Humerusthings log: German & French Log through Assimil 2024

[zjones]

French (long abandoned...)
1) Finish 2 duolingo lessons
2) Do 2 assimil french in use lessons

I know you say your French is long abandoned, but it's nice to see that you are trying to keep it active when you can. I too started learning French on Duolingo, and although I'm not a huge fan of Duolingo anymore, I do really love French. Your past method for studying French reminded me of mine. Take care!

[humerusthings]

I know you say your French is long abandoned, but it's nice to see that you are trying to keep it active when you can. I too started learning French on Duolingo, and although I'm not a huge fan of Duolingo anymore, I do really love French. Your past method for studying French reminded me of mine. Take care!

Hi Zelda! Thanks for the comment! I checked out your log and indeed we used alot of the same methods for studying French Haha. I only learned about Assimil from this forum but am loving it (from the little i've done haha). How's Assimil going for you so far?

I think duolingo is good for beginners and for getting people started but for making full sentences and actual conversation then nah it probably wouldn't work. I reaaaally wanted to check out glossika but then it sounded a little bit expensive, also I had too many resources to study all at once.

[zjones]

Hi Zelda! Thanks for the comment! I checked out your log and indeed we used alot of the same methods for studying French Haha. I only learned about Assimil from this forum but am loving it (from the little i've done haha). How's Assimil going for you so far?

I think duolingo is good for beginners and for getting people started but for making full sentences and actual conversation then nah it probably wouldn't work. I reaaaally wanted to check out glossika but then it sounded a little bit expensive, also I had too many resources to study all at once.

Assimil is great, even though I'm only on lesson 25. Like you, I enjoy the mild humor sprinkled throughout the course. It's definitely closer to British humor than American humor. I also like that one or two lessons per week are noticeably more difficult than others, which tests my listening comprehension. Did you ever get to the active phase (lesson 50+)?

I looked at Glossika too, but I just couldn't get over the price tag and their subscription-based service, yuck. I have a grudge toward Duolingo and their forced Crowns system, but it's true that I probably wouldn't have started learning French without the ease of access that Duolingo provides. The old Duolingo was nice and simple, if limited.

I find that if I only have 3 daily resources (Assimil, grammar book, podcast) that I can get everything completed without feeling overwhelmed. If I have extra time in a day, then I can use one of the multitude of other resources available.

[humerusthings]

Inspired by some of the other korean logs, here is what I did in terms of korean the past two weeks:

Sun 13th may
- Wrote a lang-8 entry (on stress) and got loads of very sweet comments in Korean from fellow lang-8 members, was very encouraging and motivating actually!
- learned 28 new vocab words when looking up vocab to write aforementioned lang8 entry

Mon 14th May
- learned a new grammar point on the subway ride to work (~ (ㅇ)/ㄹ 만학다) ie, that something is bearable/ worth doing.

Tues 15th May
- more subway studying - downloaded one of the TTMIK IYAGI PDFs - the one on space travel and learnt 8 new words

Quite like this new sentence I learnt, made me feel more cheerful:
어제 집에 가는 길에 아주 멋진 커피숍 발견핬다
I came across a great coffee shop on my way home yesterday

Tues 22nd May
- Sogang 3b - Listening passages for chapter 1 and 2
- Sogang 3b chapter 2 Grammar (~을래요 and ~ 네요)
- Looked ats some Chapter 3 grammar - ~았/었더니 but it looks soooo confusing

So yeah, life is busy but since I have some time on the 1 hour subway ride, have been using that to learn some korean grammar. I find that life gets less stressful (?) if I use the other side of my brain ie the languages side too rather than the side thinking of medicine and differential diagnosis all the time. Also, it's nice to decompress after work a little bit! Turns out just working nonstop under stressful conditions is actually not the key to sanity, who would have thought...

I'm not too sure how much of all this grammar is sticking though since consistency is not really there but I can definitely read and understand simple-ish Korean so I guess some must be sticking through this slow-osmosis method. Although I probably won't be writing fluent Korean essays anytime soon without the help of naver dictionary.

Aims for June and rest of May
- Hopefully get one italki class in during my upcoming leave - either Seulgi my fav teacher or try one of the other italki teachers the Korean loggers have been suggesting - there's a really nifty list of good Korean italki teachers floating around!
- There's a free trial class at the local korean school i signed up for in June - it's called advanced but covers part of Yonsei 3-1 (which I own, just havent read much of the book), should be fun!
- try to get to halfway through the Sogang 3b book -reach at least chapter 4 (in terms of just the textbook)
- read KGIU grammar points and learn vocab on iyagi on the subway ride to and fro from work

French is a little on the backburner for now until I get to a less stressful posting at work (if that ever happens...?), sadly I can't really keep two languages in my brain at the same time, I think Korean is easier due to all the korean dramas and korean music I listen to really. It's sad though, I did enjoy the period when I was more comfortable at work and had more free time to study 2 languages due to shift work and post night days.

[humerusthings]

Korean
23/4/18 Wed
Studied ~ 더니 grammar point over breakfast. It's still tricky though. Will need to drill this with KGIU on a day I have more time. I guess it isn't something I hear very often in dramas or songs..?? Do Koreans actually use this grammar point much in real life/ conversations?

