Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

[jackb]

Jack's log
Hi! I'm Jack and this is my log for tracking my 366 day language challenge and a place to keep my language learning thoughts. I'm beginner and have been at this for over a year. I would say I've only be studying it seriously for couple of months. I hope sticking to this challenge will help me get to the point I can start putting some sentences together. I have a family trip planned to Belgium next Christmas.

I'm will be using the following resources:
Assimil (French with Ease)
Kwiziq
Inner French Podcast
Reading random twitter feeds


I've looked at a bunch of other resources and these are the ones I can use and find interesting. Inner French is a little advanced, butI like the content and it has transcripts.

Thanks for reading.

[jackb]

Day 1 is in the books.

Kwizik: 45 minutes. The more I use it, the more I like it. I'm working on A2 and I'm currently at 20%
Assimil: 30 minutes. Read, listened and spoke lessons 54 and 55. Read the review of 56. Did phase 2 of 6.
Inner French Podcast #9 La décroissance. It was about 30 minutes long

When you look at it all in one place, that's a lot of time. I don't expected to put in that much time everyday.

[jackb]

Day 2
Kwizik: 30 minutes
Assimil: 30 minutes. Read, listened and spoke lessons 55 and 57. Did phase 2 of 8.
Inner French Podcast #10 L'expérience de Milgram: 30 minutes. Really interesting and kind of scary. I know nobody hits links, but if you are interested in Stanley Milgram, here's the wikipedia article , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram

I still like kwizik, but it's maddening to try to get to 100%. Once you get about 95% or so, diminishing returns and boredom starts to set in. I can see how it will really help later to get all of the nitty gritty details straight in my head.

[jackb]

Day 3
Kwizik: 15 minutes
Assimil: 10 minutes. Rea and listened to lessons 57 and 58.
Inner French Podcast: #11 Faut-il se lever tôt ? 15 mintues

I didn't finish anything I wanted to do. I guess you just have days like that.

Day 4
Kwizik: 35 minutes
Assimil: 30 minutes. Read, listened and spoke lessons 57, 58 and 59.
Inner French Podcast: #13 Les maleurs des gagnants du loto 40 minutes. My comprehension was really high for this particular podcast. It's strange. I think it is because of the subject matter, but who knows. It was good to have success.

I did a little exploration in kwiziq today. I ended up getting the premium subscription for a year so I have access to all of the French material. They have writing, speaking, listening, and reading practice. I looked at the writing practice today. At my level, they give you a paragraph a sentence at a time to translate from English to French. I'm sure it's different for intermediate and advanced, but I don't know how. They have a 'scoring' system where after they give you the answer to your translation, you get to assign points.

I still don't quite understand the point of giving myself a score, but the score not being related to the correctness of my translation. It was good practice for me. I'll have to look at the other practice.

[jackb]

Day 5
kwiziq: 45 minutes
Inner French #14 – Comment créer le héros parfait: 40 minutes
I did a couple of the old weekend workouts and I think they will be helpful for me. Each workout has a writing practice for each level.

Day 6
kwiziq: 90 minutes
Français Facile podcast: 20 minutes (listening and reading)

Day 7
kwiziq: 90 minutes

I got it in my head to get 100% in A0 and A1. I finished A0 on Monday (Day 6) and A1 today (Day 7). Man, the quizzes really do hammer you. I got close multiple times only to miss one question, requiring several more quizzes to get to the elusive 100%. It was very frustrating, but after doing it, I feel like I know the information much better.

The bottom line is that I like kwiziq more than I expected. It is also linking up to Assimil nicely.

[willfr]

Day 5
kwiziq: 45 minutes
Inner French #14 – Comment créer le héros parfait: 40 minutes
I did a couple of the old weekend workouts and I think they will be helpful for me. Each workout has a writing practice for each level.

