Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Sat Jul 31, 2021 4:50 pm

305 days to go.

Thursday I had a lovely day out on my own, devoting the day to my other hobby obsession: Ingress. I went to the Englightened stronghold of Mansfield, smashing and capturing the whole town in the name of the Resistance. Basically this means that I walked 23km from point of interest to point of interest playing the game (Enlightened ard Resistance are the two "factions" in Ingress). On the drive to and from Mansfield I worked through most of unit 4 of FSI French and most of the time walking I was listening to French podcasts, so it was quite a French filled day as well.

Reading
I'm 43% of the way through Métronome, and I have mixed feelings about it. It is supposed to be a book about the history of Paris, with each chapter using a métro station as its starting point. However, the connection is rather tenuous much of the time. First of all, while each chapter is about a particular century, and the chapters do begin by describing some of the history of the area around the station, this section jumps all over history. Then the rest of the chapter centres on the century named. The second issue that bothers me is a more serious problem: although the book is about Paris, for the most part it is a history of kings and of the church, so a very traditional type of history book. I was expecting there to be a lot more detail about what Paris was like and what life was like for the people of Paris, but so far I feel like the books has been 70% oriented towards the men in charge. Still, it's interesting enough so I will continue with it.

Due to my day out Thursday, and family things yesterday, I haven't read as much this week as I would have liked to, but I'm determined to complete my French Super Challenge. Currently I'm 47% of the way to being finished, which means I need to read an average of 17.26 pages per day to finish.

Listening
I mentioned that I've found a bunch of podcasts for intermediate learners. This week I've spent a lot of time listening to Mankai your French, Mankai Islands, The French Instinct, Paris O'Clock, Sooo French and Fluidité. Of these I've really enjoyed Mankai, Sooo French and Fuidité, although there aren't many episodes of Makai and Sooo French and I've now listened to all of them!

Watching
It's been a bit random. Most days I'm still watching at least one Journal on France 24. Today I watched two episodes of Peppa Pig in French. I think I would have really benefitted from Peppa Pig a few years ago, but now it's a bit too easy. The children's voices are a bit awkward to understand, but I could understand [almost] every word if I really focused, so the benefit is that I really concentrated on it. The only unknown word that came up was pastèque, watermelon. Still, I think it will be beneficial to watch episodes from time to time.

Grammar work
My subscription to Kwiziq ran out today, and coincidentally they pissed me off by being unwilling to answer questions about using the website in their Q&A forum, which is apparently only for questions about language and culture. Some of the "method" is quite opaque, so why on earth wouldn't they want people to discuss the best ways to use their website? I had been planning to subscribe for either 3 months or a full year, and yesterday I was leaning towards the full year, but now I'm too annoyed to give them money.

So where does that leave me? Actually, it gives me an opportunity to work on other things I've been meaning to "at some point". Reading Luke's log gave me FSI envy, and as mentioned above I worked on unit 4 Thursday. The great thing about FSI is that it really gives your speaking muscles a workout, and many of the drills really make you think. You'll be doing one drill where they basically give you the answer and you start to get smug, but then the next drill is a lot harder. The problem with FSI for French is that it is basically an oral course, and what I liked about Kwiziq is that it has been improving my spelling as well as grammar. However, I have other options to help with that: my copy of Grammaire progressive du français (niveau intermédiaire) is sitting on the table right next to me, so I plan on starting work on that this evening. In addition, I've found Linguno to be really good for verb drills, and it's free (while it's on beta), so I'll start using it a lot more. Those two will together form the new cornerstone of my grammar studies, replacing Kwiziq. I'll probably still do the 10 free quizzes per month (so basically one quiz every three days or so).
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:45 pm

I'm enjoying Métronome and thought I'd share some interesting quotes and phrases:

"chercher des noises" (p. 205), meaning "looking for trouble".

...et sachez que le Pont-Neuf, achevé en 1607, n’est pas le neuvième pont de Paris mais le cinquième, et ce n’est pas le plus neuf mais le plus ancien, vous suivez ? (p. 192)
Yes, just about. :lol:
Par ce geste Philippe 1er veut faire sans doute quelques concessions au Saint-Siège, caresser le pape dans le sens du poil... (p. 206)
I found this one interesting because we have a similar phrase in English, but only used in a negative sense: "He rubs me up the wrong way."

And a couple of vocabulary items that have come up several times:
masures... not in the Collins dictionary on my Kindle, but Google translate tells me it means "hovels" (which is clearly true from the context).
virevolter... literally "to turn around" but used in the sense of "teeming around". "Et bientôt trois cent moniales virevoltent entre ces murs," (p. 130).
la dépouille... can mean "skin" or "hide" but is also used for "mortal remains", and is Deutsch's favoured term for the corpse of a king or saint.

