My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 1:50 pm

pinkyslippers wrote:Have you tried the Alex Leroc series by Christian Lause? They are on the pricer side considering how short the stories are but they each come with an audio CD of the story too.


No I hadn't heard of them, thank you!
0 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:53 pm

Five hours forty two minutes YouTube, and about two hours French Netflix this week. Some more reading (I should really start noting how much I'm reading).

Reviewing Memrise is taking up more and more time. A couple of days this week have just been reviewing, but I've managed to get on to the last official course today, French 7.

I found some more promising reading materials courtesy of Inner French. "Mondes en VF" and "Lire en Francais facile" look good, so will order one once I've finished short stories in French.
1 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:33 pm

I'm going to start Assimil tomorrow. I know I've learnt lots of words with memrise, but I don't really feel like I'm learning French. The words are just a big blob floating round my head. When I was learning Spanish with memrise, with the old courses, I could form sentences and have basic imaginary conversations in my head with what I was learning. That's not happening with French. French is definitely more difficult, but there's been a lot more words learnt in isolation, as opposed to phrases that I can manipulate. I think assimil will help with that. I also need to start learning some grammar. I've watched a couple of videos about certain topics, and I definitely need explanations that memrise doesn't provide.

To start with, I'm going to use the method from the Learn Any Language wiki. Has anyone used this method exactly? How did you find it? I'll probably just make anki cards for difficult phrases, but I'll see how it goes. I'll do a few lessons at a time, at least to start with, since the early ones look pretty easy.

I'm still going to finish memrise 1-7 and then find a course with intermediate vocabulary to learn. I don't like the idea of starting an "x most common words" course as there'll be too much repetition with what I've already learnt.
4 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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tastyonions
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby tastyonions » Thu Jun 18, 2020 2:16 am

Assimil French will definitely give you a good start on French. It's the book that really kicked off my language journey.
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:13 pm

I was so excited to start assimil this morning. I tried to get an early night, but since lockdown has obliterated any bed-time discipline I have when I'm working, 2am it was... :roll:

Still, the hound didn't wake up til 9, so as soon as I'd fed him, I started assimil somewhat bleary eyed.

I'm so glad I have started it, as Memrise was getting stale. I used the method I linked above for the first two lessons. I thought it might be a bit drawn out but since the lessons are pretty short, it didn't take too long and seems effective. I listened to the second lesson a couple of extra times. The audio is way too slow in the early lessons, so I sped it up to something more conversational.

This is definitely the most structured approach I've had to learning a language so far. I think if I'd only used memrise as I initially envisioned, I would have given up from boredom by now. A variety of resources has kept things fresh and fun. I can drop one one day, and just pick another one, but as long as I do something, the daily habit is still being cultivated. That said, I've used memrise every day and I think I've listened every day too.

I'm still nervous about maintaining the habit once I'm back at work and coming home tired, but that's life and I'll have to make it work. Maybe I'll commit to updating this log daily, however briefly, to stay on track. I also have to keep my copy of Russian with Ease that's seductively perched in my bookcase out of my mind....
4 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:29 pm

Weekly review

7 hr 35 mins French YouTube this week, a 2 hr 40 mins opera and various randomly chosen podcasts while walking the dog this week.

Memrise progress has slowed a lot because of all the videos and listening. 197 words left to go in French 7, then I can move on to another course. That's 3126 'words learnt' so far. I've kept all reviews up to date.

I've done the first seven Assimil lessons. I can blast through them pretty quickly at the moment as I already know almost all the vocab. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth in to the more difficult stuff.

Two new books arrived today from the 'Lire en français facile' series. 'Les Trois Mousquetaires' rated A2 and 'La tête d'un homme' rated B2. I've read the first chapter of Les Trois Mousquetaires' and I've already found some more difficult sentence structures than those in 'short stories in French for beginners', so the B2 book will be a good challenge.
5 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 7:58 pm

Well that's a milestone of sorts: I just finished the official memrise courses. Since I'm slightly over the halfway mark in this three month vocabulary challenge, I've added another target of learning a total of 6000 words by August 17th. I don't think I'll get there but it will keep me motivated with memrise. I think if I come across a word in future courses that I feel I've really, really learnt in the official courses (or elsewhere) I'll ignore it, since I'll constantly be reviewing any way.

Overall I think the course has been great. There's a little bit of repetition of certain words between courses but in an SRS app that's not necessarily a bad thing. Early on I was a bit cagey about the amount of idiomatic language, but it's actually very useful, since I've heard almost all those phrases in the listening I've done. For example, I learnt "c'est gagnant-gagnant" yesterday morning, and in the evening a French duck farmer used it while talking about how his ducks look after his rice crop. That was in a video on the channel "Les Carnets de Julie", which is without a doubt my favourite French youtube channel. An interesting subject matter, and a good mix of conversational French and voice over.

However, there's no way I could have lasted this long solely with memrise. It's an excellent tool, but has to be used with other resources. The words you learn have to be 'seen in the wild'. Anyway, time to find the next course and crack on.
6 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:37 pm

Weekly Review

10 hours 40 French YouTube this week. Managed to grind my way to the end of the official memrise courses, and started a new one called 'advanced vocabulary'. All the intermediate courses I looked at seemed to have lots of stuff I've already covered. I haven't really got stuck in to any of my books. I used to be an avid reader when I was young but got out of the habit as I got older, so it will take a lot of effort to make it a daily habit. That said, I only have one chapter of the Olly Richards book to go.

I've done something useful every day, with today being my laziest day of the week, only doing a bit of memrise reviewing. I'll watch some YouTube before bed to ease the guilt, and maybe finish that book. This is definitely my longest studying streak with no days off for any language I've studied.
2 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:00 pm

Weekly review

One hour six minutes French YouTube watched this week. I've half a chapter left of the Olly Richards book and have reviewed memrise daily.

A really weak seven days as I've been constantly playing call of duty, which is actually a positive since most of my friends are playing it and I've barely spoken to them during lockdown. I've managed to do some French maintenance every day, which is also great, since in the past I would have just dropped the language. It's becoming a habit, but have to guard against flakiness every day!
4 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000

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mattf789
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Re: My three Month French Vocabulary Memrise Challenge (now with added input)....

Postby mattf789 » Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:15 am

A bit late with the weekly update but it's still technically Monday...

Another super lazy week, including my first day with no French study (naughty). Too much computer games still, but memrised every day except Friday when I did nothing. While this last week has not been productive I'm happy I'm still going, as this is the exact point I've broken in the past and just quit. Might book an italki lesson soon for extra motivation.
4 x
Official Memrise French 1-7: 3100 / 3100
Assimil French: 11 / 113
Overall French Memrise Progress: 3323 / 6000


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