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

[nagoyana]

It's been a while. I apologize in advance for the long post ahead.
Feel free to skip to the tl;dr below I you do not feel like reading all of my rambling.

First, I have to admit to dabbling again – in methods, though, not in languages, at least

I am almost done with FSI French Phonology (finished up to the end of part 9 so only one chapter to go). The later lessons actually felt easier. I am pretty sure this has to do with the length of the sentences used, since they seem to be getting shorter again toward the end.
My inner French voice is talking gibberish in my head anyways, but that might just be the result of it getting too much input recently

Assimil and I have been getting on well as well until lesson 11. After finishing that, unfortunately, I have succumbed to one of the nasty colds that have been plaguing Germany this year and was more or less out cold from Thursday evening till today (finally feeling better).

I had started dabbling I different methods before that (and I think I wrote about my parallel text test which enabled me to read the first 60 pages of another French YA fantasy novel), but being sick and not being able to stand any screens I had even more reasons to test other ways to use the content I have available.
So, all in all, during the recent weeks I have tried the following:
- Read the French and German versions of a book as parallel text
- L2/R2 some chapters of Harry Potter à l'École des Sorciers (i.e. the all-French version)
- L2/R1 some chapters of Harry Potter à l'École des Sorciers (i.e. classical Listening-Reading)
- Listen to Harry Potter à l'École des Sorciers in French without looking at the book
- Listen to some Inner French podcasts

Overall, I am amazed at how much I understand without really having studied French again at all. I am picking out words and phrases and ever more often whole sentences from the audio even without having the text at hand. Oh, and I have the feeling that I am following the gist of the story just fine, although I am, of course, missing a lot of the details.

It is actually quite motivating and disheartening at the same time – the former since progress is measurable (it’s been quite some time since I was at this stage with Korean) and the latter since it reminds me of how much work I had to put into both Japanese and Korean...

Anyways, of the above, I still feel I like classical Listening-Reading most. I even stopped doing L2/R2 chapter passes since they do not feel necessary. Now I only have to learn to keep my attention on the recording to stop myself from reading ahead in German when I lose focus.
Fortunately, since I am in the middle of chapter 6 at the moment, I still have some hours/pages left over to practise.

tl;dr:
Did some more FSI (up to the end of part 9), some more Assimil (up to lesson 11) and a lot of dabbling in different ways to use my available books and recordings.
Realised I like Listening-Reading for French and went up to chapter 6 of the first Harry Potter book.

Did some other language stuff as well but will leave that for another post.
Happy language learning in the meantime!

[nagoyana]

Oh, and before I forget:
After reading Cavesa's excellent post about the Progressive books, I decided to not skip niveau Débutante but treat it as a much needed revision of the basic grammar points, instead.

Now I just have to get my hands on it

[nagoyana]

The October TOPIK results were announced on Thursday and I had quite some fun analysing how such results can make one feel elated and disappointed at the same time...

When I first saw that I had passed level 5, I was more than content with the result. I did not need the test per se and was shooting for level 4 (due to not really having studied very much), so level 5 was a lot better than I had hoped.
Until, that is, I found out that I missed level 6 by 2 points.

Ah well, so now I know that with a bit of writing practise (I scored 92 in listening and 88 in reading but only 48 in writing), I would probably pass level 6. Whether that is any real indication of my Korean level, though, is beyond me.

By the way, the next stray thought after the above was if my Japanese had really been that bad when I first passed N1 So much for the value of language tests.


TOPIK is supposedly adhering to the CEFR levels, which would put level 5 at C1. Personally, I'd say a good level 6 score is at most C1, and probably passive only since the biggest part of your score depends on listening and reading only.
If there are others here who have taken the TOPIK before, what do you think?


But back to French now since I am going to need this

Edit: Tinkering.

[nagoyana]

After my short detour into the delights of Korean language testing, I went back to studying French (at least as much as the cold would let me – are this year’s colds equally nasty in other countries or did Germany simply draw the short straw this time round?).
During the time I was not up to studying (or simply procrastinating), I also read quite a few of the older language logs in this forum, which was quite entertaining.

While I went up to Assimil lesson 18, FSI Phonetics 10 is still waiting.
I suspect I might unconsciously be contemplating leaving the final lesson as a Christmas present for myself

One French log mentioned that Assimil French without toil had some really strange lessons and I have to concur. Lessons 16-18 were simply weird.
And while I kind of appreciate the story of a traveller being held up in customs with a bag full of diamonds for his rabbits (because I am probably never going to forget the French words douane/douanier, diamant and lapin ever again), having two lessons presenting one half each of the same telephone call were... not that memorable or helpful.
I do hope that things start to get interesting again in lesson 19 or I might have to consider switching to LingQ.

