Project fluency—français

[Deinonysus]

I've been looking into Mauger's Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises since DaveAgain mentioned it earlier, and it seems to be extremely highly regarded hereabouts. I have acquired a copy and at first glance it seems more interesting than the CLE books. While the CLE books seems like nice, well-structured test-prep books, Mauger's books seem like an old-school professor ranting about the decline and importance of a classical education, which seems like a lot more fun to me. I've been reading the introduction and it was very engaging. I also learned the new construction « je tiens à dire » which means "I would like to say".

I am now past the number of resources that I can comfortably use at once, so I think I'll have to finish some of my resources before starting others. I think I'll delay the CLE books until after I'm done with Mauger. That will give me time to collect all the ones I want. I may also hold off on my Assimil review for a little while. I've been getting too tired to do Assimil after FSI and doing some literature reading. Maybe I'll get some energy back once the kid goes back to daycare and I'll be able to resume my Assimil review.

Speaking of which, I'm making some decent progress on The House of Seven Gables and I'm around a quarter of the way through the book. I think the characters are very interesting, and it's cool to see references to some old candies that are still being sold across the street at the oldest candy shop in America. Next I'll plan to finish The War of the Worlds. I read about half of it last summer and then abandoned it. And I'd also like to get through Emma, Frankenstein, and Great Expectations. Once I'm done with my French courses I think I'd like to alternate between reading French and English novels.

As you may have seen, I posted a Guide to French pronoun order inspired by Navajo. It was as much for my own benefit as anyone else's, and after spending the time to write out that post I'm now confident than I can properly attach any pronouns in the correct order to any verb I can conjugate. And speaking of which, I'm feeling good about being able to fully conjugate être for every tense, aspect, and mood, so now it's time to refresh aller.

Progress-o-meter™

: 7 / 113 Assimil NFWE 2ème vague
: 154 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 5 / 20 FSI French Phonology

[Deinonysus]

I think I will drop my planned review and completion of Assimil NFWE and Using French. They seem redundant with Mauger and Mauger seems more interesting.

I finished my first lesson of Mauger. As expected since this course starts at an absolute beginner's level, the first lesson was trivial and I completed it within a couple of minutes. However, I did learn several new classroom words that I never learned because I have never been in a French classroom (well, except to help my wife set up hers but it wasn't to take a class myself): un banc (a bench), une règle (a ruler), et une gomme (an eraser). I also learned a new meaning of the word serviette, which I knew as the word for napkin but can apparently also mean briefcase (which I guess was what they used in the 50's in place of backpacks; I guess the students must have looked like adorable little businesspeople). I also constantly confuse serviette with assiette, meaning plate.

At first I was excited to see that Mauger uses the IPA to describe the pronunciation of French words. Then I quickly remembered that IPA transcription for French is awful, at least for standard Metropolitan French. The transcription was probably very good in 1888 when the IPA was created, but standard French pronunciation has changed a lot since then, including a major shift of the nasal vowels as well as the elimination of contrastive vowel length (I could be wrong on that last one but I think it's absolute in standard French). Even in 1953, when this book was released, this transcription is hopelessly outdated, and unfortunately it is still used today. But nevertheless, if you ignore the vowel length markings and mentally adjust the nasal vowels, the archconservative transcription is pretty good and certainly less annoying than Assimil's language-specific transcriptions. Mehr-see-bow-koo, juh-vooze-awn-pree!

The outdated transcription of French also confused me about a few other things. For example, the letter combination <ai> is generally transcribed as /ɛ/ which is the same sound as <è>. I got concerned that I had been hearing this wrong, because I heard it as /e/ (particularly at the end of a word) which is the same as <é>. But FSI French phonology assured me that although some speakers do pronounce <ai> differently, many speakers pronounce <ai> the same as <é>, <er> or <ez>, and I believe that is the standard pronunciation. So if you see a strange IPA transcription and you start to doubt your ear, it's reasonably likely that your ear is fine and the transcription is just bad (or if not bad, 100 years out of date for standard French but maybe okay for more conservative dialects).

