Lisa's Language Log

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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Thu Dec 15, 2022 9:01 am

Today I well, guess I started French... setup my old anki french deck to have another round. German is going along fine; read a lot, listen to audio (audiobooks mostly, some news videos), the new words I find are obscure, I've almost got adjective endings rock solid; just lacking excitement. I mean to wait til the new year. But I think I can keep reading/listening in German without a conflict. We'll see. I'm not quite at my goal with German; if it's spoken just a little too fast it can still get completely lost.

My commitment to french remains not very strong, so I'm trying to keep my goals modest. I think I really just want basic reading; but the pronunciation is going to be a bear and just can't ignore it. I don't sound like the recordings. I doubt I ever will, but might need say use italki to make sure I don't get too off-course. But life is going to be quite complicated this coming year.
8 x

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:29 am

French writing vs. pronouncing! Being english speaking I suppose I'm not in a position to throw stones, but perhaps I've taken this too for granted in spanish and german. And malay and italian and esperanto.

I started off just going through pronouncing words while reading them, using anki cards and the cd I got from the library. I think I'm going to have to keeping doing that and nothing else, until the improbable actual pronunciation of some words sticks. If I look at some text e.g. for grammar, the ridiculously wrong sounds of the words in my head completely puts me off. While I started anki with the expectation to learn vocabulary, I'm not paying very close attention to anything but pronunciation, but it's pretty easy now, most of the words at this point are ones I already know, french terms commonly used in english, and spanish or english cognates.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:06 pm

The library has Pimsleur french beginner, and I spent some time on the drive home with this, went through the first lesson twice.
thoughts:
(1) not seeing how it's written drives me batty! No problem with words I can visualize but I don't seem to be able to remember with just audio. I don't need a clear visualization; once I remembered (from my 2020 duolingo french), that there are two 2-letter words that appear to together at the beginning of questions; that worked, but I couldn't keep the conjugation endings in my brain at all.
(2) The pronunciation went much better than just repeating individual words, though I'm not getting the hmm hmm prosody right. Also I don't think this audio has quite as strong a french sound so I don't feel as inadequate as I do with the individual words.
(3) there was a thrill when the sentence came out successfully!
(4) I got that frustrated-tired feeling that means I'm learning something new.
(5) While some parts dragged (known words), I wasn't entirely bored.

Back in Anki-land, I realized I needed to be able to get to the written form from the sound, since with the sound you have no idea how it's written. So I've added some fill the blank cards though I only want these for common/ambiguous words. Before I started studying German again, back when I could speak but not read, I remember writing Christmas cards and feeling completely illiterate when trying to write down the way the words sounded when I spoke them.
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Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:58 pm

My current approach to french is much more effective than my last time. I am happy. (although I can feel my desire to improve German fading a little, I just don't seem to be able to really care about more than one language at a time. Currently looking at hopefully getting to Germany in spring of 2024, so I'll want to get more serious about German sometime this year.)

Last time, I jumped into duolingo, then Anki, then kwiziq all in a very short time; I expected to learn fast since I knew so much already. I was confused and frustrated; nothing made sense.

This time, I sorted the Anki words into basically known words and just focused on pronunciation, and spent some time (not enough, what with the holidays) doing audio work using programs. I have a long way to go but after two weeks, printed material is significantly less unimaginable to sound out. I've had to open the grammar book (use of tu and vous, at least), and some of the confusing sentences make a little more sense; I did some printed exercises from a workbook, which will hopefully help to get a handle on the peculiar accent marks and contractions.

Most of my language learning has been in false-beginner languages, and french is sort of a false-friend language in that there are so many words/expressions that are common in english. Getting some basics of grammar (e.g. the conjugation of avoir) makes learning the inevitable beginner example sentences much less confusing. This wasn't an issue for my false beginner languages since the basic logic was still there.

