There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:06 pm

neofight78 wrote:Best of luck with your final year, work hard but don't stress yourself out. We'll all be rooting for you! :)


Systematiker wrote:Best of luck with your final year, work hard but don't stress yourself out. We'll all be rooting for you! :)


Thank you both! It's much appreciated. :)
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:28 pm

This last week has been pretty good (though could be improved). I have printed off a calendar month and have set myself a number of tasks I want to do regularly: Russian reading, writing, translation, memrise, grammar, focused French study, any kind of Spanish, knee exercises. Each goal has a different colour, and when I do them I draw a box onto that day in that colour. It's a useful way of seeing what I'm managing to do (which it has to be said, is never translation...) and providing me with a small reminder. I'm going to see how it goes for the rest of the month and then I my narrow down and change my goals for next month.


Russian

- 8.5 hours of Russian
- Read: 12 pages of 'The History of the US'. I am finding a lot of new vocabulary here, so that seems very useful.
- Watched: 1 episode of the Romanovs on Star Media. I have been watching quite a lot in French and Spanish and this just hasn't really made it in.
- Wrote: 539 words. It's a start!
- Grammar: I have finished every module in Schaum's grammar (several of them before last week) and I now just have to work through Verbs and Numbers. It's definitely been useful and I want to keep up this kind of grammar work.
- 1 italki lesson

French
- 5.5 hours of French
- Read: 25 pages of 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky and a few pages of 'L'élégance des veuves'by Alice Ferney. Both are excellent, but deserve intensive reading I feel so are taking me a while.
- Watched: I made my parents start watching Jane the Virgin in French, so there's been a few episodes of that.
- 1 italki lesson

I have started doing the TV5 Monde exercises. They generally involve watching a short news video and then answering 4 questions. In the past I did a DELF preparation course and found that while I understood the texts very well, I often didn't understand the questions or couldn't work out what the answer they were looking for was. So this seems like a good way to help boost my listening comprehension and vocabulary, while easing me into those kind of questions very gently.

I have also signed up for two French courses at my local adult education college (both short term) - one is DELF preparation and the other is in French on cinema. So I am looking forward to those. Courses are flawed and it depends a lot on your teacher and the other students, but I have always found them very useful personally, as they provide a different insight as well as structure.

Spanish
- 4 hours of Spanish. This has been almost entirely watching 'Daredevil' in Spanish, which is not the greatest task, but is at least getting me back into the swing of things. I'm not taking Spanish seriously for the time being, I'm just trying to keep it a small part of my life, so this works really well. (And gives me a good excuse to watch terrible TV and attractive actors!). Until I graduate, Spanish isn't my priority, but I do really love it, so this seems like a good way to manage that.
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:36 pm

In one of the books I am reading I have come across the French sentence "de dos, et si d'aventure elle restait immobile, on aurait pu la croire aussi fragile qu'on la voyait fluette". I understand the sense of this - the idea that she looks a lot more fragile than she is, partly due to being slender. But I don't exactly understand the first and last bits of the sentence ("de dos, et si d'aventure...la voyait fluette). Could anyone suggest a translation or explanation?
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Arnaud » Thu Jun 15, 2017 9:02 pm

MamaPata wrote:In one of the books I am reading I have come across the French sentence "de dos, et si d'aventure elle restait immobile, on aurait pu la croire aussi fragile qu'on la voyait fluette". I understand the sense of this - the idea that she looks a lot more fragile than she is, partly due to being slender. But I don't exactly understand the first and last bits of the sentence ("de dos, et si d'aventure...la voyait fluette). Could anyone suggest a translation or explanation?
(Vue) de dos->seen from the back : the woman's face is not in front of you, you only see her back, her ass, her nape, etc as if she was going away.
Si d'aventure=si jamais=si
Seen from the back, if ever she stayed motionless, one could have thought she's as fragile as she looks slender (she's stronger than what her silhouette suggests). Sorry for the bad english...
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Fri Jun 16, 2017 6:51 am

Arnaud wrote:
MamaPata wrote:In one of the books I am reading I have come across the French sentence "de dos, et si d'aventure elle restait immobile, on aurait pu la croire aussi fragile qu'on la voyait fluette". I understand the sense of this - the idea that she looks a lot more fragile than she is, partly due to being slender. But I don't exactly understand the first and last bits of the sentence ("de dos, et si d'aventure...la voyait fluette). Could anyone suggest a translation or explanation?
(Vue) de dos->seen from the back : the woman's face is not in front of you, you only see her back, her ass, her nape, etc as if she was going away.
Si d'aventure=si jamais=si
Seen from the back, if ever she stayed motionless, one could have thought she's as fragile as she looks slender (she's stronger than what her silhouette suggests). Sorry for the bad english...


That's brilliant, thank you! I was pretty sure that 'de dos' meant from beind, but I had never comeacross 'si d'aventure'. Thank you for your help!
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sun Jun 18, 2017 4:20 pm

This week started out very well and then slipped for the second half for assorted reasons. But it looks like I will be home for a lot of this coming week so that should help me get back on track. I downloaded Tandem, so I am getting in a little practice that way, but I may delete it - I have enough problems replying to people I know!

