Ani's 2017 Log

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tomgosse
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby tomgosse » Thu Mar 16, 2017 9:33 am

neofight78 wrote:You are trying to tempt me, I knew it was dangerous posting on a French thread! :P :lol:

Reactivating my school french is not something you want to do, the result would be something like the following:



Perhaps I'll give it a go after I've finished Russian. ;)

That's a pretty accurate representation of me speaking French. :oops:
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Cavesa » Thu Mar 16, 2017 6:00 pm

Ani wrote:
Cavesa wrote:I agree that Engrenages is a very hard series. Not because of Verlan or too much slang (even though there is slang) or other linguistic qualities. There is a lot of background noise most of the times (that's why I understood much better the lawyers than the policemen at the beginning), the speed is huge (again, there is a difference between the policemen and the lawyers), I think there is smaller volume difference between the speech and the background than in many other series, and so on.


Thanks for stopping by! Fortunately, it was only the criminals who were arrested that were giving me trouble, and sometimes when people yell over each other. My brain can't choose who to listen to and I definitely can't listen to both yet! :) Now in season 3, there is only Procureur Machard that I can't understand :lol:


A bit late but still: based on this bit of info, I dare to guess your level of listening comprehension is already pretty solid! Perhaps not sobbing children and very old people solid, not pure slang speech solid, but normal people in situ should seem totally ok! No need to feel discouraged, quite the opposite. This is a level you can definitely be proud of, while constantly improving.

There is a czech saying "Těžko na cvičišti, lehko na bojišti", which means "Difficult on the training ground, easy on the battlefield". And it is true in this case. :-D

Yes, people talking all at once or with a lot of background noice, that is a common problem. But I dare say it is not a language learning typical problem, as I am encountering it in Czech too. :-D
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:51 am

Cavesa wrote:A bit late but still: based on this bit of info, I dare to guess your level of listening comprehension is already pretty solid! Perhaps not sobbing children and very old people solid, not pure slang speech solid, but normal people in situ should seem totally ok! No need to feel discouraged, quite the opposite. This is a level you can definitely be proud of, while constantly improving.

There is a czech saying "Těžko na cvičišti, lehko na bojišti", which means "Difficult on the training ground, easy on the battlefield". And it is true in this case. :-D

Yes, people talking all at once or with a lot of background noice, that is a common problem. But I dare say it is not a language learning typical problem, as I am encountering it in Czech too. :-D



Difficult on the training ground, easy on the battlefield. I love it :) Hopefully that will be the case when I get a chance to really put it to the test. I haven't had trouble understanding or speaking to anyone I have spoken to but I don't trust that they aren't clarifying or simplifying their speech for me. We were planning on going to France this fall but I am not sure that will happen anymore.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby DaveBee » Fri Mar 17, 2017 10:04 am

Ani wrote:I haven't had trouble understanding or speaking to anyone I have spoken to but I don't trust that they aren't clarifying or simplifying their speech for me.
Do you ever listen to radio phone in programmes? French local radio network France Bleu have a recipe phone in programme called On Cuisine Ensemble. RFI do a health programme Priorité Santé that sometimes takes calls.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Sat Mar 18, 2017 1:59 am

My son and I started Greek today! He was super dooper excited and asked to do his lessons 15 times in a row to be sure he knew it. He is phonetic-processing challenged like I am so it will be slow going while he learns the alphabet and pronunciation. His (older and cooler) friend has been taking lessons all year though and is in the same book that I put him into. I think he could realistically catch up to her fairly quickly since she's on the 30 minutes a week plan. That would be really motivating for him. If he is motivated, I get to spread the language learning love to another generation AND have an excuse to buy new materials. Win Win :)

DaveBee wrote:Do you ever listen to radio phone in programmes? French local radio network France Bleu have a recipe phone in programme called On Cuisine Ensemble. RFI do a health programme Priorité Santé that sometimes takes calls.


I listen to all kinds of random things .. at least from time to time. I haven't seen either of those programs. Thanks!


