bêtise's french log: inching toward the finish line
Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2020 9:40 pm
hello everyone, i'm back to studying french after taking an inadvertent break of about a year. my background in studying french is:
- i started in late 2015, completed/used basic resources like Duolingo, Lingvist, Michel Thomas, Assimil
- then i took classes at university, and completed a french minor (didn't have time to do a major, but i was quite close )
- ended up not studying for about a year (last year, 2019. half due to finishing school, half due to mental health/life problems)
- started up again around April of this year because...well, you know...the c**********
i'd like to finally take the DELF B2 in December (provided we can..), i'm pretty confident i can pass it as long as i keep it up and study smart (and practice so that i'm not too nervous to function).
i'll be using this log mainly as a place to track my input/output work, for which i have some self-imposed goals to reach. there are also some learning projects i have in mind that i'll probably talk about here, too. not that anything i say/do will be overly interesting or unique; we all know it can be nice to just have a language log as a place for some accountability and motivation/encouragement .
longer-term, i aim to pass the DALF C1 exam, which i'm slating, mentally, as an endeavor for next year. when i pass that (maybe after B2, but i'm not sure–i feel like C1 will take a lot of effort and i won't have as much free time), i'll start working on an L3. for now, though...
my current goals for input:
- listen to 21 audiobooks by the end of the year (starting with Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours this week)
- read 1 article per day (150 to go for this year)
- watch 1 french-language film per week (21 again, started with La belle personne)
for me, input is pretty easy since i can just go for a walk/etc and put a podcast on. i just have these goals to encourage consistency.
things i need to work on!
- actually adding found vocabulary to SRS (i just have giant lists right now)
- recording myself speaking off-the-cuff or about various topics
- writing
- trying to have conversations with natives
- practicing/learning grammar
right now, for production practice, i'm basically only:
- intermittently using Discord to chat a bit
- recording myself speaking for 10-20 minutes about...whatever...every couple days on average
- talking to myself/thinking in french at times
- reading out loud occasionally
i'm pretty disorganized on this front. i'm okay with not doing the same one thing all the time, but i do need to do something every day that gets me speaking. my goal for this week is to figure out how i'm going to work on output. here's what i'm changing:
+ i'll use sunday nights(starting tonight!) to add vocabulary found during the week to my SRS program, and to study grammar ("study grammar is vague, and i suspect that since i haven't and have been avoiding it, there'll be a lot of fix/optimize there. but i just need to get started).
+ i think a good, dynamic production option will be: recording ≥ 5 minutes (to start) of talking about/giving opinions on/summarizing the different media i consumed that day. since i'm reading books and articles and watching movies and listening to music in french, i'll have a good amount to talk about with varied, engaging subjects.
+ for writing, i'm just going to use the only decent idea i have besides a diary(which i have some resistance to doing in my tl): use writing prompt lists to write a bit of french daily. i'm not going to put any other requirements for now.
+ another small goal i'm setting for this week is to just try shadowing once; i learned about it on here a few years ago but always felt weirdly intimidated by it, so i want to just give it a go and get rid of that.
+ last goal: continue to brainstorm/work out the beginnings of my writing project/french learning blog.
until next time (next week, maybe sooner)!
- i started in late 2015, completed/used basic resources like Duolingo, Lingvist, Michel Thomas, Assimil
- then i took classes at university, and completed a french minor (didn't have time to do a major, but i was quite close )
- ended up not studying for about a year (last year, 2019. half due to finishing school, half due to mental health/life problems)
- started up again around April of this year because...well, you know...the c**********
i'd like to finally take the DELF B2 in December (provided we can..), i'm pretty confident i can pass it as long as i keep it up and study smart (and practice so that i'm not too nervous to function).
i'll be using this log mainly as a place to track my input/output work, for which i have some self-imposed goals to reach. there are also some learning projects i have in mind that i'll probably talk about here, too. not that anything i say/do will be overly interesting or unique; we all know it can be nice to just have a language log as a place for some accountability and motivation/encouragement .
longer-term, i aim to pass the DALF C1 exam, which i'm slating, mentally, as an endeavor for next year. when i pass that (maybe after B2, but i'm not sure–i feel like C1 will take a lot of effort and i won't have as much free time), i'll start working on an L3. for now, though...
my current goals for input:
- listen to 21 audiobooks by the end of the year (starting with Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours this week)
- read 1 article per day (150 to go for this year)
- watch 1 french-language film per week (21 again, started with La belle personne)
for me, input is pretty easy since i can just go for a walk/etc and put a podcast on. i just have these goals to encourage consistency.
things i need to work on!
- actually adding found vocabulary to SRS (i just have giant lists right now)
- recording myself speaking off-the-cuff or about various topics
- writing
- trying to have conversations with natives
- practicing/learning grammar
right now, for production practice, i'm basically only:
- intermittently using Discord to chat a bit
- recording myself speaking for 10-20 minutes about...whatever...every couple days on average
- talking to myself/thinking in french at times
- reading out loud occasionally
i'm pretty disorganized on this front. i'm okay with not doing the same one thing all the time, but i do need to do something every day that gets me speaking. my goal for this week is to figure out how i'm going to work on output. here's what i'm changing:
+ i'll use sunday nights(starting tonight!) to add vocabulary found during the week to my SRS program, and to study grammar ("study grammar is vague, and i suspect that since i haven't and have been avoiding it, there'll be a lot of fix/optimize there. but i just need to get started).
+ i think a good, dynamic production option will be: recording ≥ 5 minutes (to start) of talking about/giving opinions on/summarizing the different media i consumed that day. since i'm reading books and articles and watching movies and listening to music in french, i'll have a good amount to talk about with varied, engaging subjects.
+ for writing, i'm just going to use the only decent idea i have besides a diary(which i have some resistance to doing in my tl): use writing prompt lists to write a bit of french daily. i'm not going to put any other requirements for now.
+ another small goal i'm setting for this week is to just try shadowing once; i learned about it on here a few years ago but always felt weirdly intimidated by it, so i want to just give it a go and get rid of that.
+ last goal: continue to brainstorm/work out the beginnings of my writing project/french learning blog.
until next time (next week, maybe sooner)!