Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
x 1611

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Sep 05, 2022 8:47 am

Many moons ago I stayed with a friend for a few days who would play the audiobook of La sorcière de la rue Mouffetard as a kind of adult bedtime story. I ended up memorising a lot of the beginning of it (the latter part is a bit hazy, as I inevitably dozed off before the end!). A few years after that I ended up on that very road in Paris and bewildered the French person I was with by mentioning the book and starting to tell the story!
5 x

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 843
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2746
Contact:

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby jeffers » Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:49 am

Caromarlyse wrote:Many moons ago I stayed with a friend for a few days who would play the audiobook of La sorcière de la rue Mouffetard as a kind of adult bedtime story. I ended up memorising a lot of the beginning of it (the latter part is a bit hazy, as I inevitably dozed off before the end!). A few years after that I ended up on that very road in Paris and bewildered the French person I was with by mentioning the book and starting to tell the story!


After reading the introduction to the book, I would love to visit rue Broca! For one thing, the layout of the street is interesting, being below the level of Boulevard Port Royale which it crosses, which he says made it a sort of separate place of its own. Papa Saïd's épicerie/café was located at 69 rue Broca, a number which Gripari found amusing. Although it is no longer there, just north of it there are a set of murals under the bridge which were inspired by the stories. I’ve tried to find out more information, but couldn’t find anything else. The location of the épicerie seems to be a bistro now, so I would definitely stop off for a coffee at least.

I can't read a book which mentions a real-world setting without at least looking at Google maps to see the area. Most of the time I also get down to street view level to try to find the details. It really slowed me down when I was reading. It really slowed me down when I was reading Métronome by Lorant Deutsch last summer. When he would describe a street or building, I would inevitably grab my phone and try to find it on streetview so I could actually see what he was talking about.

That leads me to my dream trip to Paris: I would love to go there and spend my time tracking down locations from a few books and films set in Paris that I particularly enjoyed. The book that first gave me the idea was the A1 reader Enquête Capitale, in which the protagonist has to visit some key monuments around the city. First on the list would be 51 rue de Montmorency, which was built by Nicolas Flamel (an alchemist who was also used as a character in Harry Potter), although he never lived there. It also came up in Métronome. Now it is what looks like an expensive restaurant, but I would definitely enjoy a meal there. Besides those two books, I would definitely seek out key locations used in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain and French in Action. Top of the list from Amélie would be le Café des Deux Moulins, the actual café used in the film, which is located on rue Lepic which itself is famous from songs and films. Top of the list from FIA would have been la Fontaine Stravinsky which appears in the opening credits and is used at other times as well, but when I visited Paris with my family, I took my kids there because they used to watch FIA with me sometimes.

So here’s my shortlist of location sources for my dream trip to Paris. Obviously, now that I’m starting to think about it more seriously, the list will grow. In fact, now I realize I will have to make a map with pins of the locations. Of course!
  • Enquête Capitale-- book by Marine Courtis
  • La sorcière de la rue Mouffetard-- book by Pierre Gripari
  • Métronome: L'histoire de France au Rythme du Métro Parisien-- book and TV series by Lorant Deutsch
  • Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain-- film
  • French in Action-- the classic French language course
6 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1961
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
x 4030

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:15 am

jeffers wrote:That leads me to my dream trip to Paris: I would love to go there and spend my time tracking down locations from a few books and films set in Paris that I particularly enjoyed. The book that first gave me the idea was the A1 reader Enquête Capitale, in which the protagonist has to visit some key monuments around the city. First on the list would be 51 rue de Montmorency, which was built by Nicolas Flamel (an alchemist who was also used as a character in Harry Potter), although he never lived there. It also came up in Métronome. Now it is what looks like an expensive restaurant, but I would definitely enjoy a meal there. Besides those two books, I would definitely seek out key locations used in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain and French in Action. Top of the list from Amélie would be le Café des Deux Moulins, the actual café used in the film, which is located on rue Lepic which itself is famous from songs and films. Top of the list from FIA would have been la Fontaine Stravinsky which appears in the opening credits and is used at other times as well, but when I visited Paris with my family, I took my kids there because they used to watch FIA with me sometimes.

So here’s my shortlist of location sources for my dream trip to Paris. Obviously, now that I’m starting to think about it more seriously, the list will grow. In fact, now I realize I will have to make a map with pins of the locations. Of course!
  • Enquête Capitale-- book by Marine Courtis
  • La sorcière de la rue Mouffetard-- book by Pierre Gripari
  • Métronome: L'histoire de France au Rythme du Métro Parisien-- book and TV series by Lorant Deutsch
  • Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain-- film
  • French in Action-- the classic French language course
I'm reading Paris est une fête at the moment, when Shakespeare and Company was mentioned, I perked up, because it featured in one of Alan Furst's spy thrillers :-)
3 x

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 843
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2746
Contact:

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby jeffers » Sat Dec 31, 2022 9:02 pm

It's been a while, but I reckon I should do a post to see where things are at the end of the year. First of all, I've pretty much ignored other languages except French this year. Secondly, my study has been a lot more haphazard and less formal. For example, I've listened to many hours of whatever was currently on Europe 1, but I've done very little grammar study on things like Kwiziq. What's a bit disappointing is that I've been paying for Kwiziq this year, and yet I could have done as many tests with a free account. I've been reading on and off, but am well behind for the Super Challenge. Fortunately not so far behind that it's a lost cause: if I read 9.5 pages per day until the end I would finish.

A couple screen prints, which hopefully can be baselines for improvment in the coming year:
Kwiziq 2022-12-31 small.png

SC progress 2022-12-31 small.png


One problem I have had with Kwiziq is that it requires regular use to be effective, in my experience. When I haven't done a single kwiz for a month or so, I then make a lot of little mistakes. I want to get back into the 5-a-day habit.

