Suzie learns languages...every now and then

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Suzie
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Languages: German (N), English (C-ish), French (B-ish), Dutch (B1)
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then [FR]

Postby Suzie » Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:33 pm

And then I switched off the subtitles... :shock:

And it's working - like 95 % of the time. Sometimes I get lost, rewind, switch the subs back on, just to realize that it was really just one sentence or a word that threw me off the wagon. This is so cool! 8-)
I am halfway through the last season of "Stargate Atlantis" and feel well entertained. In between, I have been binge watching "The Big Bang Theory"... Just wanted to look up the delivery costs from Amazon France for the DVD box set, was tricked into a one-month trial period for Prime (I hate when they do that!), and discovered that I now can watch the show for free. :lol: I might stay another month to watch Picard, too. And Stargate Universe. I love how one can dive into low-key entertainment, using French learning as an excuse!

Reading-wise, I have now progressed to the last Harry Potter book. Part of me is glad when I am done with the series. Large parts of this book feel like this has been written with the movies-to-be and potential spin-offs in mind, and unfortunately, it is working just fine with me: I am definitely going to watch "Les Animaux fantastiques" afterwards.

The big Anki review is nearly done; just 300 cards left, I can finally start learning new words and dive into grammar exercises by end of the week. Yeah!

Wanderlust, bucket list and brain melts...

The war in Europe and some other recent events have reminded me that life is finite. Early-onset Alzheimer's runs in my mum's family, and I might just have 15 good years ahead of me. I hope this does not sound too depressing - I think 15 years is a lot of time, and I like to call this my "best before" date - life can be just as gorgeous afterwards, but I just prefer to avoid future regrets over missed opportunities. So I have been pondering over my bucket list.

Mastering French (aka DALF C2) remains one of my major life goals. I am still unsure about other foreign languages. 30 years ago, I learned Italian to an intermediate level; 20 years ago, I was fluent in Dutch. I would love to bring those two wonderful languages back into my life. I usually spend a lot of time in Sweden, love the sound of the language, so have been playing with the thought of learning Swedish, too. Same goes for Japanese; I have a friend in Yokohama and love the language and the culture. But. I am terrible at learning two languages at the same time. I remember how reading Tessa de Loo's "De tweeling" a few years ago resulted in a complete rewire of my brain from French to Dutch (which is not very helpful when one lives in Wallonia). Similar brain melts have happened before. I believe my English is now quite safe (that is - as safe as it can be; I even tend to mess up German when I am too immersed into another language...), but don't think I am there yet with French. So, for the time being, I'll keep grinding on my French and wait for an inspiration on how to approach this language learner's dilemma...
15 x
Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby Suzie » Sun Apr 24, 2022 9:16 am

Listening: Completed all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis in French: at decreased speed (0.9), sometimes with, sometimes without subs. I am realizing yet again how much work I will have to put into mastering listening to French.
18 % of my personal Super Challenge completed (55 hours). I'll continue with content from Amazon Prime as described earlier; jumping into the rest of the Stargate Franchise tonight. :D

Reading: Finished the first 1000 pages of my challenge (10 % completed). I am about halfway through Harry Potter VII and plan to add some intense (non-fiction) reading to the mix.

Studying: All cards in my Anki deck have now been reviewed, and I have started adding new cards, mixing B1 grammar, conjugation drills, words and sentences that I like from my reading/listening exposure as well as from CLE vocabulaire progressif (intermédiaire and avancé in parallel). As in autumn, I try to use this as a carrot in front of my nose to tangle my health and career goals as well as an endless to do list. Last summer, I developed a very complex and geeky system of when and how to study French; this complex system is again working well for me and pushing not only my French studies but also the rest of my life a bit forward.

