The Frenchification of Mademoiselle R

[Mohave]

Bienvenue et Bonne Chance !! I look forward to following your progress and log!

[Rebecca]

Well, it's been a long time since I updated this log!

I started off the new year full steam ahead with my French during a good period for me health-wise, but unfortunately things took a turn for the worse just a few weeks later which left me unable to do any studying until now. I'm feeling much better again, however, and I'm raring to get on with it.

Given that I have not studied since the latter half of January and it is now the beginning of May, I will probably have to lower my expectations regarding my earlier stated goal of reaching approximately a B1 level by the end of the year. I think, given the circumstances, I would be very happy if I even managed A1- A2.

Obviously I did not make too much progress in only a few weeks, but for the sake of logging updates, here is what I did before my French studies were derailed:

Completed FSI French Phonology
Worked part-way through Pronounce It Perfectly by Christopher Kendris
Finished Beginner's French Reader by Anne Topping
Did the first 14 lessons of Assimil's New French With Ease
Started working on Michel Thomas' French Foundation Course
Listened to various podcasts from Frenchpod101.com with the transcripts
Started the Duolingo French course
Began working with Anki and familiarising myself with how it works

My speaking skills are still about zero as I did not really practice conversation at all and I still can't understand normal, native speech beyond picking out the occasional word. Watching films or TV without subtitles is still a far-away dream.

So...that's where I am right now. Not much further forward than back in January, actually, apart from a small increase in vocabulary, perhaps. Sigh.

Super Challenge
Anyway, on a brighter note, the improvement in my health has coincided happily with the beginning of the Super Challenge, so I have decided to sign up and commit to doing a Full French Challenge. I am really hoping that by the end of the 20 months I will see a big improvement.

Books
I know that with my current level, starting to read books will be very difficult - if not downright painful - for a while. Right now, I can't even really call it reading, exactly - it's more like puzzling over a jumble of code which has to be deciphered...very slowly. I suppose I will just have to push through that, however long it takes me to get through a page. I plan to start reading intensively, looking up most unkown words and trying to understand sentence construction. Later on, when I have more facility with reading I would like to add in some extensive reading too.

For help with getting started on reading books, I have purchased French for Reading, by Karl C. Sandberg. I have heard many good reports about this book and its ability to get somebody reading quickly and accurately. In the book's introduction it states that it can usually be completed with about 70-120 hours of study and will allow a student to recognise around 1500 words plus several thousand cognates. I will report back later on how I find this book.

I took some recommendations I was given in this thread about French Media recommendations and binge-ordered some children's books, a couple of YA novels and a few adult fiction titles for good measure so I will soon have a good stash to begin working through for the Super Challenge. I must admit, I don't enjoy reading children's books or teen novels in English, but I suppose I will have to start off with a few easier reads in order not to become too discouraged. As a complete book addict in my native language, I can't tell you how wonderful it would be to be able to read in French too.

Here are the books I have on order:

Child:

Les Chroniques De Narnia: Le Neveu Du Magicien - C. S. Lewis
Le Club des Cinq: Les Cinq Contre le Masque Noir - Enid Blyton
Vol Sans Effraction - Carolyn Keene (this is one of the Nancy Drew books)
Alice, Tome 1 : Alice et le Cheval Volé - Caroline Quine (this is also a Nancy Drew, but the character seems to be called "Alice Roy" in some of the French versions)
Alice, Tome 2 : Alice au Manoir Hanté - Caroline Quine
Alice, Tome 3 : Alice et le Chandelier - Caroline Quine
Les Messagers du Temps 1: Rendez-Vous a Alesia - Evelyne Brisou-Pellen (this author seems to have a nice series with historical settings)
Les Messagers du Temps 2: Le Maitre de Lugdunum - Evelyne Brisou-Pellen
Le Fantome de Maitre Guillemin - Evelyne Brisou-Pellen
La Bague aux Trois Hermines - Evelyne Brisou-Pellen
Le Seigneur Sans Visage - Viviane Moore