Also... I think I have a poor ability to remember sound sequences (vs good memory for text). E.g. I still can't seem to get the right sounds for pays to stick in my head, even though I can produce it correctly(ish) when echoing. Any issues in this area was heavily masked with German and Spanish since one led to the other...
7 x

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sun Jan 08, 2023 6:57 am

I was going to wait another week before seeing if kwiziq french would be useful; it was a bad experience last time. But in an idle moment, I checked it out and did a test and they give me a week of free premium (and premuim is so much better than the free version). SOOO on a grammar bender. It's quite compelling. Kwiziq is terrible at actually teaching me the basics, conjugations of être, venir etc. but what a strong incentive to study those outside (after a little while studying on paper I just threw it all into anki). I'm covering material pretty fast... not sure I can keep this up for a week. It's really just too early, I don't have the vocabulary to keep charging ahead in grammar, but it's helpful to get started with plurals and adjective agreement and so on. Kwiziq is pretty useless for vocabulary, and the french audio for the examples aren't very good - they sound generated.
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jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 848
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
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Contact:

Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby jeffers » Sun Jan 08, 2023 8:51 pm

I have an on again/off again relationship with Kwiziq, but when I use it I find it helpful to also use https://www.linguno.com/ in conjunction with it. Basically, after a few tests where I've made verb form mistakes, I throw those forms into a custom deck and review them on Linguno for a while. Linguno is definitely better for learning and practicing conjugations, and it is free, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as Kwiziq when it comes to studying the rest of grammar. (I may have mentioned it before, I always do when Kwiziq is brought up! :lol:)
4 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:13 am

jeffers wrote:... I find it helpful to also use https://www.linguno.com/ ...


That does look helpful... besides easier than doing my own tables, I was especially interested in seeing the listening exercises. I'm understanding almost nothing, but the vocab is a lot of that problem.

With Spanish I discovered kwiziq when I was fairly well along, so what I needed was pure grammar and it was amazing. Much less so when you are a beginner!
5 x

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Fri Jan 13, 2023 4:35 am

Met my kwiziq goal: 95% on AO and 50% on A1. Not that I'm going to remember all the noun and adjective ending changes nor all the conjugations, although I was surprised at how easy it was to get most of them memorized. My progress in german is too slow to see, so it's kind of nice. However, I've got into rather a mess with pronunciation in an effort to remember how words are written.

Surprisingly, at least at A1, most of the time you can get by on kwiziq without knowing much vocab, they usually provide translations/hints, so it was really just grammar. Only 2-3 times I had to skip a question when I had no idea what July or an automobile is in french.

However, I must say I'm feeling a little burned out. A relief to go back to the slow pronunciation exercises...
7 x

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Wed Jan 18, 2023 3:11 am

Now working on vocabulary in french.

The second anki deck I downloaded happens to have IPA for most words. While I've not felt much value in learning IPA in the past, I can see it being quite useful... since it's so hard for me to remember sounds, it give me something to learn in written form, that's much easier to remember.

And even with recordings in these decks, trying to figure out the "correct" pronunciation is tough. e.g. in troisième I can hardly hear an r sound (possibly wishful thinking since dropping r would help me, that combination of t-r-oi or d-r-oi is tough) but IPA suggests not. And I cannot tell the difference between tôt and tout but the IPA is different, while prêt and près are in fact IPA-wise identical.

I have been rather questioning my stated goals of A2 reading and A1 listening. I think reading is reasonable, but much of the time I'm completely baffled when anki asks me to understand words like maison, douleur, printemps - words that are trivial from print. Once I get vocab to a decent range maybe linguno will help. I don't feel particularly optimistic. But that aside, reading was my main purpose and I'm actually very happy with progress.
7 x

Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Lisa's Language Log

Postby Lisa » Sat Jan 28, 2023 8:59 pm

Drilled down into IPA to see if it would help my ongoing struggles with some words. Partly since I think the audio in my decks is of sometimes dubious quality. I don't know where the ssh sound in aussi and perdu comes from, I don't hear r before oi most of the time, etc.

I know I'm not good with vowel sounds - it's what defeated me in vietnamese. And I kind of did minimal effort on vowels when I first learned IPA. But desperation is motivation. I picked words that I had a little trouble with - bière - the specific symbols - I got the IPA and read up on the charts - compared to words I can pronounce OK - in the end, it feel like it really worked, and I can pronounce bière with confidence. Same with œil and œ. And I can physically understand the descriptions of close-front and center open-mid much better. Given how I love Anki, I started a little mini-deck to learn some of the symbols.

I think the ʁwɑ sound (roi, droit, trois) is just going to take practice. It does not flow. And I'm not sure I'm getting the elision sounds small enough, pimsleur goes on about how you can hardly hear the n' or l'. My anki deck audio ranged from clearly hearing them, hearing a little small sound, to nothing at all.

Probably I really should find a french tutor to make sure I'm not making mistakes I don't know about. I'm not confident it's possible to get it right without feedback. But I feel very empowered by IPA.

My latest german agatha christie included quite a lot of french phrases and I could decipher all but one word... french study is already useful.
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