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

[rdearman]

Well, I spent a lot of time last few nights watching cooking shows in French.

Hervé Cuisine
and
Dans la peau d'un chef

I have to say that cramming subject specific vocabulary certainly did boost comprehension of these videos. I've watched them both before and after cramming and I really did notice a difference. I think it helped a lot, although for some bizarre reason YouTube hijacked me and sent me down a path of watching a load of video's on how to build your own boat. This sucked up a load of time. I was randomly searching for videos in French and found one with some guy in Canada building a canoe which dropped me right down a rabbit hole of boat and yacht building. Actually a very interesting topic (although I hate boats and ocean travel) but nothing in French. Now if someone has some video recommendations on motorcycle restoration or aircraft building in French that would be cool.

I have been thinking more about doing a presentation in French. I like the idea, and thought about doing one on "How to learn subject specific vocabulary", after all why do things by halves? I don't even drink half-pints of beer!

OK, I'm off to play Frisbee with my dog.

[rdearman]

Not much to report on the language learning front. I've been doing the basics, listening and anki cards. One of my French friends on Facebook has challenged me to read "Don Quixote" with her and discuss the chapters each weekend via skype. I'm not sure if she understands that the version she is reading is written in really old English. Ye, and thou and all that stuff. I'm also not sure that the French version I'm reading isn't from the age of Charlemagne either. So first point of discussion I guess would be do we want to find a more modern book!

Recently I found a YouTube video of some guy who sold everything and bought a sailboat and lives on it. This sent me down a long line of videos of a similar theme, and also how to build a boat, and all sorts of fun stuff. All of this got me excited about sailing (I hate boats btw) and I don't know why. However a little research has reinforced two quotes, one from my father, and one from some anonymous person on the Internet.

If you want the experience of owning a sail-boat before you buy one, then just go into a cold shower and tear up £10 notes.

redacted

You'll have to PM me if you want to know this one.

I have been looking at my graph of the super challenge entries. The Italian period where I was watching stuff is almost a sharp vertical line, whereas the French still barely pushes the 45 degree mark. I am really struggling with the book I've been reading, Le Déchronologue, and I'm not really enjoying it. Maybe it is all the unknown nautical stuff, or perhaps it is just to hard for me right now. I'm probably just going to update the pages I've read on the SC and forget it for awhile and come back to it later perhaps. I have another SciFi book in French, and I might move on to that instead.

Almost forgot, the spreadsheet SRS, re-write exercise has stopped. Mostly because I was away for a couple of days for work and didn't get a chance and I'm probably not going to pick it up again. Unless I switch to sentences instead of individual words. But it was a useful exercise and it did help me with all the food programs I watch by cramming subject specific vocabulary.

I am getting better at understanding podcasts, although this might be my imagination. Listening to a podcast without transcriptions means I have no way to check if I really understood, or I just made up some stuff in my head and believe I understood.

I've never excelled at my own output challenge, but this writing to friends on Facebook seems to work well. I should probably try to find some other method of writing to people. PenPals, etc. HelloTalk is useless in this regard. In fact it is mostly useless 100% of the time. Conversations die because the only mutual interest people have is language learning, but it is a different language. I figure best to avoid language exchange sites and find places with real French people writing real stuff about a mutually interesting topic.

[MamaPata]

There is a French Toastmasters in London - I know you're sometimes here. Otherwise, you could always just explain that the Q&A will be answered in English?

Yeah, but that is a bit of a cop out! Besides, I always like to make thing more difficult for myself than they really need to be.

Where is this toastmasters in London? That does interest me, and I might even spring for the train ticket to make it in once or twice a month.

What's the point in doing something if you don't needlessly make life complicated?

I think it's round near Holborn, so it's very easy to get to from Euston/St Pancras/Waterloo/Charing Cross (depending on how you get in to London!). More information here.