Goals, next steps and wanderlust:

I have been pondering over the time/energy commitment required to reach C2 in French. I believe I could attempt the DALF in three years in a completely unrealistic perfect setting. Given that it took me 9 years to move from a strong A2 to a week B2, please focus on the words "completely unrealistic" here. Also, I am still not sure about what I really need to do to get there. Until I have a better idea, I continue with the mix of fun exposure and Anki-based vocabulary and grammar review. No goals for tutoring sessions or writing in the near future; but I am thinking of joining the "proper" Super Challenge, and plan some short trips to Belgium and France this year.

I have also taken some decisions to cope with my wanderlust: Even though I will spend more than two weeks in Sweden this year, I will not touch the language for now. Instead, I will make a break from French and dive back into Dutch for a month in Q3: I will attend a conference in Maastricht in September and would enjoy being able to converse with natives. Without proper preparation (and worse: with my brain full with French) I would fail horribly, but I believe some limited exposure will easily push me back to a comfortable intermediate level. So beginning of August, I will drop all French-related activities, have a small break to purge my brain, and read Maarten 't Hart's "Het woeden der gehele wereld". I bought this book 15-20 years ago and have never opened it. In addition, I'll aim for 5 hours of listening exposure (YT, films, news). In October, I'll switch back to French.
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Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:27 pm

Suzie wrote:Maarten 't Hart's "Het woeden der gehele wereld".
Digging out my extinct German and my extinct Old Norse and maybe my extinct Old English, I worked out the title means "The ------ of the whole world." Won't be looking for any prizes in understanding Dutch. :)
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby Suzie » Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:37 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
Suzie wrote:Maarten 't Hart's "Het woeden der gehele wereld".
Digging out my extinct German and my extinct Old Norse and maybe my extinct Old English, I worked out the title means "The ------ of the whole world." Won't be looking for any prizes in understanding Dutch. :)


"Woeden" would be best translated into "raging" I think. It is "Wüten" in German.
For a German native speaker, I would expect "gehele" may be the most difficult one to decipher. Did you understand this from your knowledge of Old Norse or from Old English?

Indeed it is quite amazing how close those languages are. I sometimes feel ashamed I list Dutch as a foreign language. ;)
0 x
Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby Suzie » Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:57 am

Suzie wrote:I realized another Super Challenge may not be a good fit at this point, for capacity reasons. I want to solidify my grammar studies first, and the Super Challenge would bind too much time to advance in this area. Also, I like the flexibility of switching between intensive and extensive reading whenever I feel like it. A time-restricted challenge would not allow for such flexibility. Also, I fear that the added pressure would result in exhaustion and burn-out; and I'd rather not have that.


Suzie wrote:Language: French
Challenge: full
Current level: weak B2
Comments, links: My past two Super Challenges (still at HTLAL; it's been a while...) have been super fun and done a great job improving my French. Hoping this one will push my passive skills to C1. Huge thanks to rdearman for setting this up once again!


Ok, obvious contradiction here. My concerns from six weeks ago are still valid. But then, what the heck. Let's just do this.

I must admit I got really excited when I registered. As excited as one can get making a commitment to a handful of people that you only know virtually. I truly enjoyed the last ones, took the commitment seriously, and still remember the sense of achievement during the last days of December each time. All will be easier, as both my reading and listening has become more fluent over the years, so I might be safe from overburdening myself. I mean, during the last two months I easily watched the equivalent of 40 % of a Super Challenge! In addition, I am on sick leave until end of next week, so I am aiming for a head start to ease the daily burden afterwards. Can't do anything else anyway than resting on the couch these days...

For the reading part, I will mostly aim for the typical N+1 comprehensible input. I feel a bit ashamed to admit the amount of unread books in French I have on my shelves. I counted them last summer, and I was shocked to realize I had purchased 55 books during my stay in Belgium that I had not yet opened once! :shock: In my defense, many of those were "en solde", or second hand books that I obtained from a friend or from flea markets. And I was a heavy user of my local library during my stay there, so usually read the library books while keeping the purchased ones for later. I shamefully admit that since this shocking relevation I somehow bought ten more books during my visites to Belgium last year. :roll: Hello, my name is Suzie, and I am a book shopaholic. :oops:

This sets the plan then for my next reading steps; out of sheer necessity (= sunken cost fallacy), I will aim for quantity rather than quality for the reading part. After all, this is how I brought English to the C-levels, and it worked; a tiny part of me wanted to speed up things with French a bit, but this may not be my path anyway, given my track record.