Since the Mauger and CLE lessons seem to be so short, I may be able to do them concurrently. At least in the beginning, I should have no problem fitting one Mauger lesson, and a lesson each from the CLE phonology, vocabulary, grammar, and communication books, into a single half-hour session, at least in the beginning. As I get more advanced that may start to get more difficult and maybe that would take me closer to an hour. I'll have to see how it goes and whether I can work it into my after-lunch book study time slot.

I think I mentioned earlier that although I am able to read French nonfiction fluently, I have trouble with fiction because I am not familiar with the simple past and imperfect subjunctive tenses. However, I think I can remedy this by studying the full conjugations of the seven "true irregular" French verbs (être, aller, avoir, devoir, pouvoir, savoir, and vouloir) and the three regular conjugations, I will remedy this weakness. I think I can finish this little project within a month or so. Maybe when I'm done with The House of Seven Gables I will reread Le petit prince before moving on the the next Anglophone novel. I got the gist of it but I was confused by all of the simple past forms (as well as some unfamiliar future and conditional stems), so I would be interested to see how much better I can understand it without those obstacles.

Progress-o-meter™

Français

: 154 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 6 / 20 FSI French Phonology
: 1 / 65 Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises livre I

English

: 6 / 21 Nathaniel Hawthorne - The House of Seven Gables

[Deinonysus]

I ended up changing the title to reflect that I am only learning French for now. I will start a new log for German when I am ready to move on.

I thought of another motivativation for learning French. Growing up, I had two perfect parents who never argued. Looking back, I realize that when they wanted to argue they would simply switch to Hebrew so I wouldn't understand. If I become fluent in French, my daughter can also have two perfect parents who never argue, although if she learns French we'll have to pick a new secret language.

There's a saying in showbiz: Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.

I think people dismiss Duolingo as a beginner's resource that is useless except at the very early stages of learning. I would have to strongly disagree with that. I consider myself to be an advanced French learner, and I am not even at the second of nine checkpoints and I am already correcting mistakes and learning new nuances about how certain words are used. Although Duolingo only covers material up to the A2 Level, remember that this is the most basic material that you will use, and it important to not just learn the basics but master them. Duolingo provides hundreds of hours of writing drills that it automatically corrects for you, and if you don't understand why you got something wrong, you can check the comments where you will probably find the answer.

There is a new Duolingo feature that I love, and another new one that I hate. The good one is that they have introduced new listening comprehension questions where you don't simply transcribe or translate the answer, you hear a few sentences and then you need to answer a question about them. The bad one is that there are new short grammar review lessons interspersed throughout the tree, and unlike most Duolingo questions, there is only one accepted answer, and if you need to translate the English word "you" you need to guess whether it should be tu or vous. There is a 50-50 chance that your correct answer will be marked wrong. It is embarrassing that they released these new skills to one of their biggest courses with zero quality control.

I misunderstood the structure of the CLE books. I thought that each chapter was made up of 1-3 pages, when in fact that is the length of a unit within a chapter, and each chapter seems to be made up of 2-5 units. This means that I will probably not be able to do a chapter a day in four CLE books on top of a Mauger lesson. I think it will be more reasonable to limit my CLE work to a chapter a day in just one book. I've started Grammaire progressive du français (intermédiaire) and completed the first lesson. I did the exercises of the first chapter in my head without looking at the answer key, but as I get further in the book I will probably have to start writing down the questions and correcting them.