[rdearman]

I often wonder why people read this log. I only seem to repeat myself constantly. This week I have a new handicap when writing. I've managed to shave off the finger pad of my index finger with a electric wood planener. This was very painful, and quite a bloody experience, completely unrelated to language learning, but it makes typing really hard. Especially as I'm a touch typist, so having one finger out of commission is a problem, and when I inadvertantly use my damaged finger out of habit, it hurts.

So don't expect a long post. It has been a long time since I had to "Hunt and Peck" a keyboard.

I started watching a new TV series on Amazon called Bureau about French spies in the DGSE. It is interesting and I've done some research on the DGSE awhile back so very interesting to watch. The plot is not bad, and the acting is good. Story is a little slow however. Can't stop the L1 subtitles, so mostly I seem to be reading not listening.

I've got to spend the next 2 weeks with a bunch of Czech people. Pity I didn't decide on that instead of French it would be easier to practice. Still might try to learn a couple of phrases before the polyglot thing next year.

Doing a presentation in French keeps running through my brain. I'm like one of those bugs near a bug zapper... don't go into the light!! ZAP! I was thinking yesterday about the polyglot gathering and some of the presentations. Some people came a long way to do what I thought was a sales pitch to beginning language learners to an auditorium full of people where the average number of languages spoken per person was probably 4-5. I was certainly in the back of the class!

The reason I was thinking about this was that a good presentation for a polyglot gathering would need to offer something to people who already know everything I know, and more. People like Iversen or Tarvos, who've forgotten more about language learning than I'll ever know. Basically, although I like the idea of doing a presentation, I can't think of one which would be useful. Course I do know techy stuff, but that is a bit boring and my last presentation was described as "nerd, nerd, nerd, anki"

I do have time to think of and research a topic, but don't know what. Oh well, my finger hurts so I'm going to close this now and try to get some sleep.

[rdearman]

Been a little while since I posted last, and life has sent a shite-storm in my direction, so I haven't been doing any language related work. I was supposed to be reviewing and collating all the spreadsheets people have done for my study, but this too has suffered. So although this is a quite serious problem for me, I hope to have it resolved for the better soon. I've a walking holiday booked in the south of England, so I refuse to allow anything to muck that up for me.

I've slowed down, but not stopped doing French. I still have managed to get in the 300-400 cards per day I have for anki, and I've watched or listened to French whenever I've been able too. I have started to read "Don Quixote" and my reading partner confirmed the book I'm reading is kinda old French same as she is reading oldish English. But we decided to just crack on, since it couldn't hurt and we are aware some of the wording will be archaic.

I was thinking about finding Stephen Kings, Dark Tower series in French. I've read it all in English, so I'm familiar, they are long books, and I'm already familiar with his writing style. But I couldn't find them on Amazon, or rather I couldn't find a French translation on Amazon. I don't read horror books outside of King's books. Anyway I need to find an interesting book to get into in French.

I've done 214 films in French as I write this, so a double SC in films, but only 67 books. I need to get back into reading, hence the speculation about a translated English book. I do have quite a few old books but just not feeling them at the moment.

I am determined to learn this f£$%ing language and to beat my poor over-the-hill brain into submission with French, but my old brain is a stubborn so-n-so and doesn't seem to cower down and get on with French. I do think I should stop going to Gatherings and hanging out on this forum where everyone seems to be like: "Oh French? I learned that last weekend, it was easy, this week I'm doing Korean, that is going to take me at least a month."

I think I'm moving into the 3rd stage of competence and this I think is why I'm finding things so frustrating and annoying. This stage is:

Conscious competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill

I posted on one of the threads about vocabulary because someone insisted on having all vocabulary in context. But I don't really see the need for this restriction. Personally I have found that cramming on subject specific vocabulary has helped me quite a bit. I had a spreadsheet (and anki deck) of subject specific vocabulary which I studied (and still study) related solely to the topic of food, food preperation, cooking, etc. Afterwards (and during) this subject specific studying of what is basically a word list, I watched (and still subscribe to) a lot of French cooking shows. So while watching these shows words from my cramming list would just jump out at me. I knew them because I'd crammed them previously and because I was engaged in the subject which I'd crammed vocabulary for, Volia! I saw them again and again.