Regarding the Super Challenge, it's unusual for me that I'm further behind on the film portion than the reading portion. In actual fact I have listened to a lot of French this year, but the majority of it has been things I haven't counted, such as when I listen to 3-4 hours of Europe 1 while on long walks.

This year I've spent more time with YouTube than I ever have before, although the majority of it has been in English. For example, today I watched 2 hours of a 3 hour documentary about the rise and fall of Vijayanagar in South India. I have also discovered a few French channels which I have enjoyed a lot this year. Highlights have been:
  • A Toute Berzingue ! a travel/history channel by Lorant Deutsch. Each episode has him visiting a single town/city, and he runs around the town visiting sites in historical order, from ancient to modern times, explaining everything really, really quickly. There are even jokes about how fast he speaks. Because of the speed of speech, I usually turn on the auto-generated French subtitles, which often makes amusing mistakes. This week instead of "C'est joli, hein ?" the subtitles read "ces jolies seins"!
  • Français avec Fred, an instructional channel for intermediate learners. I occasionally watch instructional YouTubers such as French with Alexa, Comme une Française, and Français Authentique, but I don't watch a lot because I find most of them boring. Français avec Fred is quite amusing so I do watch a video or two from him most weeks.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
13 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 843
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2746
Contact:

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby jeffers » Sun Feb 19, 2023 3:41 pm

I'd been hoping for a while to sit an official DELF B1 exam, ever since I saw that the exam I had just missed had fallen during my school's summer term holiday week. However, the timings have shifted both last summer and this coming summer, so that the B1 exam falls during my term time. There are a few testing centres in the UK, and they all seem to have the exact same dates, so I assume it's set externally. So now I'm very much toying with the idea of taking the A2 exam instead, since that does fall during my time off. If I needed a certificate for work or education, then A2 would obviously be too low, but since this is only for my own satisfaction there's a sense where the actual level doesn't really matter. I have always thought that I would rather have a lower level certificate with a very high score than to scrape a pass on a higher level certificate, although when thinking that I was comparing B1 and B2.

It ought to be child's play by this time, but an exam is an exam so I won't go into it lightly, without a decent amount of exam prep. I'm not 100% sure what that means, but I suppose I should try to at least finish the A2 section of Kwiziq (and make a start on B1). I might also look into an exam-specific revision guide, just so that I know what to expect on the day.
9 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4957
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17549

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby Cavesa » Fri Feb 24, 2023 5:49 pm

Have you considered TCF? It does have more exam dates, or at least different ones from the DELF/DALF (which are horrible. They always collided with my university exams.) But it does have fewer testing centers. Another advantage you might appreciate is one exam-6 levels, you get sorted based on the result.
3 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3480
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9315

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby Le Baron » Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:56 pm

I don't know if you've sat one prior to this, but if anything sitting that A2 instead will at least put you in the picture for the process and what to expect in a DELF exam. Mutatis mutandis for B1 of course.
2 x

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 843
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2746
Contact:

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby jeffers » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:39 pm

If there's a step 1 in my plan to prep for the A2 exam, it is working on making progress in Kwiziq. So for the record my current Kwiziq stats are:
Kwiziq scores 2023-03-01 small.png


So I suppose my first priority is to get A2 up into the 90s, and get A1 up to 100% or close to it. After that I'd like to start tackling the B1 material. I actually believe that's the section where most of my effort should be in this phase of my studies, because I self-identify as a B1 :lol: .

As for my normal studies, I'm currently reading and listening to Harry Potter a l'école des sorciers. I first listened through the whole audiobook, and now I'm reading the book in the evenings while listening a second time through the audiobook on my commutes. I feel the need to say that I really hate the narration of the audiobook. The reader's voice is perfectly reasonable while he's just narrating, but he does some really awful voices, especially for Mrs Dursley and Hagrid. For Hagrid he puts on a voice that's normally used for "big dumb people" in cartoons. It would work for a character like Obelix, but I don't think it fits Hagrid. The level of the book is fairly good for me, since I have to look up maybe one word every 2 pages or so.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
5 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

jackb
Orange Belt
Posts: 243
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:04 pm
Languages: English (N), French (Intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12251
x 788

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby jackb » Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:52 pm

The reader's voice is perfectly reasonable while he's just narrating, but he does some really awful voices, especially for Mrs Dursley and Hagrid.


You aren't the only one. His voices were terrible. Somewhere around books 3-5 it changes to someone else. It gets better, but not quite good. I'm too old to have read them as a child so I don't have an attachment to them. I only read/listened to then because I didn't know how to find suitable material. Never again.
5 x

User avatar
Suzie
Yellow Belt
Posts: 83
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:53 am
Languages: German (N), English (C-ish), French (B-ish), Dutch (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 040#p70040
x 440

Re: Jeffers- SC 2022-23 - French, German, Hindi

Postby Suzie » Thu Mar 02, 2023 4:26 pm

jeffers wrote:I feel the need to say that I really hate the narration of the audiobook. The reader's voice is perfectly reasonable while he's just narrating, but he does some really awful voices, especially for Mrs Dursley and Hagrid. For Hagrid he puts on a voice that's normally used for "big dumb people" in cartoons. It would work for a character like Obelix, but I don't think it fits Hagrid.


I found the narration of these books very irritating, too, and gave up on the second book for this very reason. It was super painful to listen to his "Mrs Weasley" voice as well. The narrator changes with the 5th book - I am just about to give this a try, hoping for a different, more adult approach.

Good luck further on with your continuing Kwiziq and Harry Potter endeavours!
2 x
Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests