Bao's winter in Paris

[Bao]

... being a bit older than the other students (thankfully I don't look my age ) it's kind of weird to be part of a group which group members address with things like 'Alors, les enfants'.

Now, my French is way too bad to even try to use mœf, but apparently it's also so bad that I should not use mec, but rather stay with garçon. I mean, it's funny, of all the wrong things I say, that is what gets correctly indirectly?
Wrote the exam, no idea how it went - one of the questions, for example, was a carbon copy of the Air France strike with questions that I can't remember being covered during class. But maybe I just didn't understand it.

But the whole memorizing expressions and phrases thing I've been doing the last two weeks means I actually manage to sometimes string sentences together. Ugly sentences, yes, but sentences.

I still feel like Gregor Samsa. Or like my arms had suddenly vanished.

[PeterMollenburg]

Thanks! I hope I'll be able to contribute regularly and not fall victim to the old argument traps ...

I don't like your tone!

[Bao]

I don't like your tone!

I don't like it either, I call it piggywhite.

[Bao]

Time and again I feel surrounded by a susurrus out of which the words elles sont fortes, les allemandes stand out. In situations in which this is expected (for example when I single-handedly lift the side of a table football table to dislodge the ball that is stuck somewhere in the innards), in situations in which I did not expect it. People making jokes about how German girls aren't pretty or stylish. I want to tell them; indeed, I am not, but we have a lot of pretty girls too. We do. Most Germans girls aren't as weird as I am, much nicer and prettier. I don't know how to get this across.

My friend, who laughs away her mistakes, and I, who stammers and blushes and looks down because dealing with people's facial expressions on top of the language is just too hard, still. Evading the bise, most of the time. Sniffling, indicating 'I am sick', when in fact I just feel very uncomfortable touching other people, feel I can't adjust to the pace of interaction. Laughing, laughing.
It's so much easier to talk to other learners, even when we talk in French. Because everyone has the same difficulties, we don't know the rules, we struggle with the language, with the speed. Elles sont folles, les allemandes.

[Bao]

On a different note, I've started using lwt again. It's nicely low maintenance. I currently add the daily transcript of Le journal en français facile, it gives me roughly 30% of the items as unknown, I go through the text and mark all words I understand in context as 'known' and add the rest (still up to 5%) plus some interesting expressions as 'learning'. Some days I review, some days I don't. I'm almost a month into doing this, which for me is an absolute record for repeating a self-directed task daily. While during the first days seeing different forms of the same word being treated as different items was somewhat annoying, once the program has a basic vocabulary added as 'known' it helps to point out somewhat less frequent forms and having to decide whether to also add the new item as 'known' helps spotting the more shaky vocabulary items and consolidating them or deciding to review. So this means I actually review vocabulary without letting my perfectionism take overhand and burn me out - which is what tends to happen when I try intensive tasks on my own.

[PeterMollenburg]

I'm almost a month into doing this, which for me is an absolute record for repeating a self-directed task daily.

It's this kind of consistent effort that brings long lasting results. Great work Bao!

[Bao]

It's this kind of consistent effort that brings long lasting results. Great work Bao!

Thanks, it is very appreciated. It's actually quite a miracle that despite my lack of consistent effort I still manage to sometimes learn some things, and they kind of add up in the end.

[Bao]

Thinking about this thing, Achieving without goals that was linked in the new years' resolutions threads.

Kind of stumped. My first thought was of people living in climates with a short growing season; if you want to survive the winters there you have to prepare for winter during the summer. To me, the 'goal' would be 'do what is necessary/possible to ensure you will live well through the winter', and you'd invoke that goal when you find yourself thinking 'damn, why am I doing this again? I'd rather be at the lake than mowing the grass, I'd rather be lying in the sun than fixing the roof' when you know very well that right now you do have the possibility to do the thing that will be really good for you in the long-term, you have no guarantee for how long you do have this possibility so you should do it now - but you really would prefer doing something with enjoyable short-term benefits right now.
Maybe for me, a goal means a reason for doing something, even when it's not pleasurable right now.

I don't really care about achieving. I care about doing and knowing how to do. Of course, knowing that you're finished with something is kind of nice, but that warm glow only lasts for a couple of minutes and then I get bored (or, like if it's an exam that has been 'too easy', anxious I might have lost half of the question sheet - that happened before - and am actually not finished.)
At the same time I really don't like doing when I feel I don't already know how to do. Which is kind of counterproductive.

[Bao]

Also, of course looking at Verbe du jour:

lier
to bind, link

neat, new verb

(waiting for two minutes)

HEY! L'eau liée! Gebundenes Wasser!

[Bao]

Expressions I want to learn to use:

je ne sais pas ce qui m'a pris
bah oui/ah bah oui