Teen:

Marina - Carlos Ruiz Zafón (I adore this writer, so I shall look forward to working through these ones)
Le Prince de la Brume - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Adult:

Labyrinthe - Kate Mosse
Fantômes d'hiver - Kate Mosse ( I enjoyed this book in English a couple of years ago)
Le Meurte de Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie (I do love a bit of Agatha!)
Le Crime de l'orient-Express - Agatha Christie
L'homme aux Cercles Bleus - Fred Vargas ( I like a good crime series, so I have high hopes for this one)
La Chute des Géants - Ken Follett (historical sagas are always good in my opinion, and this looks like it fits the bill perfectly)

I also already have the first book in the Petit Nicholas series and a rather lovely little book of French history aimed at kids, called Le Livre de l'histoire de France by Jean-Louis Besson with a short chapter (usually consisting of just a few paragraphs) covering different periods of French history. The couple of Alex Leroc books I have (by Christian Lause) with correspondong audio should also prove to be useful.

Next weekend, I plan to join the Institut Français, as their library will be a goldmine of kids' books, adult fiction and non-fiction, DVDs, magazines, and a whole host of other materials perfect for the Super Challenge!

Films
For the film portion of the Challenge, I don't forsee huge difficulties in completing 100 of them, as I love French films. I have Netflix and a subscription to Amazon's LOVEFiLM service for snail mail DVD borrowing, and we already have a number of French films in our collection at home. I have also ordered the box set of Buffy Contre les Vampires to use with the transcripts available online. I plan to get Un Village Français as well as Maison Close later in the challenge. My VPN will also be put to good use to watch native media from the various French TV sites.

I will only be logging films, TV series and other videos for the purposes of the Super Challenge. I will not be including audio-only items such as podcasts in my total.

I will obviously need to use english subtitles at first, as I wouldn't understand a thing, but I hope to progress to French subtitles quickly with the aid of Buffy. I wonder how long it will take before I can turn off subtitles completely? At this point, that goal seems so far away!

I have already logged my first French film which was called Prête-moi Ta Main (2006). The title in English is "I Do." It's a romantic comedy with Charlotte Gainsbourg about a 40-something immature bachelor who hires his friend's sister to help him stop his overbearing family pressuring him into marriage. Needless to say, confusion and misunderstandings ensue and the plan doesn't work out quite as he intended. Despite a rather cheesy beginning, it improved a lot and there were some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in this fillm. The only problem is I can't quite look at Charlotte Gainsbourg in the same way anymore after seeing a couple of her English language films in recent years.

Of course, apart from Super Challenge activities, I will also get back to plugging away on the French study plan I detailed at the begining of this log - Assimil, podcasts, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, grammar books, anki, etc. I really want to focus on speaking skills too, as while I expect the Super Challenge to give a big boost to my passive comprehension, it may not have such a large effect on production.

Anyway, back to the books I go...

[jeffers]

I've had a quick look over your log, and it looks like to you have a great plan underway, even if it has hit some snags. Just call that a big parenthesis and it's okay.

If you've enjoyed Assimil NFWE at all, I would encourage you to work first of all to finish that. It took me about 2 years to finish it because I took several breaks, but I kept reviewing the audio from time to time. The book will give you a broad familiarity with about 2,500 of the most common words, and when you get reading "real" books you will find the stuff you learnt from Assimil popping up all over the place. Since the audio is 100% French you can count time reviewing the audio for the Super Challenge if you want.

You have quite a list of good books to read, but as a wounded veteran of 2 Super Challenges let me make a couple of suggestions. Note that all of these suggestions are books that were interesting enough to bear repeated reading, and I am planning to kick off my French SC by re-reading all of the books I mention below. All of the books I mention below also have audio, and I found that listening to the audio alone a few times before hitting the text really helped my comprehension. And having the two helps you work on the Super Challenge (bearing in mind that when you listen while reading you have to count only reading or only listening).