For the listening part, I decided to celebrate the start of the Super Challenge by watching both a Belgian classic (Tintin) and a French classic (Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain), which I both found on Amazon Prime (trial month still running). Other than that, no change of plans here. Mostly SciFi, nearly exclusively dubbed US series that I would have (re)watched anyway. Some audiobooks. And yes, my DVD rack is just as well equipped as my book shelves. :oops:

So, I am stopping my personal Suzie Double Super Challenge tomorrow night and will merge the effort with the official Super Challenge from Sunday onwards.

Personal stats as of April 30th, 2022:
Reading: 1048 pages = 20 books
Listening: 4780 minutes = 53 films
Last edited by Suzie on Sun May 08, 2022 5:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.
6 x
Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby Suzie » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:08 pm

2022/2023 Super Challenge: Books read

Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort (J.K. Rowling) (last 450 pages)
Doctor Who: L'horloge nucléaire (O. Smith) (273 p.)
Doctor Who: La chasse au mirage (G. Russell) (278 p.)
Le chirurgien (T. Gerritsen) (465 p.)
Le régime de longévité (V. Longo) (250 p.)
L'apprenti (T. Gerritsen) (399 p.)
La reine des morts (T. Gerritsen) (416 p.)
Pourquoi les Belges ne veulent pas devenir Français (B. Van Humbeeck) (214 p.)
Millénium IV: Ce qui ne me tue pas (D. Lagerkrantz) (528 p.)
Millénium V: La fille qui rendait coup pour coup (D. Lagerkrantz) (411 p.)
Millénium VI: La fille qui devait mourir (D. Lagerkrantz) (382 p.)
Doctor Who:L'armée oubliée (B. Minchin) (281 p.)
La grande histoire de la Belgique (P. Weber) (401 p.)
Last edited by Suzie on Sun Oct 01, 2023 5:31 pm, edited 14 times in total.
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Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby Suzie » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:09 pm

2022/2023 Super Challenge (completed):

Films

Tintin et le temple de soleil
Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain
Tulip Fever
Seuls sur terre
Downsizing
Harry Potter et le prince de sang mêlé
Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort I + II
Les intouchables
De l’autre côté du périph
Loin du périph
Demain tout commence
Star Trek: Beyond
8 Rue de l'humanité


TV shows
The Big Bang Theory s5 + s12é20-24
Star Trek: Picard s1+2
Star Trek: La nouvelle génération s1é13-26 + s2
Star Trek: Voyager s1
Doctor Who s5é4-13
Into the night s1+2
Yakamoz s-245 s1
Lupin s1+2
Stranger things s1é1+2
Timeless s1
Notre Dame
Disentchantment (a bit)
Stargate SG-1 s1é1-17

Audio books
Harry Potter et l'Ordre du Phénix (a bit)

Miscellaneous
Initiative pour l'Europe - Discours d'Emmanuel Macron (Sorbonne, 2017)
Last edited by Suzie on Sun Apr 30, 2023 7:40 am, edited 27 times in total.
1 x
Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then [FR]

Postby Suzie » Sat Apr 30, 2022 11:58 am

I did not mean to log another update before the start of the Super Challenge, but I feel I hit a major milestone yesterday, and I need to share! I was watching "The Big Bang Theory" in French (mostly without subs, which felt great and like a huge achievement already), and I heard two words that I did not know. So I looked them up. The words were blablater and vedette.

