La grande aventure de Thomas dans le monde des francophones.

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Jar-Ptitsa
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I can speak: Dutch, German, English, Spanish and understand Italian, Portuguese, Wallonian, Afrikaans, but not always correctly.
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Sat Sep 26, 2015 8:53 pm

tomgosse, I have listened your recording and i could understand it very well. You speak clearly and it sounds nice when the foreigners speak french.

I think that the thing which the others didn't mention, but which seemed important for me would be to link the words more. Your talking sounded very separated for me, instead of linked or with liaison. But it was veyr good, I don't mean that this was very bad or made difficult to understand, it didn't. I hope that this advice is helpful :)
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tomgosse
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby tomgosse » Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:00 pm

vogeltje wrote:tomgosse, I have listened your recording and i could understand it very well. You speak clearly and it sounds nice when the foreigners speak french.

I think that the thing which the others didn't mention, but which seemed important for me would be to link the words more. Your talking sounded very separated for me, instead of linked or with liaison. But it was veyr good, I don't mean that this was very bad or made difficult to understand, it didn't. I hope that this advice is helpful :)

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement.

One of the problems that I have when speaking French, or any other language out loud is that I am quite nervous. My inner voice has a fluent and flawless French accent. Inside my head I sound like Maurice Chevalier. :) But once I see the microphone and hit the record button I freeze up and sound like a three year old learning to read for the first time. My reading aloud and recording in English is only a little better. I need a lot more practice.
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arthaey
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby arthaey » Sun Sep 27, 2015 1:00 pm

tomgosse wrote:But once I see the microphone and hit the record button I freeze up and sound like a three year old learning to read for the first time. My reading aloud and recording in English is only a little better. I need a lot more practice.

I have no advice for you, only painful commiseration. ;)

Reading out loud around other people is also the worst, including in my L1...
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tomgosse
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4 octobre 2015 : Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby tomgosse » Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:36 pm

Bonjour à tous.

Well, life is getting all pear shaped. Kidney pain is back, and medication doesn't help much. I have a number of doctor appointments over the next couple of weeks to keep me busy. Oh joy!

Maintenant, revenir à Français. I'm still working at it. It's slow, but I keep doing something everyday. Here are the resources that I'm using:

Duolingo: I advanced to level 10. Yippee! I'm working on Prepositions 2, and I have a ten day streak. My daily goal is 30 XP. I might think about upping it to 50 XP per day. I've also gone back to the beginning and started to strengthen the skills of each lesson. I'm up to Present 2 with this review.

Pimsleur: Up to lesson 18, but I think I need to go back and review the lessons from 16 onward. It seems that the time I have to respond to the prompts is getting smaller. Most likely my brain takes longer to process the answer.

Pronunciation : I found this channel from the Language Resource Center at the University of Michigan on YouTube: LRC Michigan. I'm certainly going to have to pay attention to the nuances of French vowels. There's no doubt in my mind that I will be reviewing these videos over and over again.

Assimil : I picked up a copy of Assimil New French with Ease. After reading a number of positive reviews I thought I would give it a try. I'm only up to lesson 2.

Those are my four daily exercises. Because of the fatigue caused by my kidney disease it takes me about four to six hours to complete them.

I've stopped using French In Action. The main reason for that is, the book is too big and too heavy for me to hold. I know it sounds silly, but it is one of the problems resulting from fatigue. I find the book from Assimil easier to hold, and therefore easier to read.

One of my fears is that I keep starting a new book figuring that I will make better progress with this one. So, I'm struggling with : keep pushing through versus if it doesn't work and has become a chore, use something else. I know that I'm more likely to quit if I start to dread doing the lessons.

That's if for now. I wish every one a good week.
Tom
Last edited by tomgosse on Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tomgosse
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British comedy : Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby tomgosse » Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:05 am

I came across this late 1970's British comedy on YouTube, Mind Your Language. It's about a diverse group of English language students and their teacher in a night school. By today's standards it is not politically correct. Here is the Wikipedia article. I think it's quite funny.
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Bylan
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby Bylan » Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:35 am

Tom, sounds like you're making good progress, especially in the face of medical complications and what not. Keep it up! :D

Do you have the mp3s for Assimil? The cool thing about Assimil is that it's just a slice of the language, so if you can work it as a regimen, it's incredibly helpful. Something like: listen to the lesson 3-4 times (try shadowing along from the 3rd time), then shadow while reading the English a few times, then read both while shadowing, and finally just the French. If you can work a few lessons a day, such as lessons 1-5 today, then lessons 2-6 tomorrow, etc., you'll notice some nice progress.

I also want to recommend to you old Linguaphone from the 70's / 80's. This program is very powerful, good audio and a nice graded curriculum, which you can work in a regimen like described above. You can find it for 20-50 dollars on ebay. Though it seems like you're trying not to collect more books, but if you're interested, it might be helpful.

Bonne chance!
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby Arnaud » Mon Oct 05, 2015 4:50 am

deleted
Last edited by Arnaud on Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tomgosse
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11 octobre 2015 : Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby tomgosse » Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:58 pm

C'est une autre semaine à practice français. Je suis heureux, et vous ?

Les leçons de cette semaine :

Duolingo I finished Present 3. Only 152 XP to move up to level 11.

Pimsleur I reviewed lessons 16,17, 18, and finished 19. I find that I need to review more often.

Assimill I finished lesson seven. I hope to pick up the pace with this.

Pronunciation Still working my way through the videos from University of Michigan LRC. Slowly they are beginning to sink in.

Also, I have started a dual reading and listening to Jules Verne's Around The World in Eighty Days. I found the English text here, and the French text here. The audio of the French text is here.

First I read the text in English, then read the French while listening to the audio. I did have to slow down the audio using Audacity.

I wish all my Canadian friends a Happy Thanksgiving Day. Joyeux Action de grâce !

Jusqu'à la semaine prochaine mes amis.
Last edited by tomgosse on Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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galaxyrocker
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Re: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby galaxyrocker » Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:13 am

That's a really good idea on dual reading. If I didn't have so many different books going, Irish and English, I'd start on that as well. I'll have to remember it when I finish with a few of my current ones.
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tomgosse
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13 octobre 2015: Mon aventure fantastique français !

Postby tomgosse » Tue Oct 13, 2015 12:44 pm

Duolingo Je nivelé ! Je suis au niveau 11 et je l'ai fini passé composé. Je suis à mi-chemin à travers l'arbre. :D
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