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

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

Postby garyb » Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:39 am

DaveBee wrote:I was reading about one-to-one language exchange earlier. One point that struck home was that it can be cheaper to hire a internet-video talking partner, than pay for transport and coffee to meet a volunteer in person.


That's close to my experience: if I'm taking a bus into town and paying for a drink, a "free" exchange doesn't cost much less than a lesson. A decent tutor still costs a bit more, but "time is money": the difference is more than made up by the amount of time wasted finding a reliable partner and the time leaving the house and going to meet up. And as rdearman says, you're paying the person so they're more likely to be accommodating of your needs.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:56 am

Another Wednesday and another iTalki lesson. Again it was an informal session just speaking practice. This time it was a lady from Switzerland. This particular young lady speaks six languages, and she is only 21. You know that thing where 80% of drivers think they are better than average, which means 30% of them are wrong. Well, I'm definitely in the bottom 10% of language learners, and I'm not fooling myself! However, obviously, I am in the top10% of drivers. :lol:

This time I spoke more than I wanted to. I'm undecided about the best way to use these sessions. Should I be speaking all the time, and getting corrections, or should I be trying to get them to talk more to help with my comprehension? I waver back and forth, but if I spent a bit more time on intensive listening, and extensive listening it might help.

One problem I had with this particular session was she wanted to do the whole thing "audio only", because she didn't have make-up on or something. I couldn't care less about that, but what I did notice during this lesson was it was harder for me to understand her. The missing visual clues really made my comprehension suffer more than in the previous two lessons. I might need to split test this somehow, doing some lessons with video and some without. I didn't think it would make that much difference, but I did notice it. In fact today was the first time and broke down and asked for something to be repeated in English, I just couldn't get what she was saying. It was then I realised if she had written it I would have understood, so from that point of the lesson onward there was no English, but if I didn't understand then she had to write in the messenger part. It is a lot easier for me to read French than listen to it.

I have another local tutoring session tonight, but this time face-to-face with my neighbour. I've done a lot of lessons with her, and I never have a problem understanding her. I think this is because she used "teacher talk". She speaks distinctly, and at a slower pace.

I haven't been watching much French TV, mostly because I'm sort of burned out on all the stuff available to me, and I can't be arsed. One thing I have been doing recently is getting back into MUD's. I joined a French MUD - Vancia, and I've been playing a little while each day. The commands are in French, but it doesn't take long to learn them. Although finding listing of what I have took ages to figure out. But I found a command list, so now I'm away. I've mostly ignored people who are trying to talk to me, they can see I'm a beginner so they give up as soon as they work out I'm can't / won't talk to them. I'm hoping that if I keep playing then I'll be able to start outputting more, e.g. typing, while having some fun doing it.

I'm seriously considering doing a talk in French at the Polyglot Gathering (if they'll have me) about using free (gratis) software to help you learn a language. This includes games like the MUD's, as well as things I use like the freeware corpus analysis program, the IPA generator, etc. I could easily have 3-4 hours worth of content if I went into detail about all of these things. I'm collecting a list up, and I might start a thread to get more suggestions.

On a separate note, I wanted to plug my fiction book which is free 1st & 2nd of November on Amazon. So if you want to download for free it is here: African Extrication. An honest Amazon review would be much appreciated. :)
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 01, 2017 12:18 pm

That phenomenon has a name, and it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby DaveBee » Wed Nov 01, 2017 12:27 pm

rdearman wrote:On a separate note, I wanted to plug my fiction book which is free 1st & 2nd of November on Amazon. So if you want to download for free it is here: African Extrication. An honest Amazon review would be much appreciated. :)
Your Amazon link is broken. The url below should work.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Extric ... 073VP5V3L/
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Wed Nov 01, 2017 12:38 pm

DaveBee wrote:
rdearman wrote:On a separate note, I wanted to plug my fiction book which is free 1st & 2nd of November on Amazon. So if you want to download for free it is here: African Extrication. An honest Amazon review would be much appreciated. :)
Your Amazon link is broken. The url below should work.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Extric ... 073VP5V3L/


Cheers! I'll fix it.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby tarvos » Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:46 pm

rdearman wrote:I have another local tutoring session tonight, but this time face-to-face with my neighbour. I've done a lot of lessons with her, and I never have a problem understanding her. I think this is because she used "teacher talk". She speaks distinctly, and at a slower pace.


Teachers are used to doing that. With my advanced students, I tend to not slow down on purpose or use more complex expressions, just so that they get used to how people speak.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby Cavesa » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:44 pm

tarvos wrote:
rdearman wrote:I have another local tutoring session tonight, but this time face-to-face with my neighbour. I've done a lot of lessons with her, and I never have a problem understanding her. I think this is because she used "teacher talk". She speaks distinctly, and at a slower pace.


Teachers are used to doing that. With my advanced students, I tend to not slow down on purpose or use more complex expressions, just so that they get used to how people speak.


Yes. And it's not just in language learning. Talking with preschool teachers in our common native language is a similar experience :-D

That's why I am such a fan of media meant for natives.
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby Cavesa » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:51 pm

rdearman wrote:I haven't been watching much French TV, mostly because I'm sort of burned out on all the stuff available to me, and I can't be arsed. One thing I have been doing recently is getting back into MUD's. I joined a French MUD - Vancia, and I've been playing a little while each day. The commands are in French, but it doesn't take long to learn them. Although finding listing of what I have took ages to figure out. But I found a command list, so now I'm away. I've mostly ignored people who are trying to talk to me, they can see I'm a beginner so they give up as soon as they work out I'm can't / won't talk to them. I'm hoping that if I keep playing then I'll be able to start outputting more, e.g. typing, while having some fun doing it.

I'm seriously considering doing a talk in French at the Polyglot Gathering (if they'll have me) about using free (gratis) software to help you learn a language. This includes games like the MUD's, as well as things I use like the freeware corpus analysis program, the IPA generator, etc. I could easily have 3-4 hours worth of content if I went into detail about all of these things. I'm collecting a list up, and I might start a thread to get more suggestions.


Yes! I am not the only one! I thank WoTMUD for majority of my English. It was tough at times, but I was very motivated. But I've been struggling to find non-English MUDs. Also, what client are your using?

Thanks a lot for the Vancia tip!!! It looks great, from the description. Too bad I had to forbid myself all the computer games during November due to an exam. (Including WoW. And my boyfriend gave me the Legion as a birthday present! I can only look at the box now.)
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Re: Rdearman (FR, IT, ZH) 2016/17 - The way of the lazy fist.

Postby rdearman » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:46 pm

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

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Nov 03, 2017 12:24 am

Cavesa wrote:
tarvos wrote:
rdearman wrote:I have another local tutoring session tonight, but this time face-to-face with my neighbour. I've done a lot of lessons with her, and I never have a problem understanding her. I think this is because she used "teacher talk". She speaks distinctly, and at a slower pace.


Teachers are used to doing that. With my advanced students, I tend to not slow down on purpose or use more complex expressions, just so that they get used to how people speak.


Yes. And it's not just in language learning. Talking with preschool teachers in our common native language is a similar experience :-D

That's why I am such a fan of media meant for natives.


I have a tendency to do this from years of working with non-natives where one of my roles was to assure cross-functional understanding. It can be annoying, I'm told. <insert appropriate smilie>
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