First of all, Petit Nicolas is hard but wonderful for a beginner. If you can, get the audiobook too. It is really fast but still comprehensible for some reason. I played a track to my daughter and she was actually laughing as well even though she didn't understand more than a few words. I think I now own five Petit Nicolas books, all of which I expect to re-read a few times this SC, and I'm sure I'll buy another five for this SC.

Another suggestion is to try at least a few books made for learners at your level. Most are awful, but I found Enquête Capitale, and A1 book by Marine Decourtis (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enquete-Capitale-Niveau-fran%C3%A7ais-facile/dp/2011557372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462231731&sr=8-1&keywords=enquete+capitale) a perfect starting place: interesting story but fairly accessible for beginners (a rare combination). I listened to the audio a few times before opening the book, and each time I was able to catch more of the story. I won't say more as you can read the review on Amazon (written by me ).

CLE makes some pretty good books for learners, and I've enjoyed a few of their slight adaptations of Maigret mysteries by Georges Simenon. For example, Maigret et la jeune morte.

A slightly more substantial read which I really enjoyed was Pas d'oscar pour l'assassin by Vincent Remede, aimed at A2 readers. I got this one on Kindle, and if you answer a question (e.g. what's the 3rd word on page x) you can download the mp3's for free from the publisher's website. The publisher Mondes en VF (http://www.mondesenvf.fr/la-collection/) specialize in books for learners written by "real" authors, so their books have a slightly more literate feel to them.

Speaking of which, my final suggestion is to get a kindle (or kindle app) and make use of the French popup dictionary. Far from being a crutch, it will help you to improve your reading fluency by reading books slightly above your level without having to stop every line.

Anyway, sorry to have banged on for so long, but I can tell you that all of the book/audio sets I've mentioned helped me a lot, so I hope they may be good for you as well!

[emk]

Welcome back! I'm really glad to hear that you're feeling better.

Obviously I did not make too much progress in only a few weeks, but for the sake of logging updates, here is what I did before my French studies were derailed:

Completed FSI French Phonology
Worked part-way through Pronounce It Perfectly by Christopher Kendris
Finished Beginner's French Reader by Anne Topping
Did the first 14 lessons of Assimil's New French With Ease
Started working on Michel Thomas' French Foundation Course
Listened to various podcasts from Frenchpod101.com with the transcripts
Started the Duolingo French course
Began working with Anki and familiarising myself with how it works

Personally, if I would in your shoes, I would consider whittling this list down to one beginner course—Assimil or Michel Thomas, whichever you like best—and dedicate between 20 and 40 minutes per day to it. This will allow you to actually finish at least one beginner course, which is more helpful than doing the first 20% of five different courses.

You could supplement that with easy stories, especially on the Kindle (as jeffers suggests), or take a look at French for Reading.

L'homme aux Cercles Bleus - Fred Vargas ( I like a good crime series, so I have high hopes for this one)

Oooh, I haven't read that one yet. Vargas is brilliant. Her specialty is ensemble casts, filled with deeply eccentric people, portrayed lovingly, whose eccentricities play off of those of other characters. (The film Amélie has always had much the same feel to me.)

I will obviously need to use english subtitles at first, as I wouldn't understand a thing, but I hope to progress to French subtitles quickly with the aid of Buffy. I wonder how long it will take before I can turn off subtitles completely? At this point, that goal seems so far away!

Honestly, it's not necessarily all that far away, as I've discovered. In a worst case scenario, you could finish Assimil, read a book or two, do some intensive listening with a dictionary and transcript (and re-listen to the episodes you've studied in the background), and then try TV. In a best-case scenario, listening can develop faster than that—I'm already enjoying TV in Spanish, partly thanks to a Romance-language discount from French (and English), but also by focusing very intensively on one series for about 30 hours, thanks to subs2srs, and then just winging it without subtitles. My comprehension is still very hit or miss after 72 episodes, but I can almost always follow the plot and enjoy watching. So sure, you've got a bit of work to do first, but it's not unimaginably far out of reach if you just hang in there.