I've also watched the first two episodes of the TV series, and the automatically generated subtitles have been amusingly wrong at times. Two examples have stood out:
"Suivez moi" became "Tuez moi" at one point.
"Paris" is often subtitled as "Barry" which makes me chuckle every time.

When I searched for books by Lorànt Deutsch on Amazon I found that the magazine Le Parisien has made a series of issues called Histoires de Paris, each one taking a single theme and exploring the city's connections. There is a section with locations to visit "sur les pas de Lorànt Deutsch"; basically walking tours with pictures of Deutsch at the scenes. I bought issue no. 12, Le Paris du cinéma, and hopefully when I am ever able to visit Barry Paris again, I can find some of the locations of some favourite films. I only have one disappointment: it would have been handier in a smaller format like a guidebook.
paris du cinema sm.jpg
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:51 pm

One of the things I love about working with multiple sources are the moments of synchronicity, of serendipity. Earlier this evening I listened to the latest episode of Français à la une, in which they read the headline « des contrôles tous azimuts durant l été », and then explained what was meant by "tous azimuts" (in all directions). Later this evening I was watching Au service de la France and one of the characters said, "Quoi ? T'es azimuté ?" ("What? Are you off your head?") Of course it was simply a coincidence, but the more I study from multiple sources, the more often these coincidences occur to reinforce my learning.
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby cito » Sat Aug 07, 2021 3:47 pm

jeffers wrote:the more I study from multiple sources, the more often these coincidences occur to reinforce my learning.


I totally agree with this! I have seen multiple videos of people talking about the "best ways to learn a language," and often they talk about sticking to one resource and finishing it. Now I don't totally disagree, as for example I'm trying to get all the way through Assimil French, but at the same time, I wouldn't have had the verb avaler be reinforced in the same way if I hadn't flipped through Le Petit Prince and read it with a translation.

Sticking to resources- definitely an important thing, but having more than one is even more important!

Glad to see you're having great moments with your French. Bon chance !
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby Le Baron » Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:19 am

I suppose it's not so much that they mean sticking to one resource and absolutely nothing else; rather at least seeing one basic course through instead of jumping from course to course before reaching any level of basic competence. Once that's achieved I think a fairly autodidactic learner (as Jeffers seems to be) will be able to make use of multiple resources which then reinforce one another.

I would think anyone would advise a learner to get reading/listening as soon as one can and thereby picking-up words.
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Sat Aug 14, 2021 4:56 pm

291 days to go, and it's been over two weeks since I've done a full progress review.

Reading
My summer reading has been going a lot better than expected, although given that I've read 2-3 hours many days, my actual progress hasn't been that fast. In the past couple of weeks I've managed over 40 pages per day. What is telling is looking at the timings given by my Kindle: according to Goodreads one book I'm currently reading takes 4 hours and 13 minutes typically, but with 80% of the book left to read Kindle tells me I have 8 hours and 56 minutes left!

I finished Metronome : L'histoire de france au rythme du métro parisien by Lorànt Deutsch a few days ago. I was expecting it to be easier than the Musso novel I recently finished but in fact I found I was looking up a lot more words per page. Deutsch was definitely trying to paint a picture, and there were some paragraphs with unknown adjective after unknown adjective, not to mention synonym after synonym. One paragraph used three different words all of which could translate as shack or hovel: masure, bicoque, bouge:
Dans le Paris du XViie siècle, les plus beaux hôtels particuliers, raffinements de l'art et de l'architecture, côtoyaient les sordides bicoques, les ruelles crasseuses, les bouges où s'exhalaient la misère, le crime et la maladie. Là s'enchevêtrent dans une architecture hasardeuse et compliquée des masures de bois hérissées de cheminées brinquebalantes.
One other reservation I have about the book is that I expected more social history, and it was 80% about rulers and saints. Finally, it really could have done with some pictures or maps in the basic version; there is an illustrated edition and I will consider buying that and re-reading it one day. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and learned a lot from it. One fact that stands out is the origin of the word barricade (which is the same in French as in English). During riots in Paris the citizens filled barrels--des barriques--with dirt and rocks to block roads off. I especially enjoyed following up the reading with the documentary by the same name, which was a good visual review of what I read (enjoyable enough that I've ordered the DVD set of Metronome and Hexagone). I plan to go ahead and read Hexagone - Sur les routes de l'Histoire de France and then Metronome 2, but not right away.
download.jpg


Currently, I'm reading three relatively easy books: Les bagarres du Petit Nicolas (on Kindle), Le Petit Nicolas (reading with audio on Lingq) and Le Livre des Étoiles (tome 1) by Erik L'Homme. I haven't decided what's next, but I'm thinking of either re-reading Le chapeau de Mitterrand by Antoine Laurain, or reading something else by the author since I really enjoyed the two books of his I've read.