Day 6
kwiziq: 90 minutes
Français Facile podcast: 20 minutes (listening and reading)

Day 7
kwiziq: 90 minutes

I got it in my head to get 100% in A0 and A1. I finished A0 on Monday (Day 6) and A1 today (Day 7). Man, the quizzes really do hammer you. I got close multiple times only to miss one question, requiring several more quizzes to get to the elusive 100%. It was very frustrating, but after doing it, I feel like I know the information much better.

The bottom line is that I like kwiziq more than I expected. It is also linking up to Assimil nicely.

We are following a similar path as I’m also using Kwiziq and listening to Inner French. Your Kwiziq progress is impressive as getting to 100% is really tricky the moment you give an incorrect (or ´nearly’ ) answer!

I look forward to reading more about your progress.

[jackb]

Jan 8
Assimil: 20 minutes (57, 58, 59)
Inner French #15: 30 minutes

Jan 9
Assimil: 35 minutes (58, 59, 60)
Innter French #16: 30 minutes

Jan 10
Kwiziq: 40 minutes

This was a tough week for me. I decided to take a break from kwiziq. I was getting a little punch drunk. I did it tonight and some of the 'language fog' cleared. There were lessons involving y, en, and que.

Language fog the term i've been using to describe the situation when I know all of the literal translations of a phrase or sentence, but it still doesn't make sense. For a long time, que seemed to be inexplicably added to every sentence. Those phrases are becoming a little less foggy.

I just realized that I don't do a lot of listening (or any) on the days I work from home. I have about 3 hours in the car (round trip) so I can get quite a bit of listening in, if I want.

[jackb]

Day 5
kwiziq: 45 minutes
Inner French #14 – Comment créer le héros parfait: 40 minutes
I did a couple of the old weekend workouts and I think they will be helpful for me. Each workout has a writing practice for each level.

Day 6
kwiziq: 90 minutes
Français Facile podcast: 20 minutes (listening and reading)

Day 7
kwiziq: 90 minutes

I got it in my head to get 100% in A0 and A1. I finished A0 on Monday (Day 6) and A1 today (Day 7). Man, the quizzes really do hammer you. I got close multiple times only to miss one question, requiring several more quizzes to get to the elusive 100%. It was very frustrating, but after doing it, I feel like I know the information much better.

The bottom line is that I like kwiziq more than I expected. It is also linking up to Assimil nicely.

We are following a similar path as I’m also using Kwiziq and listening to Inner French. Your Kwiziq progress is impressive as getting to 100% is really tricky the moment you give an incorrect (or ´nearly’ ) answer!

I look forward to reading more about your progress.

Thanks willfr. Taking repeated kwiziq quizzes makes me feel like Costello in the 'Who's on First" skit. I think I understand something then.....I don't know is on 3rd base....

[jackb]

Jan 11
Assimil: 60 minutes (59, 60, 61)
kwiziq: 20

Jan 12
Assimil: 45 minutes (60, 61, 62)
Inner french #17: 45 minutes

[jackb]

Jan 13
Assimil 45 minutes (60,61,62)
Kwiziq 15 minutes

Jan 14
Assimil 60 minutes (61, 62, 63)
Kwiziq 20 minutes
Inner French (don't remember the number) 40 minutes

Today was a long commute both ways. I had a lot of time in the car so I could listen to a whole Inner French and about 30 minutes of listening to Assimil. I listen to all of the lessons on shuffle for a couple of minutes. It was interesting to hear the early levels next to the later ones. I could pick up some of the lessons, but it is rather fast. It was kind of fun.

With Kwiziq, my pace has slowed down a bit because the material is getting more and more difficult for me. The lessons seem to be more my level. I still recognize the constructions in the lessons, but they are tougher to grasp. I'm at about 50% A2.

I'm looking for my next steps after Assimil. Initially, I was thinking about continuing on with Using French, but I'm not so sure anymore. I think I need to read. I'll be checking out the monster thread on French books. I want to start with something easy and straight forward. Something that just people talking with no really plot twists. Possibly a kids book? I'm open to suggestions.