use my skills.

French
The bad news: I did not do any French for weeks.
The good news: I borrowed a new book 'Frazösisch für Büffelmuffel' (French for 'lazy people') by an author who wrote a book about how to learn languages which I really liked and also recommended here somewhere. I haven't started it yet as I always think 'you need to focus on spanish because of your flat mate' although I'd really prefer to do french (and now decided as you can read above, that I decided to not care too much about my flat mate but about what I like doing most in the moment I am motivated). The book contains little texts, dialogues etc. (at first I thought it's an ongoing story, but I think I was wrong), with vocab translations of some words and phrases as well as grammar focus and little tests. It's designed for people who want to revive their french and looks quite nice so far.

[Komma]

Since I actually have something to report today, a short update:

1. I bought Assimil Spanish. The newest version with the french base. It was cheaper than the english base, though of course more expensive than just the book of the older version using the audio from the library. That way, I'd have two different versions to go through. And one of them I don't have to give back to the library.
I really hope the quality of the material is ok, but there were people here on the forum actually liking the newer course, so I thought I'd give it a try, since it is personal preference anyway. I did buy the paper book and mp3 version, because of the licence conditions of the e-course. Although it costed 20€ more. But now I can write into the book if I want, I can also resell it if I want, and I am not dependent on internet or power or my PC etc. I guess that's worth it.
The only thing left, I am a bit concerned about is that it is the french base (and that the highlight color is red instead of blue, but one surely get's used to that). However, if that worsens interference then I have a motivation to learn more, as I believe interference will go away once the language is mastered to an advanced level (or maybe before). Maybe it will also reduce interference. At least once I am in the active wave as then I need to translate from french to spanish and directly see the differences.
The copy will arrive on Monday or Tuesday, so until then I am probably doing french, as I am currently more motivated to do that.

2. I started using the 'Französisch für Büffelmuffel' (French for lazy learners) book and found out that the story is continuous, which is great, I think. It's some detective story* and I just read four pages, although that means it's about 2 pages worth of french text and the rest is vocabulary and some grammar or expression focus and tests. I quite like it so far.
The first focus was describing/presenting people. And instead of just reading I actually used the focus to produce some output myself. So I wrote short paragraph about myself and my boyfriend. I checked a few sentences in the HiNative app which also brings me to point three.

3. I discovered the HiNative app. It's by the lang-8 people when I understood correctly. I actually didn't use lang-8 very much, so I can't do a comparison. But the app is great. It's for android and iOS and they even have a webinterface, which is awesome, as I have a windows tablet and so I can use it there as well, although they don't have a windows app.
They have preformed question-types like: "what does x mean in spanish" or similar. Or "does this sound natural: yy" For the latter people can then vote and/or post a comment what to improve. I really like it so far. Answers come fast, mostly, and it is easy to use.

*Somehow stories for language learners often are detective stories. The first 'book' we read in english at school was 'Kay's first case'. In spanish I read Lola Lago. There are quite a few detective stories by Langenscheidt or even a brand of graded readers: Lernkrimi (learner's detective story). I do like detective stories, but it's interesting that so many of the language learning material are detective stories..

[Tomás]

2. I started using the 'Französisch für Büffelmuffel' (French for lazy learners) book and found out that the story is continuous, which is great, I think. It's some detective story* and I just read four pages, although that means it's about 2 pages worth of french text and the rest is vocabulary and some grammar or expression focus and tests. I quite like it so far.
The first focus was describing/presenting people. And instead of just reading I actually used the focus to produce some output myself. So I wrote short paragraph about myself and my boyfriend. I checked a few sentences in the HiNative app which also brings me to point three.

Is this book all in French, or is there some German also?

[Komma]

2. I started using the 'Französisch für Büffelmuffel' (French for lazy learners) book and found out that the story is continuous, which is great, I think. It's some detective story* and I just read four pages, although that means it's about 2 pages worth of french text and the rest is vocabulary and some grammar or expression focus and tests. I quite like it so far.
The first focus was describing/presenting people. And instead of just reading I actually used the focus to produce some output myself. So I wrote short paragraph about myself and my boyfriend. I checked a few sentences in the HiNative app which also brings me to point three.

Is this book all in French, or is there some German also?