---

With three weeks left before I have this baby, I figured it was a good time to make some concrete plans. Everything I need to do takes longer and I am more tired, so it is pretty easy just to stare off into space in the time I do have to relax. I really want to make sure I keep up my study goals sooo.. in the next three weeks I hope to:
-Finish Engrenages (1.5 seasons/18 episodes left on Netflix)
-Finish the book I am reading (Chroniques de l'oiseau à ressort) + 3 more. Not sure that is realistic exactly but I am going to aim for it
-Knock off a good handful of episodes of the dubbed series that I hope to eventually finish, Charmed, Buffy etc.
- Cover 3 units of FSI
- Get through lesson 11 of my Russian book and get comfortable with cursive handwriting. That will be the end of all the phonetics. It is a little embarrassing how slowly this is going but I keep trying to remind myself that Russian is NOT my primary goal this year.

I think I have a little too much planned. Oh well. Better to plan too much and not reach my goal than to plan too little and pat myself on the back for nothing :)

I'm right about 2,980 pages of French reading so far this year. TV series are a little harder to add up on the fly although I have them tracking in betaseries + a notebook for the few that aren't in betaseries. Without putting too much effort into checking everything, I'm roughly at 54 hours this year.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby MamaPata » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:41 am

You've done so much reading already this year! That's amazing! :shock: You're definitely motivating me to go and pick up a novel!
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:54 pm

Forgot to mention last post that my copy of Grammaire Progressive avancé came. I want to review and polish off some exercises I skipped in the intermediate book before I start. In light of everything I planned for myself for the next three weeks, I am going to be sensible and say that I will NOT be stating that review yet. Still I am anxious to work on the avancé book. I want to finish it and perfectionnement this year. Fortunately they are much shorter books than the intermediate one.

Also, Russian is hard. I am still really excited about it but... Yeah..it's going to take me about 100 years to get anywhere.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Xenops » Mon Mar 20, 2017 3:03 am

That's wonderful that his "cool" friend is encouraging him to learn Greek! Such cool friends are hard to find. :mrgreen:

Kudos while trying to study with the bun in the oven. :shock: Not having experienced myself, I would imagine it would be very tiring.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:07 am

Xenops wrote:That's wonderful that his "cool" friend is encouraging him to learn Greek! Such cool friends are hard to find. :mrgreen:

Kudos while trying to study with the bun in the oven. :shock: Not having experienced myself, I would imagine it would be very tiring.



She's super geeky. I love it. She's into physics too. I wish she were a year younger so they'd have a bit more in common. Heck I wish I were younger so she can I could be friends. Lol.

It's a bit tiring and I get a little brain foggy at the end, but my introverted nature goes into over drive when I am pregnant so it actually makes for some good study time. :)
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:22 pm

I'm getting a little tired of reading, which is a very weird feeling for me. It is possible I am just tired of reading Murikami but I don't really feel like picking up anything else either. I think the reason is a combination of putting pressure on myself and not spending enough time between books to process the "book hangover" before grabbing the next. Also, all this hanging out at the bottom of a well is getting depressing. I should finish it by the end of the week but I might not jump into the next one immediately. I'll have to think about it a little. I do have my next 1500 pages stacked up on my nightstand and I was hoping to finish it all by April 10, but I could also just shuffle the pile out of sight for a while.

I did binge-register for some MOOCs a while ago. I wasn't sure if I'd actually do any of them, but I watched the first lecture of 3 different courses today and they all seem pretty interesting. In the past, I have done weird things like try to transcribe the lectures, which makes a much bigger work. I've also done some where I have tried to take notes like a student and read background information on things I was not familiar with. If I am going to limit myself to watching the lectures and answering the quiz questions, I might actually finish some of these :) One was on basic probability, which is a nice review and good for vocabulary I know in English but not French. The other is on cartography, which I have honestly never given a second thought to so some of the ideas the presenter mentioned were interesting to think about. The third is Galois theory, which I don't remember well from school. It would be more of a commitment to keep up with that one so I am not sure if I will.

I also have been thinking about my level of French recently. I am not exactly sure where I stand right now, but it is definitely getting higher. Without an actual test, I'd feel really weird claiming an advanced level, but at the same time, I can't keep saying intermediate forever :-p I had B2's and a couple C1's on dialang about 5 months ago, and I've certainly improved a lot since then. I need something catchy and non-committal to represent this in my profile :lol:


Oh and one last bit. I learned the Russian word for kettlebell yesterday :lol: It's Ги́ря. I am so desperate to exercise properly again! 7-9 more weeks...
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