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

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DaveAgain
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:52 am

luke wrote:How would you rate the automatic subtitles in French? (In Spanish, they're usually quite good).
They are often helpful, but must be treated as possibilities rather than relied on as objective truth.
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luke
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby luke » Tue Jan 11, 2022 1:32 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
luke wrote:How would you rate the automatic subtitles in French? (In Spanish, they're usually quite good).
They are often helpful, but must be treated as possibilities rather than relied on as objective truth.

Very interesting, and I don't want to hijack Jack's French Log, but I wonder if how phonetic (what you see is what you get) a language is has a lot of bearing on the accuracy of automated subtitles on YouTube.
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby jackb » Mon Feb 07, 2022 11:05 am

It’s been a few weeks. I’ve been mostly listening. I just noticed that I’ve gone through all 25 of the Quelle Histoire podcasts. I’m really happy I did that. When I first started, it took about an hour to go through 1 of them. Towards the end, it was taking half of that. I’ve added them to a playlist and will continue listening to them on the background as I work. Mélusine and Tristan/Iseult were new to me and sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole on wikipedia. I really enjoyed them and recommend them to anyone looking for something kind of off the beaten path.

I’m in the middle of working on my listening and it appears to be working, albeit slowly. One of the youtubers I recently found (c’est une autre histoire) has gotten easier. She speaks really fast and kind of colloquial so it’s overall pretty tough going. If the youtube auto-generate subtitles were better, I’d tackle this for my listening. Instead, I going to hit some of the arte radio podcasts where people just tell stories about their careers or lives. It’s unscripted, normal language that’s also subtitled so I don’t have to rely on the auto-generated subs. The only problem is that it’s plastered over the youtube interface….I’ll deal

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Anki and what have been my problems with it. I figured I’ll give it a serious try before finally kicking it to the curb. So I’ve also been doing some not-so-light reading of the Anki documentation about the default settings. Here’s what I learned:

1. Anki is NOT a tool for learning stuff, it is a tool for remembering stuff that is already learned. The learning interval by default is 1 and 10 minutes. For me this just too short. When the cards graduates to reviews, I have a small chance of getting them right. Then they pile up and in a few short weeks, I get overwhelmed and frustrated. The number of new cards per day is also a factor.

2. There has to be an end to it, aka it’s ok to forget stuff. After a certain number of reviews I will either remember the word when I see it again or I won’t. At some point they are simply padding how many reviews I need to do. I really need to listen to emk and a few other members, delete cards ruthlessly because any individual card doesn’t matter. Stringerbell has a good idea about organizing decks by books and deleting it after the book is finished and the cards have matured. I’ll probably do something similar.

3. Cards should be easy. Cards that I have to stare at take time and make me frustrated. This is partially related to #1. Staring at a card with a word or sentence I don’t really know takes time and frustrates me. Cloze deletion cards with words I don’t know make me want to burn the building down. Actually cloze deletion cards in general bother me. I’m taking my cue from smallwhite on this one. Single word/phrase cards for me. I’ll get my context and shade of meanings from reading and listening.

Now to poke at some settings. I’m going to start out with something like learning steps of 1 3 5 7, then let the Anki algorithm do its thing for about a month and get rid of the card. I’ll make adjustments along the way. Let’s see how long I can go without deleting the app.
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby luke » Mon Feb 07, 2022 12:29 pm

jackb wrote:1. Anki is NOT a tool for learning stuff, it is a tool for remembering stuff that is already learned. The learning interval by default is 1 and 10 minutes. For me this just too short. When the cards graduates to reviews, I have a small chance of getting them right.

I agree Anki is not for learning things.

One thing I do - particularly for slow cards - is give them that "minimum pass" for as long as necessary.

Say I see a new vocabulary card and puzzle over the translation for 5 seconds or more, but I do finally remember it. It's definitely "minimum to pass". This is very important in the early days of the card, especially day 1.

So, on day 1, the initial "graduation times" for a card look like: 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 day, 4 days.

If I don't get the card, it gets the 1 minute button and hopefully I do better next time.
If a card stays in that 1 minute (didn't remember it) category 2 or 3 times, that's okay.
Hopefully the 2nd, 3rd or 4th time I can graduate it a notch, which is now become 6 minutes on my deck.
Same process repeats. Until it gets "pretty easy", it stays in that "6 minute - just barely knew it" category.
Eventually it gets to 10 minutes. Occasionally a hard card will get to 15 minutes.
When I finally graduate it with the "1 day - good" button, it was pretty easy for that day.

This can be tiresome, as you're well aware.

My point is, I don't graduate a card prematurely. I try not to add cards to quickly. I quit adding cards before burnout. I try to supplement them with "where do these words come from". Recently, I realized some verbs can be acted out. Also, I say the word out loud, often several times when it's hard. This seems to be very important. I may see cards where the sound of the translation is in my mouth - that's what remembers it first, rather than in my eyes (spelling). And I say the words slowly when they are new.

Best of luck!
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jackb
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby jackb » Mon Feb 07, 2022 3:09 pm

My learning steps are in days not minutes. I'm not sure I understand why they are ever in minutes. It assumes that I will be using it multiple times a day. For cards in the learning phase, I agree with a low bar. Sometimes there won't be a bar. Just reading both sides will earn a good. My thinking is that since the words will come from podcasts/vlogs I'm studying, I'll see and hear these words in context between review times. And if I miss it.....oh well.