The explanations are in german. Only the story and of course sentences in the excercises are in French.

[Komma]

Hello everyone,
I got Assimil L'Espagnol on Monday and started doing the first lessons, kind of learning French and Spanish at the same time (although I've been struggling with interference in the past). So I'm going to tell you my first impressions and shortly review my methods and further ideas/'plans'. (in two separate posts for a better overview)

Assimil L'espagnol (2004)
So, I bought the newest version of Assimil L'Espagnol with the dialogues from 2004 (according to the imprint), though the design is the 'new red' (not sure from when that actually is). I was very sceptical at first, because I really like the blue highlights of the german edition of New French with ease. However, the red is ok. I still think the blue is better, but the red highlights are not that ugly as I thought from the pictures on their blog. (Sadly the older blue version wasn't availble for that price).

Concerning the design, I also don't like that it's soft cover. The german editions are hard cover and one does not see any creases on the spine, but I guess for those who use english or french bases anyway, I think they've been soft cover before. Also it is a pity that the cartoons are very small. At least compared to this german edition of NFWE they are tiny. Gladly, I downloaded the trial of the E-methode where all pictures are availble in the program folder to look at on my PC.
Overall the design is ok though. Especially there are no misprinted text parts like in the german NFWE edition I own (some of the highlights there are somewhat blurry or not in line with the rest of the text).

Concerning the content I can only give some initial impressions, since I am just up to lesson 3 and just flipped through the book very briefly.
1) The beginning lessons are very short. And even later lessons seem to be rather short than long. However, it also seems that there will eventually be longer lessons with more complex sentences. I did not work through the old 1987 course (just until lesson 5 or 6), but from flipping through that course it seems like the often mentioned 'watering down'. However, I can't tell exactly at that point. And shorter lessons does not necessarily mean that it's hugely watered down, though there are also 9 lessons less. But since I got that old course from the library, I am not upset to have bought a watered down course. I can still do both. Maybe starting the other one a bit later or so.
2) If I understood the dictionary correctly, the number after the words is for the lesson where the word first appears. So fumar (to smoke) appears somewhere in lesson 44 and not in lesson 3. That was just one of the points I really didn't like about the old course. The new one has a more up to date relevance. I mean, the old course mentioned a 'spanish transistor' in lesson 4. I don't even really know what that is or why I would talk about it with someone..
3) I really like these cultural notes and the normal notes. They do have their own humour sometimes.

Concerning the Audio:
I bought the Mp3-Version and that is a really, really good resource. One gets the tracks like on CD, one track per lesson. However, additionally there are seperate tracks for each sentence availble (or each bit of the dialogue .. sometimes a sentence is split in two parts). That way one can separate the dialogue from the excercises which can be very helpful to just repeat the dialogues one after the other or going through one sentence over and over again without the need of rewinding to the right spot. These tracks also have the text as 'title' in the meta-data, so one can take an Mp3-Player or smartphone and hear AND see the bits without carrying the book. This is very good for on the go I think. One does not need the whole explanations there, but maybe want to read along the audio. Or quickly look up the spelling.

Concerning learning Spanish through French at just being intermediate at French:
At the moment I have the impression I am doing more French than Spanish But I enjoy both. So far I don't have any interference problmes, but there were only phrases like "Hola. Qué tal?" etc. and those were the ones I already know anyway. I therefore haven't looked much at the French translations. I am following along very well, though there are also some new french words I come across.
I will report about how I come along, as I progress.

Summary of my first impression:
Overall I like the course so far. I am still revising again the basics of the basics, but I have starting somewhere in the middle. And it's worth it for the French as well. A few downsides are just concerning design and I already got used to that and as soon as the book isn't new anymore, I won't care about creases

[Komma]

My current method
For Assimil I still use the method I describe here, however, I added some things for the French base version:
- translate the text to german: that way I can do the translation in the active wave from German to Spanish, which might be some nice alternative to French-Spanish and also French-Spanish. Or I could do German-French-Spanish and also learn the French part of the dialogues..
- write down new words/phrases for Spanish as well as French (see below for further info)
- I might also do some separate grammar study with concepts I come across. (like a short focus on one concept) (also see below)