Progress-o-meter™

Français

: 154 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 6 / 20 FSI French Phonology
: 2 / 65 Mauger—Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises livre I
: 1 / 52 CLE Grammaire progessive du français (intermédaire)

English

: 7 / 21 Nathaniel Hawthorne—The House of Seven Gables

[Deinonysus]

Belated year-end round-up

It looks like all the cool kids did year-end reviews on New Year's Day, but I just did a regular post. I don't see New Year's day as a particularly significant time for change. If I have an idea for something new I should be doing, I start doing it immediately, I don't wait for the new year. But nevertheless, I did start wondering where all that time went, so I went through my various logs and tried to estimate how long I spent on each project:

Year End Chart.png

• "None" was my most studied language. And that's okay! It's important to enjoy other hobbies too, and my language learning habits are too deeply ingrained by now for me to worry about losing them permanently if I take too long of a break.
• I spent most of the year away from my two main languages, French and German.
• I spent about a quarter of the year on Spanish and the improvement was noticeable. It went from being a language I vaguely know about due to my years studying it in high school, to a language I am starting to get comfortable using. It's nowhere near as strong as my French, but I could probably speak it in a pinch, and I was able to skim some articles about Mayan languages in Spanish.
• I had a lot of fun getting to know the other languages. I think I made particularly good progress in the languages I spent a month or more on: Norwegian, Arabic, and Inuktitut.

One thing I've emphasized this year is the importance of maintaining a time slot for each resource and doing a bit every day.

Looking ahead

I think it would be very helpful to my language learning journey to spend most of the year on French. We'll see if that actually happens. I spent around a year each on German and French when I was just starting to learn them, but since then I don't think I've ever spent more than four months straight on a single language. But this time may be different, since I have identified several high-quality advanced resources.

Chess

I've been getting back into chess lately. I rarely play against actual people, but I like doing tactics on my phone. Earlier this year I was starting to get serious about improving my skills and starting to play real games, but I stopped suddenly and I don't remember why. But a couple weeks ago I started watching chess videos to relax, and then I started doing tactics again. Last time I got back into chess (early last year), my tactics rating took a dive at first and it took me a while to get it up, and I eventually moved up to around 1600 on Lichess, which was an all-time high at the time. Well, this time was different. Not only did I not tank my 1600 tactics rating, I very quickly jumped up to around 2000. I think the reason is that I stopped my habit of guessing what the answer might be, and for whatever reason I'm more patient to wait until I can see the exact solution. Chess Tempo's tactics are much harder than Lichess. But still, I improved from the 1300s to the 1400s. I signed up for Chess Tempo's Silver membership so I could play 20 endgame problems a day. I'm also trying to work on learning some openings by going through Discovering Chess Openings by John Emms.

I've gotten a bit obsessed with Chess and it took over for about a week, and I didn't make much French progress. But after doing a lot of tactics and watching The Queen's Gambit one and a half times (without abandoning French to learn Russian!!) and also watching about half of Queen of Katwe, I think I've gotten it out of my system to the point where I can just do a bit each day and get back to making normal progress on my other hobbies. Today I started spending more time on French again.

Français

I continued CLE's Grammaire progressive du français (intermédiaire) and I discovered that I was mistaken about the length of the chapters. Each unit is quite short (2 or 4 pages), but each chapter contains at least two units. Chapter 2 contained three units and it took me about an hour to go through the whole thing. This means that if I want to go through a chapter a day, I will not be able to do multiple CLE books concurrently. Each book contains around 50 chapters, and I have decided to do the avancé level rather than skipping straight from intermédiaire to perfectionnement. Since I am doing four series (phonétique, vocabulaire, grammaire, and communication), I will be going through a total of 11 books (phonétique only goes up to avancé). Each book has around 50 chapters, so at a chapter a day it will take me around 550 days (a year and a half) to finish everything. I guess my original time estimate was off by a factor of two or three!

I have already encountered several new words in Grammaire even though it's "intermediate" and I'm "advanced." I think it would be best for me to complete Vocabulaire first. I won't get my copy of the text and answers until next month, but I actually got my answer key for Phonétique much earlier than anticipated, and I should be getting the main text within a couple of days. So my current plan is to start Phonétique as soon as I get it, then Vocabulaire, then Grammaire, and finally Communication, and then repeat for the next level.

I have no idea how long it will take me to get through Mauger's Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises. Maybe six months, maybe a year. It should be quicker than going through 11 CLE books just due to sheer number of pages.