I try to supplement them with "where do these words come from". Recently, I realized some verbs can be acted out. Also, I say the word out loud, often several times when it's hard.


I always say the words on the cards and try to picture where I've heard the word before. Really, I try recreate the scene like a photograph. The interesting thing is that other words from the scene run through my head too.

I forgot to mention that I'm watching Braqueurs (the series) on Netflix. So far it has been one of my favorites. There are still quite a few 'mumbly' parts where I miss what they say, but I can still get the gist of the episodes. It'll get a second watch at some point. I only have one episode to go, but the second season is supposedly on its way. Hopefully it doesn't take as long as the second season of Unité 42.
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jackb
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby jackb » Fri Feb 25, 2022 2:36 pm

The last few weeks have generally been busy and crappy with work/family/the world, so no real study. I'm going to fall back on just watching and reading books. I started the Good Witch, a Hallmark channel show where nothing really happens other than stern looks and light romances. It's just my speed right now.

I recently asked myself "Why haven't I read Dune?" I can't come up with a good reason. It's exactly the kind of world building sci fi I like, even though I'm partial to the sword and horse type. Between my wife's family, they have all of the physical books from the world, so what am I waiting for? I think I'm going to give a try in French with paper books. There's something about paper. I've been wanting to read a paper book for a few weeks. I should be able to the read English version if I have any real stumbling blocks.

At this point, my goal is to do something.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Feb 25, 2022 4:56 pm

jackb wrote:I recently asked myself "Why haven't I read Dune?" I can't come up with a good reason. It's exactly the kind of world building sci fi I like, even though I'm partial to the sword and horse type. Between my wife's family, they have all of the physical books from the world, so what am I waiting for? I think I'm going to give a try in French with paper books. There's something about paper. I've been wanting to read a paper book for a few weeks. I should be able to the read English version if I have any real stumbling blocks.

At this point, my goal is to do something.
Dune is super, I like watching the introduction to the 1984 film (French version) in different languages for some reason :-)
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Feb 25, 2022 6:17 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
jackb wrote:I recently asked myself "Why haven't I read Dune?" I can't come up with a good reason. It's exactly the kind of world building sci fi I like, even though I'm partial to the sword and horse type. Between my wife's family, they have all of the physical books from the world, so what am I waiting for? I think I'm going to give a try in French with paper books. There's something about paper. I've been wanting to read a paper book for a few weeks. I should be able to the read English version if I have any real stumbling blocks.

At this point, my goal is to do something.
Dune is super, I like watching the introduction to the 1984 film (French version) in different languages for some reason :-)

Agreed that Dune is super. Have not seen the film, unless you call Star Wars a version of Dune, as some do.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

jackb
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby jackb » Thu Mar 17, 2022 12:01 pm

By the looks of the 'Future of French' thread, the 503 errors are cleared up!

I'm just chugging along with the Good Witch. I'm currently on season 5 episode 4. I feel like me comprehension is better, but I also feel like that may be me getting used to the voices. I haven't done any real (French) reading in a while. Dune is definitely going in the next order.

Someone a few weeks ago asked me for my phone number and I couldn't for the life of me remember it. True, I turn 50 next year, but age has nothing to do with it. It's purely lack of use. Combine that with my interest in rdearman's use of memory palaces, and I seem to on the verge of some memory recovery project. I'm a few chapters in on The Memory Craft by Lynne Kelly and it's really good. Some things are striking a cord with me and so I'm going to investigate it. How they will apply to my language learning is still in the air, but I'm sure they will. It's silly to have and know memory techniques and NOT use them.
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jackb
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Re: Who's on First? (Jack's French Log)

Postby jackb » Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:49 pm

The Good Witch in french finished after season 5. I've move on to a couple of other dubbed shows. The first two are on Disney+, Agents of Shield and Black-ish. I watched Agents of Shield since back when we watched live tv. It's interesting to see it from the beginning. Black-ish totally new to me. It's basically a black Modern Family with multiple generations living in the same house. It's cool and weird to see what they do with some of the language. Some of it simply doesn't translate and some of it translates less funny. In either case, it's fun to see what they do with the words.

The other show is a Canadian show called Heartland. I think it's classified as a 'family drama' because there's a story for every age group. It follows the a family ranch in rural Alberta. It's still running and has been on since 2007. Netflix has 14 of the seasons (with 22 eps each), so there's no end of episodes. I use this as my escape when life gets to be a bit too much. I'm about halfway through the season 2. There are a lot of sweeping shots of the Rockies and the associated landscape. During these, I've been adding my own audio description by just describing what the shot is or what catches my eye. My personal audio description is pretty terrible right now, but it's getting better. If I want to us words I don't know, I just add the english word and move on. I should right it down, but.....meh

I stumble on this site called hypnoweb.net. It is a french fan site for a ton a shows, past and present. There are episode synopsis's, actor bios, and forums. One of the coolest things is for long running shows, the fans have created scripts for VO and VF. So I could read the scripts before or after watching the shows but....meh.

Here's the hypnoweb for Heartland if anyone is interested https://heartland.hypnoweb.net/heartland/

Edited for clarification and to add the link
Last edited by jackb on Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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