Speaking of which, I started some of LingQs easy stories for beginners to see how much of not-Assimil recordings would be understandable and the first 5 or so were no problem at all.
Until the narrator changed starting with the... 6th(?) story and I got the “Oh-my-this-is-really-much-too-fast”-moment I had originally expected to get with Assimil (where I did not register any large jump in speed between lessons 13 and 15, by the way - maybe 22? ).
But I guess it is worthwhile to continue with the stories anyways, if only to get used to a little quicker spoken French.

Finally – and I apologize for writing such a long post again – my copies of Grammaire progressive du Français (Niveau Débutant and Intermédiare) arrived not long ago. Since I bought both used, they are not the newest editions, but I have no problem with that.
Or so I thought, until I realised that CLE only has the current editions of the Corrigés available through their online-shop...

Does anyone know whether they only added exercises between the editions (which would mean I would probably be fine with the current Corrigés and a bit of searching) or if they changed the content of the exercises as well (in which case they would be useless)?

In any case, I am going to start with the first Niveau Débutant exercises this week to get started with grammar and will see how much I miss having the solutions at hand.

Happy language learning everyone – and in case you happen to be in Germany, beware of the colds!

Edit: Typos, as always...

[nagoyana]

Assimil finally got me (and in the revision lesson 21 to boot! ) – though not with the recording speed but with an example sentence I don't get.
I would have translated “She comes to see me every Sunday” differently.

Elle vient me voir tout les dimanches. << Assimil
Elle vient me voir tous les dimanches. << my assumption

Is this simply a typo or, if not, could someone explain why “tout” instead of “tous” is used here?


Apart from the above, I haven't managed too much studying (I guess moving apartments does that to you...), except
- Assimil up to lesson 22
(That lesson was hard! But I learned something about gambling in France, I guess?)
- LingQ Mini Stories up to no. 11
(The recordings are still very fast, but the stories are a nice change of pace from Assimil and at the right level language-wise.)
- Grammaire progressive up to the first bilan: 9 lessons + revision
(This book is great although my brain can't take more than 2 lessons in one setting.)

Since I am officially free now until January 2nd, I hope to get back into the rhythm of one lesson each of Assimil and Grammaire progressive per day over the next days. Doing a bit more L/R would be nice as well – and I have to do some wordlists for the Grammaire progressive vocabulary.
Other than that I still have some learning goals open for other languages (looking at you, 200 pages of Japanese...), so I should be well occupied in my spare time during the holidays.

Although there isn't much to sum up for French this year, I am thinking about doing a short language-summary of 2019 as well, which I might be able to reuse later.


In case I won't manage to do so before December 24, I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

[lavengro]

...
I would have translated “She comes to see me every Sunday” differently.

Elle vient me voir tout les dimanches. << Assimil
Elle vient me voir tous les dimanches. << my assumption

Is this simply a typo or, if not, could someone explain why “tout” instead of “tous” is used here?

I'm purdy sure the Assimil version is incorrect and your assumed translation is correct, but I am not a native French speaker.

[Arnaud]

It's a typo

[nagoyana]

Thank you, lavengro and Arnaud, for clearing this up.

So now I am going to take a pen to my Assimil copy (shudder) and correct that sentence for future reference

[nagoyana]

I have been procrastinating again but at least I found some time to take a closer look at my tracking sheet, so here is the promised wall of text review of 2019.

English
I am still tracking pages read and hours listened for English mostly to see how much of my foreign language input I have managed to convert to Japanese and/or Korean. And, looking at 2018 and 2019, I think I may have reached the converting limit at least for reading – as long as I don’t intend to give up my Economist habit, that is.

Reading 5.324 pages (2018: 5.980) – 5.000 is the usual goal
Listening: 5.192 minutes / 86,5h (2018: 6.922 / 115,4) – no goal
Writing: no tracking

Other than Star Trek Discovery Season 2 and a bit of Suits (unfortunately only some seasons are available with Japanese audio on the German Netflix), I have not logged any specific books or series. Consequently, all my reading for pleasure has to have been in languages other than English this year, which I consider as a big success.
I do, however, have some books lying around that I have been planning to read for a long time, so I might revert to a bit of English in 2020, especially since I am about to run out of unread Japanese books


Japanese
One of my main goals for the past 2 years has been to convert all of my leisure reading (i.e. fiction) to Japanese. Since I have read 13 books so far (and probably won’t finish the 14th in the remaining 2 days), I guess I was kind of successful.
Other than reading, I had the idea to start writing a bit more but... nope. I might consider something of an output challenge for 2020.

Reading: 5.937 pages (2018: 7.642) – still short of the goal of 6.000
Listening: 5.749 minutes / 95,8h (2018: 1.677 / 27,9) – no goal
Writing: ehm... about 0? – no goal

I was able to mostly read with ease before my “project”, but with gruesome speed, which really annoys me since I am a very fast reader in both German and English. And I am starting to realise that I am slowly improving. In 2018, I averaged between 5 and 10 pages for daily casual reading while 2019 was closer to between 10 and 20 (depending on my mood, I guess). Still, more time for Korean and other endeavors means less reading time overall.
As for listening, I have watched some Anime and 2 seasons of Suits in Japanese this year. The rest is my monthly calls with 2 friends from Japan to try (and mostly fail) to keep my speaking from atrophying too much.