Good luck, and enjoy the Super Challenge!

[Ani]

Hi there! I am also learning French so I'll follow your log. I have an immune disease that causes me massive fatigue at times and interrupts my coursework, although now that I am at a higher level I can still keep up reading or watching TV in French. It won't be too long before you can stay in French without needing all your brain power.

I didn't find watching french shows with English subtitles any help, but if you watch with French subtitles you will start seeing words over and over or recognising the shorter bits of dialogue. Using Netflix is nice because you can switch to English audio for a second and then go right back to French audio if you get stuck. You can also watch cartoons -- TroTro and Mimi la souris area
the simplest to understand, IMO, and then after those you have Petit Ours Brun, T'Choupi, Peppa Cochon etc. Even if the show is for two year olds, it is a big confidence boost when you can understand a full 5 minutes in French without any help.

Best of luck to you

[Rebecca]

jeffers - Thanks for your encouragement and really helpful suggestions! Assimil NFWE is definitely my primary course at the moment, and I consider the other activities as supplementary. As long as I complete my daily Assimil lesson, I will fit the other resources in as time/energy levels allow. It's interesting to learn that Assimil gives familiarity with roughly 2,500 words - I didn't think it would be so many.

Regarding the Petit Nicolas series, I should have stated in my last post that I already have the audio corresponding to the first book, so it's great to hear that you found it so enjoyable.

Thanks also for the links to the graded learning books. I like the look of the Marine Decourtis book, especially. I already have a kindle, but have yet to use a pop-up dictionary on it, so I will certainly look into that. Thanks for the tip!

emk - Yep, I've already decided to whittle by ditching Duolingo, as I feel it's not really my thing, and the time spent on it could be put to better use elsewhere. As I mentioned in reply to jeffers above, Assimil is my favourite method so far, but I have also been enjoying having an audio-only course, like Michel Thomas or Pimsleur, to fit in when it is not practical to study with a book. I find the the two are quite complementary - at least so far.

I have never read any Fred Vargas novels before, but they do seem like exactly the kind of thing I would enjoy. L'homme aux Cercles Bleus is apparently the first in the Commissaire Adamsberg series. In the English translation it has been given the title of The Chalk Circle Man. It looks like there are nine books in this series, so if I enjoy it, I will have plenty of others to keep me going. Interesting Vargas fact: I just read that apparently she writes all her books in just three weeks flat!

The results of your Spanish experiment have been amazing! I was reading a little of your log the other day. It's wonderful how enjoyable media coupled with some intensive focus can produce astonishing results!

Ani - Thanks for your encouragement! I'm sorry to hear you suffer with an immune system problem and severe fatigue - that sounds just like me, so I know how it can play havoc with any plans you make for studying (or anything else, for that matter). It's great that you are now at a level where you can still read and watch TV even when you are tired. I hope to reach that level myself one day!

I definitely plan to use French subtitles when my reading comprehension has improved a little. Working through the Buffy transcripts first should help with that, I hope!

I'm going to pop over to your log now...

[Rebecca]

Well, it's been just over a month since my last post and I'm pleased to say things have been going pretty well! It's been a good health month and it's the first time that I feel I'm actually making some decent progress, no matter how small. It's a good feeling!

Update:

Courses
I've been ploughing through the Assimil NFWE which I'm really enjoying, I have to say. My current Assimil strategy is to listen to each lesson perhaps 15-20 times, as well as read the dialogue and gramar explanations. Every day I listen to the previous day's lesson a few times for revision before I go onto the day's current lesson. Then every few days I run quickly through the previous week's lot of lessons as a refresher. I think it's working well for me so far and I'm almost onto the Active wave now. I think I may also start writing out the dialogues which I feel may help me to cement things, such as correct use of accents and gender of words, into my brain.