Watching/listening
I haven't been tracking time, but I've probably listened to an hour or two of French every day, more on days when I've taken long walks.

In the first week of August I watched the full first series of Au service de la France, which I still think is just brilliant. This worked very well with Learning Languages with Netflix, because there were a lot of words that I needed to lookup.

I have been listening to a wide variety of intermediate podcasts over the past few weeks: Paris O'Clock, The French Instinct, Français Authentique, One Thing in a French Day and Fluidité. I've also listened to the news journal on Europe1 most days, sometimes 2-3 different journals in a day, and I've watched the France 24 journal at least once most days as well.

I've also watched a couple of episodes of Peppa Pig, but I don't think I'll watch many of them. It's a bit too easy for me now, and I wish I had discovered it (as a language learning tool) a long time ago.

Grammar and vocabulary
My main daily source of study has been Grammaire progressive, which has been going quite well. I asked the question elsewhere (https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17116&p=192789) about how people like to use workbooks, and I settled on using a paper and pen for my study: I jot down any notes needed on the teaching page, and then answer the questions in the notebook as well. It has been good practice to write out full answers. So far I haven't used their online exercises, but I'm planning to use them for a review phase.

Another (almost) daily source of study has been https://www.linguno.com/, which is just great for drilling verb conjugations. I've worked through A1 levels 1-3 (all present tense), and am well into A2 level 1 (which has a lot of passé composé).

Lastly, I've done several dictées using Orthodidacte https://dictee.orthodidacte.com/. The site is great because it arranges them by level for natives and for FLE, and it marks your work when you hit the submit button. Best of all, the dictée section is all free (the site has paid courses for improving writing for natives and for FLE). I'm currently about halfway through the FLE A1 section, and will just keep moving along. The only change I'm thinking of is that I ought to do dictées on paper sometimes, especially since the DELF exam will be written!
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:23 pm

Calculation time

Today I realized that I have two weeks of holiday left, and I thought about one of my secondary goals for the summer: to eliminate my reading deficit for the French Super Challenge. I know that once the new term starts I will be very busy and it will be difficult enough to keep up with the daily requirements for the Super Challenge (8.2 pages per day), let alone the extra I would need to catch up.

So I did some calculations: I should have read 3875 pages so far, and I have actually read 3075 pages, making a deficit of 800 pages. Divided by 14 days, that makes 57.1 pages per day. In addition, if I was already on target I would need to be reading 8.2 pages per day, which brings the total needed per day up to 65.3 pages. Meanwhile, I know I will have some days in which I won't get much time; delivering people to the airport, a day out in London with my daughter, etc. So on a good day I should aim for at least 75 pages!

I don't know for sure if I will be able to read the necessary pages per day to catch up, and honestly I don't think it will be a terrible loss if I don't quite make it, but it's a nice little challenge to keep me motivated for the final two weeks of holiday!
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:44 pm

Oh, it's been a while! (I think I start too many of my log posts like that!) As expected, the start of the new school term meant I didn't really have the "bandwidth" for keeping up with the language forum. I have nevertheless kept up almost daily work on my French.

But first, the bad news: the Institut français du Royaume-Uni finally released their 2022 exam dates and they shifted the dates such that there are no exams when I would ba able to take one. The sad thing is that I bought a 3-month subscription to Kwiziq on a black Friday deal the day before the announcement! On the one hand, this doesn't change a lot. I have not stopped my studies and for the time being I will still stick to French only. On the other hand, I am very disappointed, and it has certainly taken a bit of the urgency out of my studies. Back to coasting? :D

So what have I been doing to keep my French going since September? Mostly a lot of listening. During my morning commutes I've worked on FSI exercises most days. When I arrive home I usually watch the journal on France24 (15-20 minutes), and when I walk the dog in the evening I usually listen to the latest journal on Europe 1. On the weekends I often take longer walks and usually listen to other podcasts. Sometimes I listen to podcasts for intermediate learners such as Fluidité, Paris o'clock, etc. But more and more I've been listening to podcasts for natives. Transfert has become my go-to podcast because the stories are different and usually quite engaging. I've realized I was getting bored with the intermediate podcasts but I like French news because it's got a different perspective to UK news, and I find the stories on Transfert interesting.
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jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:46 am

Redundant post deleted.
Last edited by jeffers on Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

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French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

jeffers
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Re: Jeffers- B1 French by June 2022

Postby jeffers » Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:26 am

Hmmm... looking at the title I realize that my log is irrelevant since I'm not going to be able to sit the B1 exam this June. Rather than repurpose this log, I've started a new one.

New log link: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18032
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Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

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