Russian
- 12 hours of Russian. Most of this jump came from the fact that I went to a Russian meetup, which was good fun. It takes place in quite a busy pub so I do have a lot of difficulties hearing, which is more of a problem than my actual Russian. (Which is nice, I guess?) Quite a few native speakers go and it's a decent sized group, so there's a good balance and a chance to speak to quite a few people. I'm meeting up with two of the women I was speaking to later in the month, so that should be good.
- Read: 80 pages of the Tamora Pierce translation, and 12 pages of History of the USA.
- Watched: :oops:
- Wrote: 839 words - mostly contacting people about language exchanges.
- Grammar: A little from 'I love Russian verbs' (it lies) and Schaum's.

French
- 3 hours of French
- Read: 10 pages of L'elegance des Veuves. It's so good. (Many thanks to Arnaud for helping me out with it!)
- Watched: Two episodes of Jane the Virgin with my parents. I am planning to find a native French series to start soon - I have a few options lined up.

Spanish
Spanish went a bit off the boil this week, but I still watched a couple of episodes of Daredevil.
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sun Jun 25, 2017 11:26 am

I have finished my French super challenge! :D (Let's ignore the fact that Russian is meant to be my priority and I am lagging so far behind with Russian). I definitely don't think I can manage a double by the end of the year but I may push to try and get to 1.5. This has been really useful for me and I am so glad I came across it and the forum. I have seen a big leap in my vocabulary and my comprehension, and it has definitely helped me keep my active skills from deteriorating. However, I think the main thing is that it has helped me like French again and make French a part of my life. I am now thinking quite seriously about a future in a French speaking country and about doing the DELF/DALF, and that is all due to the super challenge.

Russian
- 9.5 hours of Russian.
- Read: 40 pages of Tamora Pierce.
- Watched: :oops:
- Wrote: 693. Once again, this started well and then dropped off. I have nearly reached a quater of the output challenge, which is obviously way behind schedule but it is so much more than I would have been doing otherwise.
- Grammar: Still plugging away with Schaum's.
- 2 language exchanges (one of which decided she wasn't up to speaking English so I got a full hour of Russian). Both of these look like they will continue so that should be good.
- 2 italki lessons.

I finally started translating texts! I have been intending to do this all month and this is the first time I have actually done it. I am looking at a fairly easy article (Buzzfeed style) and it's taking me a ridiculously long time, but at least I'm trying!

French
- 5 hours of French
- Read: 42 pages of "Le Roi de Fer" and the equivalent of 150 pages of fanfiction. (I'm not entirely sure how that last bit happened).
- Watched: Nothing.

Spanish
Nothing. Most of my Spanish lately has been through TV, because I need to concentrate on French and Russian and so don't want to spend a lot of time seriously working on Spanish. If I am working on Spanish, it needs to be relaxed time. However, I feel quite weird watching TV during the day, but my evenings have been very busy this week.
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Elenia
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Elenia » Sun Jul 02, 2017 1:52 pm

Well done! Both your Super and your Output challenges are way ahead of me!
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:21 am

Elenia wrote:Well done! Both your Super and your Output challenges are way ahead of me!


Thank you! It definitely helps that I am currently not working or moving countries! (Also, I am very much using French to procrastinate on Russian, so the extent to which this is wise...)
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:52 am

When did it get to July? :o I now have just under three months until term starts again (university holidays are totally mad) so I definitely need to get my act together in terms of languages and preparing for that. This is my last week not working, so the amount of free time I have is about to drop fast, which will probably affect how much I manage to get done. (But also, yay! Work! Money!) I mentioned previously that I have been setting myself a list of daily tasks that I tick off on a monthly calendar, so it has been quite interesting to look at that over the last month and to work out what stays and what goes. It's definitely a useful technique for me at the moment.

I have managed to do a decent amount of Russian over the last week, but it's definitely being sidelined by French at the moment and I'm not sure what to do about that. I do love Russian, but I'm not looking forward to my classes next year. So I'm doing a bit of work, but I'm not getting into it in the way that I am French. I think this is the first week since I have been counting where I have done more French than Russian. (Equally, when I need to study for the French exams this year, this will probably switch over).

Russian
- 10 hours of Russian.
- Read: 240 pages of Tamora Pierce. Most of my Russian came from reading last week. But I am glad to be done with this book - I like it a lot but it's a YA novel that doesn't quite hold up to months of sustained reading. Not sure what I will go to next.
- Watched: 1 episode of Once Upon a Time.
- Wrote: Literally nothing. :oops:
- Grammar: I finished working through Schaum's! :D On to the next one!

French
- 11 hours of French
- Read: 10 pages of Le Terroriste Noir (linked from a TV5 exercise), 70 pages of fanfiction, 15 pages of Les Mis.
- Watched: A few TV5 Monde videos, lots of Marine LeLeu's videos on youtube and Instagram, an episode or two of Jane the Virgin.

I did the Dialang level tests for French and it wasn't very reassuring. I got a C1 prediction for reading (which feels generous) but otherwise mostly B1, with one B2. Some of this I think can be put down to the fact that the site wasn't working properly for me, so by the time I managed to do them, I was pretty impatient (and we have building going on, which made the listening a little more challenging). But it is a warning sign for me. Plus, in class, we were doing exercises on synonyms - either providing them, or finding the most suitable one - and boy, was that a disaster.

My French is currently fine for all the things I do with it - I can read happily, watch TV. But it's not accurate or precise and this is a problem. Our teacher was saying to us that we really need to be reading regularly, but I already do read a decent amount. I think the issue is that I really need to switch to reading intensively. I tend to read on the bus, so I am unable to look things up. I find LWT faintly irritating (I find intensive reading fairly irritating) but I think I just need to work this into my routine, in order to build my vocabulary and become more exacting with myself. Bleh.

Spanish

Don't ask.
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