Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

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Brun Ugle
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jun 26, 2017 5:47 am

rdearman wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:If you can't find someone - send me a PM and we can set up a weekly chat in French. We could even do a virtual group stammtisch in French on a regular basis. A Language Stammtisch is a meeting where only a target language is permitted (all levels).

I still wouldn't mind getting extra practice in. Perhaps an online game of D&D via google-hangouts? I'll send you a free book! ;)

Oooh. A Language Stammtisch sounds like fun. As does an online D&D game. Too bad my French consists of repeating things like "en, on, en, on" after the recording. I'm going to have to hurry up and learn French properly so I can hang out with the cool kids. I'm still on chapter four of the phonology course.
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rdearman
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:49 pm

I find it really amusing that playing D&D is now defined as being one of the cool kids. Yeah I think a stammtisch sounds like a lot of fun!

I was thinking about output and I do have my tutor to rely on for some corrections. The DALF C1 has a written component:
Writing
Exam in 2 parts:
- summary (220 words  20) of several texts, total length 1000 words approx
- essay (250 words approx) presenting arguments, based on the documents
Choice of 2 topic areas: humanities or science


I would really need to practice doing this. So written output would likely to be something along those lines. THere are some sample papers to be downloaded and I plan to do that just to get some idea of the examination and try to do it.

Anyone know if this stuff has to be handwritten? Or will there be a computer available? I'm guessing hand written.

Some of the things I need to figure out are:
-- At what point should I try to find a C1 tutor / exam preparation person.
-- What type of things should I concentrate on learning vocabulary wise.
-- Should I try for December this year? It would certainly put a rocket up my backside!
-- Not having ever taken one of these examinations, how do I know, what I don't know?

I'm sure it will all get a bit more clear as I work my way into it.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jun 26, 2017 10:21 pm

rdearman wrote:I find it really amusing that playing D&D is now defined as being one of the cool kids.


Of course it is!

ProfArguelles:
"Until I took up languages seriously, I had hobbies such as building and painting model tanks, playing fantasy role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and, most especially, strategic and tactical board games such as Advanced Squad Leader."

(Source: message 13, page 2)
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:23 pm

Ahem, if y'all are really going to play D&D, and not kill me on the time change....I'd be in...
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:57 pm

Systematiker wrote:Ahem, if y'all are really going to play D&D, and not kill me on the time change....I'd be in...

Yeah, we found a opensourced free role playing game called Basic Fantasy and you can download the PDF's in multiple languages. (Which is why I was procrastinating making books from the PDF's)

What time zone are you in?
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:57 pm

rdearman wrote:
Systematiker wrote:Ahem, if y'all are really going to play D&D, and not kill me on the time change....I'd be in...

Yeah, we found a opensourced free role playing game called Basic Fantasy and you can download the PDF's in multiple languages. (Which is why I was procrastinating making books from the PDF's)

What time zone are you in?



UTC -5, and I think y'all are mostly +0 and +1, so...
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:25 pm

A really fast update about actual language learning. I'm back to work tomorrow so I hope to get into a decent routine with my French. I've got a grammar book, French grammar in context (or something like that can't remember) and I'm lifting grammar rules and trying to put them into Anki in a way that will be useful to me. I'm also inputting the exercises in the grammar book. I've made it to page 2 and already have 20-30 cards. I've also got an Anki deck for drilling French numbers so that I know 4 20's and 19 = 99 without doing the math and just knowing that the words mean 99. I've also got two decks with sentences built from word frequencies which have a decent computer voice. So 5 cards per day with these 4 decks nets me 20 new cards per day.

I've also completed a couple of tapes of the FSI Basic Course (revised) and doing all the drills. My plan is to complete both volumes 1 and 2 and do all the drills. Bit mind numbing, but worth it I think.

Watching Star Trek again in French, but this time without the sub-titles and forcing myself to listen. If I really, really don't understand, but need to know what they are saying, then I turn on French sub-titles and read it. But I only had to do this once so far.

I've removed all English and Italian from MyPod app and put on two French podcasts which look interesting. I'm going to listen to these at any opportunity. I want to basically blast my brain with French anytime I'm awake and don't absolutely need to use English.

I've put the Micheal Thomas vocabulary builder in my car (the ones without Micheal Thomas) to listen to it I get bored of French podcasts, French news on the radio, or TinTin on CD. :) (More likely I'll get board of MT, and listen to one of those) but from now on my car is an English free zone.

Finally I have a tonne of French books to read, both physical and electronic. This will probably be the hardest thing to find time for, but need to make it a priority really.

The last step is converting all my devices to work in French. PC, phones, tablets, etc.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Wed Jun 28, 2017 4:26 pm

I was contemplating Brun Ugle's question about output, and getting it corrected. I could have my tutor do it, but I would prefer to not spend time going over that sort of thing at the moment, the tutor is more useful for speaking output right now than written output. I don't know if she'd be interested. I can also use Lang-8 since I signed up before the current restrictions, but I wasn't really too happy about the waiting around for corrections. Finally coming up with a lot of original content was a problem. So I wondered about doing translations and I think I've come up with a rather practical solution.

I have a couple of parallel texts in French/English and it occurred to me if I simply cover up the French, and translate the English myself, then I have a built in mechanism for checking my work because I already have a translation at hand. Of course I still need to do some additional output, and Lang-8 and my tutor will be a big help there, but to start with I can begin with targeting translation of a page of English and looking at the translation after to see how well I've done and how the professional did it.

It can't hurt, so might as well add that to my C1 mission. 8-)
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby DaveBee » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:18 pm

rdearman wrote:I have a couple of parallel texts in French/English and it occurred to me if I simply cover up the French, and translate the English myself, then I have a built in mechanism for checking my work because I already have a translation at hand.
I was looking at an old learn-by-translation method the other day. It had an extra step of picking out words and phrases in the sample text.

The descriptions are a bit vague, but looking for synonyms, and opposites seems to be clear. This would I assume help you spot common suffix/prefix patterns, and also bring your attention to shades of meaning.

Identifying metaphors was another, but that might be more about teaching style rather than language.
Last edited by DaveBee on Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:30 pm

rdearman wrote:I have a couple of parallel texts in French/English and it occurred to me if I simply cover up the French, and translate the English myself, then I have a built in mechanism for checking my work because I already have a translation at hand.


...and next year, when you've learned Czech by watching TV, you can translate the script into French and record yourself while acting out the dialogue. 8-)
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