Vocabulary & grammar
I kind stop using the goldlist method, although I haven't even started it. I guess I did it the wrong way, entering vocab that is not really relevant or important enough for me to be learned on the fly.
So I want to use the following method.
1) Every time I come across a new word, I write it down into a OneNote notebook. As I mostly study at home, that would be done using by hand using my digitizer.
2) I look those words up after reading a paragraph or page or lesson or whatever makes sense (just not after every word or sentence).
3) With this custom vocabulary list for that specific part of reading or listening, I go through the material again, and now should be able to fully understand the sentences. (Otherwise I found google translater to be really good. Just tried it years ago with only feeble results, but it really turned into a great resource for understanding whole sentences)
4) After a few lessons/paragraph/the end of the study session or the beginning of the new (if it's too late in the evening), I go through the list again and decide which words/phrases are important at the moment. This should be no more than 10. These I put into srs (probably anki) either as sentence only or at least with the according sentence where I got the word from or something similar if that sentence is a bit too long. Or with a fitting picture (like for things as chair, table etc. I guess I can in general learn these without context...but pictures might be good instead of a german translation)

If I find a nice dictionary resource with a decent history that can be very helpful deciding on words that I look up often (=somehow important but not memorable well) which might be interesting to learn via spaced repetition as well. I could as well go through my notebook and look at what I jotted down several time, but with an increasing word list that might be very much work.

As for grammar concepts, I also came across the idea of example sentences making more sense than just learning the rules. Today I tried that for some very well suitable example: the preposition 'de'. I checked for what that preposition is used and collected some example sentences. I am not yet sure that is a good way, because these sentences were rather random from the grammar book, so maybe useful for something like 'de' but not for other, more complex grammar. I am still working on my vocab and grammar aquisition through sentences and srs, but these were the thoughts I had about it.

advantages/benefits as well as downsides and possible solutions
I think that with this predecision of only chosing some words/phrases for srs instead of putting everything in, I solve one of my main problems with anki: learning stuff I don't need and get bored or frustrated because it does not stick.
Using sentences might also solve my other problem: dealing with multiple meanings of words.
The handwriting of those words first does also solve the problem of my thinking that handwriting is good for learning and just typing or reviewing on screens is just ok. Doing both is just additional repetition which is good.
Also using Anki instead of physical flashcards has several advantages: I can use it via my phone which I take everywhere, cards I can forget. I can delete or pause/suspend cards easily. my space is not filled with hundreds of physical cards. Use of pictures and audio is easier possible.
The only thing that remains is doing reviews regularly or the benefit of srs is gone. Also reviews piling up is not very motivating. But I guess anki is so immensely adjustable that I can just cap that and deleting/suspending very well known words. Also delaying new words helps. For that I plan to add just up to 10 new words at a time and then integrate them into the system. That way anki can't include new cards when I chose to not enter new ones. That gives me control without mess with all the settings I don't understand yet.

sorry for this wall of text. I just needed to put down my thoughts.

[Komma]

After about 2 weeks, I thought it might be time for another short update

Spanish
I've been doing spanish (almost) daily for the past week aiming for a lesson of Assimil per 1 or 2 days. This goes well so far, however, I got bored by my review method (listening and shadowing to the previous 4-5 lessons). I adjusted it to do the following scheme:

Before starting lesson N I review lesson (N-1)=R1, (R1-6)=R2, (R2-18)=R3 and (R3-24)=R4.
What this means (example): I probably do lesson 20. Then I review lessons R1-R4 (which means Review 1-4). These would be lessons 19 (N-1=20-1) and 13 (19-6=R1-6). The next lesson would be 13-18=-5 which obviously does not exist.

That way I won't do so many reviews for the first lessons. I also have some kind of spaced repetition in it. And I put the numbers, so that when I start lesson 50, I review lessons 49, 43, 25 and 1. Lesson 1 would be revised as the second wave.
It might look a bit confusing at first, but it's just typing into a calculator, so it does not take that much time at all. I am curious how this is going to work. So far I'd review a lesson about 4-5 times in a row and then don't come back to it. It made me kind of learn the dialogue by heart, but probably not that long-lasting. For the repetition method I think I'll stick to listening and comprehension of what's said and then shadowing. The production of target language comes in the second wave anyway.