It sounds like something simple, like something a committed learner would do, right? But in my case, it was the first time ever that this was possible in French. Normally, when I hear a phrase with an unknown word, my brain just goes blank, and I completely fail to understand what was said. (Actually, this could also happen even if I know all the words, but the speaker was too fast, with a dialect, or the listening situation just short of perfect - you get what I mean).

I feel it is a major step not only towards robust listening skills, but also towards using the spoken word to learn the language. In other words, until yesterday I could only train listening to language that I understood (i.e. where I had seen all words/expressions before in writing, which would allow me to learn and recognize them). This new skill though will open a new world to me, like it did in English long time ago. To me, identifying (and - eventually - deciphering) an unknown word in spoken language is one of the key milestones to mastering listening skills in a foreign language. It took me about 400 hours of listening (since 2012) to get there in French!

It is well understood that I have not made a big jump in listening comprehension. Today, I totally fail to understand the same series without subtitles, and I switched them back on (trying to ignore them as much as possible though). Still, it was an amazing experience and worth celebrating!!! Hoping for more moments like this to come!

EDIT: (did not want to spam the forum with another post): Just learned another new word, just from listening: le bouquin! I like very much where this is going!
Also, a short Anki update, since it is end of the month: 1745 mature cards, 1121 New & Learn (2870 total)
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Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

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Suzie
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then [FR]

Postby Suzie » Sun May 08, 2022 9:30 am

End of week 1 of the Super Challenge, and (hopefully) the last day of my sick leave.

Benefiting from the last days of my trial month of Amazon Prime, I watched an obscene amount of movies and TV shows during this past week, counting as 21 films towards the challenge. With the exception of the two films mentioned earlier (Tintin et le temple de soleil, and Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain) all were dubbed. Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain was only available without subs, and by far the most difficult one. This was a rewatch, and the story is told by pictures rather than the spoken word - otherwise I am sure I would have been lost completely. My comprehension of the dialogues was about 60-70 % I think. Still, a lovely film and no wasted time at all.

Star Trek: Picard, on the contrary, was the most easiest to follow (although I had to rewind and also to rely on subtitles at times). The French voice-over of Sir Patrick Stewart (who is a pleasure to watch in any role) is very clear and distinct, and easy to understand for French learners. The show itself was ok and motivated me to dive back into the Star Trek franchise; I realize I had been avoiding to continue watching La nouvelle génération as I feel the show has aged badly.

Also, I realized that "seul" in a title (such as "Seuls sur terre") may indicate that there is not a lot of spoken language to expect. Therefore, I subtracted 20 minutes from the actual duration of the movie for counting purposes. Still, worth watching, mostly because of the awesome acting of Peter Dinklage. This was not the usual SciFi movie. Subtitles were not available, and after the film I felt I missed some information, so looked up some reviews. However, it seems that the backstory was intended to be cryptic. I believe I understood >97 % of what was said. The voice-over of Peter Dinklage was quite easy to understand, too, which gives hope for Game of Thrones (which I may or may not watch during this Super Challenge).

No listening goal for this week; afterwards I'll target 95 minutes per week.

I progressed well with reading, too; Harry Potter VII is nearing its end. I am aiming for 10 pages/day overall for the challenge.

Added more than 100 words to Anki this week, trying to develop a logic for when I should add or skip a new word. Still need to ponder a bit about this. Sometimes, I feel it is a complete waste of my life time to learn all those words, and just when my doubts take over, I realize how far my reading comprehension has evolved due to SRS. Still, the Anki reviews are again becoming a bit of a nuisance, so it might be wise to skip adding more and more new words for a while. I wonder if I will be able to hold back though.
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Super Challenge French:
100 books: 100 / 100 complete
100 films: 100 / 100 complete

LanguageLearner0007
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Re: Suzie learns languages...every now and then

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Sun May 08, 2022 4:21 pm

A bit of life happened between May 2017 and July 2021 :D

Impressed with the continuity, just wanted to say there are people on the same journey.

In adult life, so many things happen and sometimes the life is too hectic to dedicate yourself properly to learning a language.
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