Favorites:
- るろうに剣心 (Anime + movies)
- 天空の蜂 by 東野圭吾 (book)
- レベル7 by 宮部みゆき (book)


Korean
Considering that I passed TOPIK 5 in October, one should think that I did a lot of Korean this year – which, unfortunately, I didn’t. I did, however, watch a lot of dramas instead of studying. And since I started to log only half an hour of listening for every hour of drama, looking at these numbers now I know where my time went

Reading: 175 pages (2018: 334) – no goal; this includes TOPIK preparation...
Listening: 9.573 minutes / 159,5h (2018: 11.440 / 190,7) – goal 156h
Writing: no tracking
2018 is 1h of drama = 1h of listening, 2019 starting in July is 1h of drama = 30min of listening; otherwise total minutes would have been around 14.000 for 2019

I don’t need Korean subtitles anymore when watching dramas (with 80-100% comprehension?) and listening was my strongest TOPIK part, so my listening comprehension feels the 300+ hours of Korean content in 2 years.
What really amuses me is that reading is my usual go-to method for language learning, but I have barely done any reading so far. I am, however, starting to miss the positive effect on vocabulary that I usually get from reading, so I do have to start somehow.
Oh, and should I think about getting TOPIK 6 I would have to start writing right away – which is why this probably won’t happen in 2020.

Favorites (all rewatched )
- 신의 / The Great Doctor (I could watch this all year )
- 도깨비 / Goblin
- 태양의 후예 / Descendants of the Sun


Others
I did a bit of Assimil Swedish before going to Japan in May and I started French in earnest in November. While I did not do enough to warrant the inclusion of either of the two in the full statistics, I have the feeling that my French pages read might have surpassed my Korean pages read already (just checked, I am at 330 pages logged, so...), which is something I should (but probably won’t be able to) rectify in the coming year.
Should I commit to a new language in 2020, it will probably be French. ...or Swedish. ...or Croatian after all? I’ll probably know by mid-February.


Conclusion
Should I ever think about doing the Super Challenge, I’d have to do the reading portion with Japanese and the listening portion with Korean My Korean reading is awful, so I should aim for some pages read – probably instead of Japanese.
I’d still like to improve my Japanese reading speed a bit more, though...

There are 2 possible outcomes for 2020:
1) French takes the lead until June in case I manage to get the job I am aiming for or; after that I think I might have to brush up on Korean (while continuing French)
2) I continue to find ways to juggle 3(+1) languages while working in a job for which I need none (or maybe English), in which case French might not be in focus as much

...and now I am going to go back to my first book in French which I intend to finish before January 1 just to be able to tell myself that I did some studying instead of only procrastinating

Have a good start into 2020!

[nagoyana]

The last test day for my job-to-be (in case everything works out as intended, which I am still not very sure of) was today, so with the preparations taking most of my time, the beginning of 2020 up till now has not been very productive for language learning...
I am probably going to write an update on my plans for the next week’s (and maybe the year) this weekend.

In the meantime, though, I'd like to announce that while I did miss my 2019 Japanese reading goal (and only by about 30 pages no less – reading a bit more of 弓と禅 Yumi to zen was simply too much to ask on 31 December ), I did finish my first book in French: Alanna – Le secret du chevalier by Tamora Pierce.

Since it hasn't been long since I started trying to resurrect my French, I would not have gotten far without my German copy of the same book at hand. I was basically using it to get a parallel text.
The beginning was hard nonetheless. I read one paragraph in German first and then had to fight my way through the same paragraph in French while still often referring to the translation for single words. Not much fun.
But I am pretty sure that I will not forget the French word jumeaux anytime soon since both the Alanna and the Harry potter books have their share of twins

Fortunately, after about a third of the book reading the French paragraph after the German one became markedly easier. And towards the end I was reading some French sentences, sometimes whole paragraphs, without referring to the German translation at all.
Part of this is surely attributable to the books having been written for young adults and me knowing the story very well (totally recommending Tamora Pierce to anyone who might be interested), but the improvement over only a few hundred pages still felt remarkable.

Until I started the second book, that is, and found myself referring to the German translation a lot more often again...


I will certainly re-read the first book only in French just to see if I can understand enough without the translation help. But I might finish the whole series (4 books) in parallel text just for the story first And maybe read a bit of Harry Potter on the side (I have only been listening to the first 2 audiobooks recently)

Long story short: after a slow start reading in French was fun and entertaining – and thus a lot easier to keep up with little time available. I am thus looking forward to picking formal studies back up where I abandoned them, but also to the rest of the Alanna series and to the Harry Potter (audio)books.

...and maybe, just maybe, I have to get Harry Potter in Korean after all...

Happy 2020 language learning!