Another example is the D&D anki deck / spreadsheet words. Now this was solely to allow me to play D&D, but I began to encounter these words in some of the TV shows I was watching, which were a modern spy thriller series and Star Trek. So actually I don't think it matters where you encounter the words, and a list is as good as any other method, as long as you're doing other activities which means you'll run across them again. This subject specific cramming has worked out pretty well for me.

This is basically the same as learning form Thematic Vocabulary lists I figure, although I don't know of any study that shows any benefit one way or the other.

[tarvos]

I will be honest with you - it took me years to learn French, and I started studying it seriously back in 2000 (when I turned 11). I didn't reach fluency until 2011 or 2012 (when I was in my twenties). This was after several holidays in France, one in Quebec, two months living with French people in Brussels and two years of vagaries in the general Brussels area once every few weeks. It also included a long break between 2004 and 2009.

Some other people may have learned French that fast, but I didn't. I was about B2 in mid-2012. I did have a good base of about A2-B1 when I revived my French from the depths. The only languages I've ever learned quickly were Swedish, Romanian, and Spanish, and to a lesser extent Czech. They were all languages related to something else I spoke and I've spent extended time in Romania and Spain. Oh and Esperanto. But that was after a gazillion other languages.

[rdearman]

I will be honest with you - it took me years to learn French, and I started studying it seriously back in 2000 (when I turned 11). I didn't reach fluency until 2011 or 2012 (when I was in my twenties).

Thanks goodness. If it took you awhile, then I don't feel quite so stupid. I just need to work harder! Or rather, get more time on target. Thanks for the encouragement.

[tarvos]

The thing is that most polyglots have a couple base languages which they learned early on. In my case, I came out of school having studied Dutch, English, German, French, and Latin. We're talking 2006 here, and I had no intention of becoming a polyglot at the time - I had had no more than the average school kid, except for English (and perhaps Latin seeing as that is somewhat rare), and the only two languages I could express myself in fully were Dutch and English. I did have the basics of the other two, and German is close enough to Dutch that it doesn't take much besides a lot of exposure next to school study to get sufficiently advanced. It took me years to get French to a decent level (German was comparatively easy) and my next full-fledged attempt was Russian, which also took years (and it's well documented). I would say it was two years to get conversational and another one or two until I got anywhere near fluency. I think I reached fluency somewhere in 2014-2015. And some days I still doubt it...

Now we're talking about the five basic anchor points of my study. Only Spanish is really at that level too, and perhaps Swedish. Swedish came easy, but it was my FOURTH Germanic language. And Spanish came after a similar row of Romance languages.

You'll see that most of the big names in polyglottery have a similar story. The languages they picked up and the order they came in differ, but Iversen has had more or less the same basic languages as I did, except he learned Spanish and Italian much earlier, and he has Danish rather than Dutch. (Iversen has a degree in French, remember that).

Ask Benny, Richard, Luca, Lydia, Steve, Vladimir - they'll all tell you the same thing. And honestly, a lot of them are still a damn sight better than I am.

[Arnaud]

I was thinking about finding Stephen Kings, Dark Tower series in French. I've read it all in English, so I'm familiar, they are long books, and I'm already familiar with his writing style. But I couldn't find them on Amazon, or rather I couldn't find a French translation on Amazon. I don't read horror books outside of King's books. Anyway I need to find an interesting book to get into in French.

Is it that?

[rdearman]

I was thinking about finding Stephen Kings, Dark Tower series in French. I've read it all in English, so I'm familiar, they are long books, and I'm already familiar with his writing style. But I couldn't find them on Amazon, or rather I couldn't find a French translation on Amazon. I don't read horror books outside of King's books. Anyway I need to find an interesting book to get into in French.

Is it that?

YES! You're a star! Thanks.