I have also made good progress on the Michel Thomas French Foundation Course. I find the two 'students' on the audio rather irritating, especially the female learner who appears to have been planted by the producers with the express aim of making listeners feel intelligent and capable by comparison. Michel Thomas' accent is also not the best, but I feel his method is quite good at instilling a bit of confidence and getting people producing some basic sentences right from the begninning, so I will carry on with this and push on until the end.

Another audio course I have also started is Pimsleur French Level 1. I am fitting this in when I can, so it's not the mainstay of my studies, but I'm enjoying it so far and I like the 30 minute format of the lessons. It's especially useful for me because it forces me to repeat many sentences and variations aloud over and over. Perhaps this will encourage a certain level of automaticity in the basics?

Speaking
I am quite shy about attempting to speak French as I hate to hear my accent (I find it cringe-inducing, actually), so anything that encourages words to come out of my mouth will hopefully desensitize me to hearing my horrible accent. Completing the FSI French Phonology Course doesn't seem to have done me much good! Pimsleur is essentially the only speaking I have done so far, (apart from reading aloud a few Assimil dialogues), so I really need to start attempts at simple conversations with my partner. He has been encouraging me to try speaking French with him, but I have been somewhat reluctant so far, again because of the accent thing. Silly, I know. I wish I could be less self-conscious about it.

Listening
As for listening practice, podcasts have also been in heavy use this month and I have been working my way through the Newbie section of Frenchpod101. I have also sampled a few episodes of Coffee Break French, but I'm not sure if I will keep up with that one. I often listen to these in bed before I fall asleep, so I don't really see podcasts as a chore, and it's quite easy to fit them in.

Grammar
I've also been doing some grammar work by starting to work my way through a couple of books: Practice Makes Perfect Basic French by Eliane Kurbegov and Practice Makes Perfect French Verb Tenses by Trudie Maria Booth. I seem to quite enjoy doing grammar exercises, so completing a little of these books every day has not been onerous so far.

Reading
I am also well into working systematically through French For Reading by Karl Sandberg, which I mentioned in my last update. I love this book, actually, and feel like it's a great adjunct to Assimil. The content is a little dry and the book itself could probably do with an updated edition, but I can easily put up with its shortcomings if it is going to boost my reading comprehension, and I certanly feel it is doing exactly that.

I have started Easy French Reader by R. de Roussy de Sales, too: It is a graded reader split into three sections. The first section contains dialogues between Julie, an American girl and her French friend, Marc; the second section gives little overviews of important periods/figures from French history; the third and final section contains short stories from French authors. I'm on the first section right now, and after I have studied a chapter, I have been getting my partner to read it aloud to me as I follow along in the book.

Vocabulary/SRS
Now, I have a bit of a dilemma when it comes to vocabulary retention. So far, I have been using Anki for this and have been adding all my cards individually by typing them out, as I come across new vocab in courses, book, podcasts, etc. I use the Awesome TTS add-on with the Manon voice, which I think is pretty realistic, and it's great to have the sound of the words reinforced as I do the reps. However, I am now finding Anki incredibly boring and time consuming and I honestly can't see myself continuing with this method long-term. It's not so much the reps I don't like - it's purely the creation of cards that is starting to become torturous. I am aware there are lots of shared Anki decks available that I could download, but I really don't see the point of adding thousands of new cards at once that I have never seen in context and trying to learn them. Am I missing something on this point? Is there value in adding a shared deck and just ploughing on through it and learning words in advance of coming across them in courses, native material etc.? Does everyone find Anki boring and should I just stop whining, suck it up and get on with it as a necessary evil?

