gzt's ambling log

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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Fri Sep 30, 2022 3:01 pm

I finished FSI French phonology last night. I didn't do any of the off-tape exercises because, well, I already know a lot of French, I'm just doing this to get it back in my ear and maybe even improve my accent a little. I think it's a pretty good set of exercises, I learned some new ways of looking at things, got a little bit of a sense of where I'm lacking both in listening and speaking. I'd like to say that I understood all the dialogues the first time through (given that I've had a lot of French in the past and am mostly refreshing my level), but I didn't. Most of that is rust, but it's possible I would've blanked even at my best. Strongly recommend though it can be boring -- if I weren't doing it while on an exercise bike I would've died. I'm considering quickly going through the FSI course now. Trimming silences and mostly treating it as input, just a once-over until I slow down or get to stuff I've forgotten (eg, reviewing things like conditionals and the subjunctive). I can definitely use the FSI course for things I'm sticky on or actually need drilling on. Otherwise, no. There's undoubtedly some vocabulary in there, too, but some is going to be irrelevant to me. Early units I might just play in the background while at work and mutter along to it? Not sure.

My main instructional text is Assimil -- the last time I was reviewing French (early 2020) I started Assimil and got to around 73, I'm doing one per day without that much review. And then TV, some news/podcasts, trying to read something.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:50 am

Kaamelott's got a problem: after 40 minutes in, the French subtitles end (at least on the first book). Only English available from there. Well, that's lame! It's rough going with French subtitles to try to catch the words, but with just English, I just don't think I could keep up, especially with the heavy slang and occasionally weird vocabulary. Still, I like the series, so I might just watch anyway.

Played in a chess tournament today, a quad (four players, you play everybody else, so you play 3 games). Had winning positions all three games, completely flubbed two of them. Bah.

Downloaded DLI French because I heard somebody say it's better than FSI French. Will give it a shot to see. Not sure if I'll do much with either but it's worth checking out.
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DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:42 am

gzt wrote:Kaamelott's got a problem: after 40 minutes in, the French subtitles end (at least on the first book). Only English available from there. Well, that's lame! It's rough going with French subtitles to try to catch the words, but with just English, I just don't think I could keep up, especially with the heavy slang and occasionally weird vocabulary. Still, I like the series, so I might just watch anyway.
In addition to the long video embedded earlier in the thread, there's a playlist of short videos for Livre I, they seem to mostly offer auto-gererated French subtitles, whiich might help.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:05 pm

French: Thinking about whether to get some kind of grammar book to work through (or even look at my old workbooks from way back in the day). I already know or knew all the grammar, I'm just rusty, and it shouldn't take that much work to reactivate it. I think I need to consciously reactivate it to use it, though, since I read some stuff and it's like, uh, okay, that's probably the passé simple, or that's the conditional, I guess there's supposed to be a subjunctive or something... but it's all just passive gleaning from context and vaguely remembering how they work. So on the one hand, it shouldn't take that much study, I don't think, to reactivate it, but on the other it'd be on top of the other work I'm doing (Assimil, vocab flash cards, reading/listening, watching TV), and I don't want to have a billion different things I'm running between -- that's a recipe for not getting anything done at all. cf: how I'm not getting through my chess study materials.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Sun Oct 16, 2022 3:40 am

Played a chess tournament today, completely messed up two of the games, one I was crushing a stronger player and flubbed it, the other I just threw away.

French: Settling into a routine doing the day's Assimil and new vocabulary from the 5000 word deck plus a little Duolingo (so bad) and a couple things in LingQ.

I keep meaning to start reading the books I got in Esperanto but never get around to it.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:22 pm

Noted: I was curious so I checked, there's an Esperanto group that meets for chats on a biweekly basis, it seems on a Saturday evening. I'll have to check it out. I've never actually spoken with another person in Esperanto. Text stuff, sure, but not verbal.

There's also apparently a French meetup that's weekly on Tuesdays, but that's the same day as the chess meetup that I never get around to going to. Just around the corner from it, too. It's a bit of a maybe. I have, in fact, spoken in French before.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:24 am

Started listening to the Esperanto version of Le Petit Prince. I've read the French before.
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
x 126

Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Sat Oct 22, 2022 8:21 pm

Because the Kaamelott subtitles were incomplete, I tried out Open AI Whisper. Generated very good subtitles. It's slow on computers I have access to, though, so it's not feasible to use generally except for short things. Good graphics cards are faster than real time though.
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DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Oct 22, 2022 11:08 pm

gzt wrote:Because the Kaamelott subtitles were incomplete, I tried out Open AI Whisper. Generated very good subtitles. It's slow on computers I have access to, though, so it's not feasible to use generally except for short things. Good graphics cards are faster than real time though.
There are some Kaamelott books published by J'ai Lu, but Cavesa says they don't quite match the TV series:
...there are complete transcriptions of Kaamelott on the internet, and you can buy the original script in form of books. The original script (I've recently read the introduction) is in correct French, the real final version was made while filming. So, it made me think that Kaamelott TVseries+actual transcripts+the original script may actually be the ultimate course of colloquial French

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 374#p57374
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gzt
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (B2), French (B1). Not learning: Sanskrit (A1), Attic Greek (A1), Russian (A1).
x 126

Re: gzt's ambling log

Postby gzt » Fri Oct 28, 2022 11:36 pm

Started the first few chapters of Les Misérables on LingQ. Interesting, but then i looked at how long the book is. At the rate of one chapter per day via audiobook plus glancing at the text, it'd take forever. If I want to read it, I might switch to just an eBook. On the other hand, a half hour per day would get me through the audio in four months, which is a long time, but not that long. Considering it. But that would eat into other work, even non language related work.
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