A language learners’ forum

Hello everyone!
This is my very first post here, I have been an user in the old HTLAL forum for a few years now, but I never really posted much in it, I was more like an avid and sneaky reader of its rich and marvellous content and have always had fun reading its threads. I am Chilean, so my mother tongue is Spanish and my second language is English, which I learned as an adult through self-study four years ago (after having failed at it repeatedly at school, I just did not care enough to learn it). My third language is French, which I think is at an intermediate level, maybe a B2 right now. I also speak some Portuguese, though it is probably just upper A2. And yes, I love languages very much and I just learn them pour plaisir.

I have decided to perfect my French during this year, and have already decided to focus on: grammar, Netflix, novels and non-fiction books and Assimil's Using French. Unfortunately I am no student anymore, so I have very little time to devote to my endeavour. I plan to spend every day:
- 45 minutes every morning on a grammar book (I will start using the Complete French Grammar All-in-one, from the "Practice makes Perfect Series" which, I reckon, is very basic, but I want to cover my bases and will go progressing until I reach more advanced books)
- 30 minutes reading books (I will start by reading the second book of Les Rois Maudits, already read the first one in French and I loved it)
- 20-30 minutes of TV or videos (Netflix, I will start with dubbed cartoons... or maybe I should use Fluentu?)
- 30 minutes of Using French, Assimil (15 minutes of which will be seated at my desk, the second half will be listening the audio in several little chunks throughout the day, maybe using commuting time for it too).

And maybe I will add two 45-minute sessions of Skype, so I can practice talking too. What do you think of this plan? Is it a good way to start? Any suggestions or ideas would be highly appreciated.

Your plan sounds pretty good to me. I find it helps to attack a language from several angles as you are doing. And it's nice to mix regular textbook or grammar study with more fun things like reading and watching videos. There is a French study group on this forum that you might like to join. You can find it in the Language Challenges and Teams sub-forum. Study groups are great for motivation and for getting help when you you have difficulties.

Good luck with your studies.

Thank you Brun Ugle, I will join this French group as you suggest, it should help me with my motivation.
What did I do today?
- I did the 45 minutes of the Grammar Book (Complete French Grammar All-in-one, Practice makes perfect)
- 25 minutes of The Seven Sins dubbed in French (by Netflix)
- 30 minutes of reading non-fiction
- Using French's first lesson.
- Anki SRS
I'm not sure about Assimil, it might be redundant (considering all the other things I'm doing, but I'll stick with it a little and see how it goes with it.)

Carles

Congratulations; you sound as if you are on your Way!

Please note the Assimil gets harder as it goes along. By lesson #90 things can start to get challenging. I went thru Assimil and liked it.

Carmody wrote:Carles

Congratulations; you sound as if you are on your Way!

Please note the Assimil gets harder as it goes along. By lesson #90 things can start to get challenging. I went thru Assimil and liked it.

Oh, yes, Assimil certainly gets harder as you move on. I am currently doing the Using French (their advanced book) and it only has 70 lessons, though. Now, I think it would not hurt to review their basic book (With Ease Collection) once more since you are certainly right, the very last lessons are harder (a lot of useful slang too!) and they are actually missing in the previous edition of it, they were added years ago in the last and current version. I think I will go over the last lessons too, I will add them to my current Assimil load, thanks Carmody for the advice.

Yes, what I did was use the New French With Ease, and what I need to do is move on to the Using French. Do you think it is good? I hear the old edition is better.

Right now I am doing a lot of French reading, specifically I am on my second Harry Potter book and finding it useful. People always talk about variety while learning so I figure using reading for vocab, sentence structure, and idioms can be helpful, so long as I keep it on a basic level. Pushing it too fast kills my self-confidence.......

Carmody wrote:Yes, what I did was use the New French With Ease, and what I need to do is move on to the Using French. Do you think it is good? I hear the old edition is better.

Right now I am doing a lot of French reading, specifically I am on my second Harry Potter book and finding it useful. People always talk about variety while learning so I figure using reading for vocab, sentence structure, and idioms can be helpful, so long as I keep it on a basic level. Pushing it too fast kills my self-confidence.......

I am just starting with it, it looks good, but it is no harder than reading "Le reine étranglée" (the 2nd book of the Accursed Kings series). I might be wrong, but I think there is only one version of Using French, it has been always the same (though the actors in the recordings may vary). Maybe you are thinking of French without toil which was written by Alphonse Chérel (creator of Assimil), but it's not designed to be an advanced course like Using French is.

I have wondered about Harry Potter, especially because I plan to learn other languages and it's been published in like almost all of the languages on my list. I have read the first book in English and found it too childish, childish enough that I thought it was boring because the author explained everything, even the most obvious things and the story was too simple, so were the characters. I have been told it gets better and more complex as you continue in the series, but I have my reservations. What do you think? how hard or easy is it?

Reading books:

I am of the opinion that you should read what interests you; I mean really. The thing with Potter is I have heard the audiobooks of the series with Jim Dale narrating and found it excellent; he is a great narrator. It is a totally different experience; I heard them twice and so know the plots which is helpful to me in reading.

People here suggest being familiar with the material you are trying to read and to be interested. Ok, so I miss a couple of words in each page; that does not mean western civilization will go down the drain. I am learning lots of words, idioms, grammar, and having fun. People continually talk about having fun and the more ways you can come at a language while having fun then great.

So, tell me, is Chile as beautiful as everyone says? Ah, to go climbing in Chile!!!

Deleted and sent as PM

Yes, I totally agree with you. I am not really sure why I did not like The Philosopher's Stone, because I certainly watched all the Harry Potter movies and I liked them and found them fun. Anyhow, the thing is that the Harry Potter's first book (which has been the only one I have ever read, so I might be biased) did not really make me want to keep reading the next ones. And as I answered to your PM, maybe it is not that it is "childish" as I said in a previous post (As you know I read Narnia and liked them). Maybe having watched the films spoiled it for me? I do not know.

I have been thinking of reading Harry Potter again though, the whole series, mainly because I have seen many users in the old forum and in this new one who have done so. Also I have a kindle and when I visited the Pottermore Shop's website I was thrilled to see the amount of languages it has been translated to, and the ease of getting them in several languages as ebooks and audiobooks. It makes me strongly desire to start learning German, Dutch, Polish and even Swedish! As I have always complained about the licence system and the business model of ebooks in general and how hard it is to buy ebooks in different languages from a specific country where that language is not spoken.

I also know that I like non-fiction books better than novels, so that is also part of the equation. But in my experience with English, it was when I started reading novels when everything kicked in my mind, and English started to stop feeling alien to me. So that is why I recently started Earth's Children novels and Les Rois Maudits ones, because I know they will help me with both English and French. Novels have a more difficult language, it is not as straightforward as an essay or a non-fiction book so it requires more complex skills to understand them (novels have a wider variety of vocabulary, literary vocabulary, literary styles, colloquial language, idioms, sayings, etc.)

And yes, I would say Chile is as beautiful as people say . It has a wide variety of different climates and landscapes. We have the driest desert in the world and also we have the rain forest in the south, and in the southernmost tip we have the Antarctic. We have a very long country with an ample coast and beaches, but also a large portion of Los Andes and its snowed peaks. Unfortunately, even though I live here I still have many places on my wish-list that I would like to visit, and I actually plan to make of Patagonia, my next destination.