An alternative I have been considering is just adandoning SRS altogether and trying to learn vocab with just good old notebook and pen. I remember back in school when I took a couple of years of German, I would learn vocabulary by writing out words multiple times all over my notebook. A strange quirk I had was that I wouldn't stick to the lines in the notebook for this practice or keep the words in neat columns going down the page - I felt I had significantly better recall of words if I wrote them messily in all directions, twisting and turning the paper this was and that, so the whole page was covered with words in all directions. I'm not sure how I discovered this weird 'technique' or if I am just imagining that it made remembering words easier, but it drove my teacher nuts! I did pretty well at it though, so she tried to restrain herself from complaining too much about my crazy looking notebook.

I'm quite old-school in some regards: while I enjoy technology and am quite well-versed in nerdy, geeky stuff, often I find myself prefering the simple, old-fashioned way of doing things. For example, I will usually choose paper and pen rather than writing something on a computer, phone or tablet, etc. So maybe a vocab notebook would be a better fit for me instead of SRS, but the big question remains - will it be as effective? Another issue is that my auto-immune health condition has ensured that my memory is not what it used to be. I often have 'brain fog', particularly during a flare-up and the cognitive problems and memory issues are troublesome to say the least, and not exactly helpful for language learning. While a vocab notebook sufficed in my younger years, maybe I will need an SRS system to compensate for these difficulties now. Hmm...lots of things to think about.

As far as Duolingo goes, I gave up on that quickly after experimenting with it a bit. I didn't find it particularly useful with its random introduction of words and odd sentences, and I'm not overly keen on fluffy websites/apps that look like they are aimed at children with cute little owls, bright primary colours and points systems, etc., either. If that sort of thing makes learning more appealing to most people, then that's great, but it just smacks of dumbing down culture to me, which is one of my pet peeves. I probably sound like a curmudgeonly old grump now...

---

Super Challenge:

We are now 6 weeks into the Super Challenge. This is what I have logged since my last update:

Films: 5.5 Films Total

Alceste à Bicyclette (Cycling with Molière) (2013) Two bickering thespians and former friends have to put aside their differences (and egos) in order to stage a performance of Molière's Le Misanthrope. An odd film, I thought, which doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Some moments of pure slap-stick combined with lengthy scenes of Molière's dialogue and a contrived plot point which seem to have been added in at the last minute as a sort of reverse deux ex machina create a disjointed feel to the film. Very good acting from the two main leads, however, and I admt I may have appreciated the film much more if I was familiar with the text of the play (and if my French was better! )

Disparue (The Disappeared) (2015) Crime drama mini-series consisting of eight episodes, and being shown on BBC4 in the UK at the moment. I've seen six episodes so far, and it's a great series, I have to say. It reminds me of many of those Scandi-Noir crime series which have been so popular in recent years, as it has the same sort of feeling. Apparently, this is French remake of a Spanish series which was a big hit with audiences. A 17 year old girl has gone missing after attending a music festival and it seems everyone is a suspect...

Needless to say, I have been watching all of these with English subtitles, but I do feel like I am starting to pick out more and more words and phrases when I watch now.

Books: Big Fat Zero

I have not yet read anything to count towards the Super Challenge, but I'm fine with that. As I have been more or less starting from scratch at the same time the Challenge kicked off, I already knew the majority of my reading will necessarily take place in the latter half when my abilities have improved.

I am making good progress with the French for Reading book, so it won't be long before I attempt my first 'real' book. I have downloaded a pop-up dictionary onto my Kindle ereader and my tablet in preparation.

---

Upcoming Goals:

Continue with my routine of courses, podcasts, workbooks, etc. mentioned above. I will also start working my way through the Extr@ French series of videos as I follow along with the aid of the transcripts. I'm hoping this will aid my listening comprehension and will probably be easier than jumping straight into Buffy.

Priority will also be given to speaking. I can't delay it forever, and seeing as we will most likely be going to France for a visit with the in-laws in a couple of months, this is really important!