FSI Basic French should also be relatively quick compared to CLE. If I don't have to repeat much audio, I should be able to get through the 80 hours in around 6 months at half an hour a day. Memorizing all the dialogues may take some extra time, though.

Once I'm done with Mauger and FSI, I'll probably have enough time to review Assimil's New French With Ease and complete Using French by the time I have finished all the CLE books. So I guess my work Assimil is un-cancelled.

I've been going slowly but steadily in Duolingo, just a couple of crown levels a day. Even if I only do two a day, I will still probably finish the new French tree before CLE.

Piano

I've been working on my Gb major scales and chords. That's the key that Debussy's « La fille aux cheveux de lin » is in. It's one of his easier pieces, but it's very challenging for me and I haven't gotten through the whole thing even though it's only two pages long. But I think getting comfortable with the key will help.

Progress-o-Meter

Français

: 163 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 7 / 20 FSI French Phonology
: 4 / 65 Mauger—Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises livre I

English

: 10 / 21 Nathaniel Hawthorne—The House of Seven Gables

[Deinonysus]

My Schoenhof's package finally arrived. It included a couple of very cute French children's books which I saw were popular purchases: Le loup qui apprivoisait ses émotions and Le petit chaperon vert. « Le Petit Chaperon Vert est une fille très sympathique, et courageuse. Elle n'a qu'une ennemie, cette sale menteuse de Petit Chaperon Rouge. » [Little Green Riding Hood is a very kind and courageous girl. She has only one enemy, that dirty liar Little Red Riding Hood]. I read them both last night and loved them!

One word that confused me when I was reading Le petit prince was « fit », but now that I've been reviewing the preterite tense for many of the most common verbs I was able to recognize that this is the verb « faire ». I checked with my wife to confirm. It seems to be a literary idiom for « fit » to mean "said". Both of the children's books I read made liberal use of the preterite, including « fit », but it didn't cause me any problems this time around.

Another book in the box was CLE's Phonétique progressive du français—intermédiaire. I went through the first chapter last night. The book began with an interesting list of what to watch out for depending on your native language, but I plan to just go through the whole book lesson by lesson.

Going through this chapter validated that Phonétique -> Vocabulaire -> Grammaire is a good order. I encountered two unknown words (colocataire, meaning flatmate/housemate, and troquet, meaning bar), and one word that I probably knew at one point but forgot: batterie, meaning percussion (as in instrument). None of these vocabulary words were in the Vocabulaire book and it wasn't jarring not to know them.

By contrast, I encountered five unknown words in an early unit of Grammaire. Bronzé was easily guessable as "tanned" due to context and the similar English word "bronzer". I should have been able to guess that souriant meant smiley due to similarity to the known word sourire (to smile), but I ended up looking it up. And the remaining three words were not guessable and I had to look them up. Parasseux means lazy, virage means a bend or curve (in a road), and bavard means chatty. Four of these five words, including all three unguessables, are covered in Vocabulaire. I take this to mean that the authors intend you to complete Vocabulaire before starting Grammaire and liberally uses words from Vocabulaire.

As a side note, bavard has a very fun etymology. It is related to baver, meaning to drool or slobber. It gives the image of someone who is so eager to chatter that spittle flies out uncontrollably. It is also related to bavette, meaning bib, which of course is used to catch drool. And that is also the name of a cut of steak, which I suppose someone decided looked bib-like.

Progress-o-meter

Français

: 170 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 8 / 20 FSI French Phonology
: 7 / 65 Mauger—Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises livre I
: 1 / 46 CLE—Phonétique progressive du français (intermédiaire)

English

: 11 / 21 Nathaniel Hawthorne—The House of Seven Gables

[Deinonysus]

Didn't do a ton of French for the last few days but got back into it yesterday. My answer book for Vocabulaire progressif du français—intermédiaire arrived early so I went through the first chapter last night. I'm putting Phonétique in hold for now but I think that once I finish FSI Introduction to French Phonology (which I've sadly been neglecting), I can do the intermediate and advanced CLE Phonétique books in the FSI time slot, before moving on to FSI Basic French. By doing the Phonétique books concurrently with other CLE books, I may be able to finish or be close to finishing all of my French resources by the end of 2021. However, doing all three of my advanced resources (FSI, CLE, and Mauger) concurrently is a very big time commitment, possibly up to 3 hours a day if I do everything every day. I normally do about half of that when I'm working on a new language. I'll have to see if my schedule allows me to keep it up.