I also borrowed the Gramática basica del estudiante de espanol and just flipped through the pages. I like it so far and defenitely use it for my next grammar focus, which I tend to do now for each lesson where there is some concept I can review. Assimil often has too less grammar for my taste. I won't learn rules by heart, and I yet have to experiment with some ways like drills, cloze cards, just reading and input etc. for optaining a good grammar, but I still want to read about the grammatical concepts in a bit more detail.
The grammar book is completely in spanish, so I'm probably needing a bit time to understand everything, but it's worth a shot. If I like that book I might consider buying it. I still have to figure out which grammar book I want to actually buy for myself.

First thoughts about Vocab & Grammar flashcards 'method' from my previous post
I've been indeed writing out new words and sentences from Assimil and put them into anki and really enjoy that so far (though I sometimes forget to check anki daily for reviews, but that's not a big problem yet).
Since each lesson is rather short, the cards are not many in numbers. That way I don't have many reviews anyway, but that's basically rather good than bad in my opinion. I prefer doing the cards myself. I have a huge mix of different types of cards.

• I use one-word plus translation cards for some words.
• I also do cards with a picture in front and then what is visible in the picture on the back (actually even before I discovered the method of Gabe wyner who also does this), for example I have a card with a red traffic light picture and on the back the sentence "El semáforo está en rojo". I'd be correct with just el semaforo, but having the sentence also shows me that it's 'en rojo' and not just rojo.
• I also do cloze deletions. Previously I didn't like them. Thought it was too easy, maybe it still ist and I need to make better ones or review them after a longer time frame. Here I sometimes do several cards per sentence or just one concept. I like to test gender, translation plus correct verb forms and other grammatical stuff.
• I also have sentence cards plus translation.

Most of the single words and sentence cards I do have in both direction, but I also experimented with deleting cards that I knew. Though I might change that to just clicking the easy button and if I still know it after a few months or even a year when it pops up again, then I might delete it. I don't have a storage problem on my pc and if the card shows up after a year, then it doesn't bother me as well. And reviewing it after a year and still knowing it would not cause much damage like 'overlearning'.
Apart from deleting I though of just changing the sentence, so I don't just learn it by heart in the first few days and never really look at the words, but rather at the 'sound and melody' of the sentence. However, that would cause slight problems concerning multiple clozes of one sentence as well as the review value of the card. Have to think about how to tackle that.

I am still working on my system here, maybe implement some ideas from Gabe Wyner (I currently read his book and watched a piece of his course as it was broadcasted for free yesterday. i really liked some of his concepts). Maybe some day I will be so convinced of my own system that I share a nice overview, though it would probably not be anything new, just maybe a mix of some old stuff. Until then I keep coming back and comment on certain things in my log in this vocab and grammar section.

Other
Like I said I've been reading fluent forever at the moment and though it's not completely new, it's somehow quite great. I was very inspired by Wyners video course, but as I could not watch it fully as it was broadcasted free, I decided to read the book as it was available in my library. What I like is the 'backup' of my thought of doing more than one card on the same vocab. In the past I would think that this is a waste of time, but actually if you reinforce a word through different cards with different ways of recall, and probably just need to review that card far less, that would not be that much of a waste..
Also the idea of making your own cards with audio, pictures etc might be much work, and probably not worth it for everything, but it's defenitely worth for some. In the past I had the idea of doing audio, pictures etc. for every single thing. I didn't like the work for that as well. But doing this for just some cards, or probably just search for the pictures and sounds (which I often do anyway) for words that interest me that could be very helpful to actually remember the concept of the word.
The use of a monolingual dictionary to tell you the subtleties of different synonyms also never really occurred to me, but it somehow makes sense. This makes me want to obtain one for my languages.
The concept that has impressed me the most, was that of using pictures for things like grammar. E.g. feminine words melt away, masculine ones explode. You then make a story around it and probably remember these pictures and then assign the gender. It was fascinating how well that worked in the video course even if it was not my own story.. Sure this is not for everyone, but maybe I am a visible study type and never really mentioned it
I am looking forward to read that book

I am also starting to dabble in Japanese again, since some people in my sports team are japanese and it would be nice at least to know what they are talking about