[garyb]

Everybody has an opinion on SRS and you've no doubt already seen the debates. Basically, it works well for some people while others don't like it or don't find it necessary. Personally I think it can be a useful tool at intermediate and advanced levels, but I don't see any need for it as a beginner. At this stage, you're aiming to learn the basics, and the basics by definition are so common that you'll get lots of exposure and practice with them through courses and input, which you're already doing more than enough of! In theory SRS might speed up the process a little, but in your case you're not enjoying it and the overheard of creating cards seems to be cancelling out any benefit.

Another problem I've found with SRS as a beginner is that at that point you don't yet have a sense for which vocabulary is actually worth studying, and you can fall into the trap of trying to cover everything and putting in every unknown word instead of focusing on the important high-frequency words. This is especially dangerous if you're using books and newspapers, which often have words that you'll never need in conversation; courses and TV are a bit safer but it's still hard to tell. It happened to me when I started learning French and discovered Anki.

I think it's just about taking it a step at a time and realising that if you keep up the work, the basics will come into place. Trying too much to speed up or force the process can be counter-productive.

(edit: my opinion for other "vocabulary retention" methods is similar, I don't think it's something a beginner really needs to worry about if they're already doing courses and getting input)

[Ani]

Glad to hear your are still moving along. Sounds like great progress. I agree with garyb's assessment of anki and srs being more useful at a higher level. I have tried with anki several times but I end up deicing myself crazy. I am not wild about any of the shared decks. I did find that Memrise is a good middle ground though and I had good improvement using the beginner French deck by Coralie, and yet again with another intermediate one after that. The benefit is that they are appropriate high frequency words, you don't need to make them yourself and every time you read the word you get audio without the terrible pain of having to add audio files to anki.

As to the accent, are you shadowing the audio with assimil ? If not, you should. The more you a attempt to form the French sounds with that instant feedback is heading toward vs the audio the better it will get. Not that you should add more courses right now but the FSI French basic course has also really helped my pronunciation of whole phrases.

[Rebecca]

Another problem I've found with SRS as a beginner is that at that point you don't yet have a sense for which vocabulary is actually worth studying, and you can fall into the trap of trying to cover everything and putting in every unknown word instead of focusing on the important high-frequency words.

Thanks for your advice, garyb! I think that's exactly what I've been doing - trying to put ALL the new words I come across into Anki. Logically, I know that I don't really need to do this and it's creating more work, but it's difficult to put aside my perfectionist tendencies.

That being said, I do enjoy seeing the number of cards creeping up, even though it says nothing about what I can actually do with those words. I also admit to really appreciating having all the customization options and statistics available in Anki as well. I still haven't decided if I will abandon it, but I think I will be so sick of it soon that it will be inevitable. Or maybe I can try to change my strategy and see if it makes a difference to how I feel about it.

I have tried with anki several times but I end up deicing myself crazy.

Yep, that's pretty much where I am at!

I did find that Memrise is a good middle ground though and I had good improvement using the beginner French deck by Coralie, and yet again with another intermediate one after that. The benefit is that they are appropriate high frequency words, you don't need to make them yourself and every time you read the word you get audio without the terrible pain of having to add audio files to anki.

I did check out Memrise very briefly, but I had the same concerns about it that I do with the shared Anki decks - loss of control over which words I am trying to learn. If there are frequency decks which you can learn in order, then that might be an option to experiment with. It's good to hear it has audio for words too, as that is one of the main things I like about Anki. I am using a wonderful add-on (Awesome TTS) which can automatically add audio files to all your cards, so you don't need to add your own snippet. I think this is a great feature and very helpful to reinforce the pronunciation of words as you do the reps.

As to the accent, are you shadowing the audio with assimil ? If not, you should. The more you a attempt to form the French sounds with that instant feedback is heading toward vs the audio the better it will get. Not that you should add more courses right now but the FSI French basic course has also really helped my pronunciation of whole phrases.

No, I haven't done any shadowing of Assimil (or anything else). It definitely sounds like something which could be helpful in terms of accent. Thanks for the tip - I will look into that, for sure!

FSI Basic is also on my plan for when I am finished with Assimil. I've heard such good things about it.