I enjoyed the first chapter of CLE Vocabulaire. There was a lot of good cultural information, including when you would do the cheek kisses. I tried doing this once to a French person I had just met, and now I understand that it wasn't just awkward because I didn't have enough practice, it's because you don't generally do it with someone you have just met, particularly if you're male! Oh well, I'll know for next time, and in fact since I'm a foreigner I don't think anyone would think it's odd for me to stick to handshakes (which the book says is common between men anyway).

There is a lot of information in each chapter, and I'll have to see how much they review material. Mauger is very good about reusing previously covered material so I haven't found the need to review that. But I think it might be necessary for the CLE books. I have found reviews after 1 and 7 days to be very helpful for Assimil, so I think I'll do the same for CLE. I'm thinking:

• First pass: Read each unit in the chapter, write out the exercises, and check the answers in the Corrigés book.
• Next day: Do the online exercises on my phone at some point during the day. Reread the lessons (but don't bother with the exercises) before starting the new lesson.
• Next week: After completing the new lesson, review the old lesson and quickly redo the exercises mentally. No need to check my answers unless I'm very unsure of something

I don't think these reviews should add an onerous amount of extra study time and they should help the material sink in much better.

Duolingo is slow but steady. Tomorrow I'll tie my longest streak, at 99 days. I've been at the diamond league for quite a while but I don't have the energy to try to get first place for an award.

Progress-o-meter ™

Français
: 172 / 1035 Duolingo French
: 8 / 20 FSI French Phonology
: 9 / 65 Mauger—Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises livre I
: 1 / 27 CLE—Vocabulaire progressif du français (intermédiaire)

English
: 12 / 21Nathaniel Hawthorne—The House of Seven Gables

[Deinonysus]

Here's another "didn't do a lot of French for the last few days" post. I haven't had the time or energy. I might flat-out drop Mauger until the kid's back in daycare full-time. I'm happy to have the extra time with her, though, and I wouldn't trade it for any abount of French progress. Who knows when I'll be able to spend this much time with her again? Also, I have kept my other hobbies going except for piano which I sadly haven't played for a while.

I just joined the polyglot fitness challenge and went for my first run in years, probably since before the kid was born. I really enjoy it but I haven't found (or, I guess, made) the time. Expect a rant at some point about the evils of modern running shoes and the virtues of barefoot running or minimal footware, but I don't have time for that right now.

Anyway, I started out with a nice slow pace and ran for a respectable distance of around 3/4 of a mile (that's around a km and a quarter for those of you who aren't fluent in Freedom Units). Not too bad for my first run in years! And I have barely felt achy at all.

I've thought of two plausible reasons why I was able to pick running and chess tactics back up like I never left them:

1. Chasing a toddler around all day has kept my mind and body sharp
2. Chasing a toddler around all day has improved my patience, so I am less likely to get frustrated and blunder in a chess tactic, and I am also less likely to push myself too hard when I run.

I'm guessing it's mostly #2 with maybe a pinch of #1.

I haven't started playing live opponents in chess yet, and I haven't made any progress in my openings book, but my tactics ratings are holding fairly steady. I've also started playing more full games against the computer. I've beaten Stockfish Level 4 a few times and I've started playing against Level 5. Before, I don't remember if I had ever even beaten Level 3. I think it's great for training you to keep all your pieces defended. It's absolutely brutal if you hang a piece, but it will make random blunders so if you can hang onto everything you should be able to destroy it through attrition.

I've also been keeping good progress with The House of Seven Gables. I'm two thirds of the way through it. When I'm done with that, I'd like to finish two other novels that I've started but not finished, H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.