French
23/4/18 Wed
Lunch hour - 3 Kwiziq quizzes , learnt: avoir raison/ tort/ de la chance (to be right/ wrong lucky), faire confiance (to trust), de avance/ de retart (to be early/ late)

24/5/18 Thurs
Checked out lingQ, it seemed quite interesting but then sadly the 20 free lingQs ran out, and I think i have enough material currently such that it doesnt really seem practical to pay for a subscription to it lingQ for now?
Checked out duolingo's new crown system - did compound past, weather lessons and a few other lessons that got moved around after i switched over to crowns - doesn't seem thaaat bad for now, seeing as I managed to learn 47 new vocab words overall from duolingo today!

I've also learnt 1159 french words in total in duolingo so far!

Aim: To learn 2000 french words total in duolingo by the end of this posting (ie end of june 2018).

Have two overnight shifts coming up back to back so won't be able to study much for awhile (may not even be able to sleep, or eat, or even catch a breather haha), but after that will be having one week of leave! So loads of time to chill and for language learning

ALSO, may be going to France sometime in September, so that's a huuge inspiration to be slightly conversant in French so at least I can order coffee and breakfast as well as ask my way around.

[humerusthings]

I find that if I only have 3 daily resources (Assimil, grammar book, podcast) that I can get everything completed without feeling overwhelmed. If I have extra time in a day, then I can use one of the multitude of other resources available.

Hey Zelda,
I'm still at around lesson 32 on Assimil actually haha!
But yes I totally agree on the point about having only a finite amount of daily resources! And also I like having a textbook/ grammar book to follow so that I can progress in a more structured manner (rather than hopping around on a different multitude of online resources, also that's fun too!).

Thanks to the suggestions of this forum I bought grammaire progressive du francais which was great! (Well for the few chapters I've done of it so far).

[Bunnychu]

Korean
23/4/18 Wed
Studied ~ 더니 grammar point over breakfast. It's still tricky though. Will need to drill this with KGIU on a day I have more time. I guess it isn't something I hear very often in dramas or songs..??

I don't use this grammar point often but I learned it by mistaking it with 았/었더니 and after that it was much clearer.

-더니 (describing what happened in relation to your discovery of a fact) = and therefore, but
- Subject = you, he/she
- both clauses have the same subject

아침에 비가 진짜 많이 왔어요. 지금은 그쳤어요.
아침에 비가 진짜 많이 오더니 지금은 그쳤어요. (but)

A가 한국어를 열심히 공부했어요. 지금은 잘 해요.
A가 한국어를 열심히 공부하더니 지금은 잘 해요. (therefore)


-았/었더니 = and therefore (no 'but' because you can't use it for contrast)
- Subject = I (Subject = ‘나’)
- the clauses can have different subjects
- only used with action verbs
- action-> result (of a past action)

운동을 무리하게 했어요. 온몸이 아파요.
운동을 무리하게 했더니 온몸이 아파요.

한국어를 열심히 연습했어요. 실력이 많이 늘었어요.
한국어를 열심히 연습했더니 실력이 많이 늘었어요.

어젯밤에 아이스크림을 많이 먹었어요. 배탈이 났어요.
어젯밤에 아이스크림을 많이 먹었더니 배탈이 났어요.

I usually go about them the following way:

더니 (third person)
았/었더니 (first person)

(저는) 운동을 많이 했더니 피곤해요.
(저는) 한국어 공부를 열심히 했더니 실력이 많이 좋아졌어요.

A가 아까 운동을 많이 하더니 지금 뻗었어요.
A가 스페인어를 열심히 연습하더니 실력이 늘었어요.

There are better explanations than this one but I hope it's somewhat helpful. ^ㅅ^

[humerusthings]

I don't use this grammar point often but I learned it by mistaking it with 았/었더니 and after that it was much clearer.
There are better explanations than this one but I hope it's somewhat helpful. ^ㅅ^

Wow thank you~! That was really helpful!
In fact i think i DID mistake it with 았/었더니... haha.

[humerusthings]

French study log: Tues 29/5/18

Expressions (from lawless french)
Dans son assiette = to feel well/ to feel like onself
Trouver son bonheur = to find one's happiness
Avoir du pain sur la planche - to have a lot to do/ a lot on one's plate

3 duolingo lessons - Household objects/ Pronominal verbs/ Directions

Learnt total 31 new words from Duolingo today!

Interesting links I chanced upon
https://www.innerfrench.com/podcasts - looks good but too intermediate for me haha
https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/course- ... on01/about - Alliance Francaise A1 online course? Looks good but also a little bit intermediate? Guess my level must be more like A0 haha..

Time to also crack open grammaire progressive du francais...

[humerusthings]

29/5/18
(more studying that i did after I posted the last log)
French
- Coffee Break French S2 Ep 1, 36
- Conditional tense
- Coffee break French reading club 1 article

Korean - wrote an intro paragraph to a new italki tutor and booked the class!

30/5/18
French - 4 micro kwqizes and revised passe compose
Korean - wrote an entry on lang 8

31/5/18
- Had my first italki lesson with this new korean tutor! One of those I came to know abt through this forum haha, she came quite highly reccomended. She is SO strict though with the pronounciation but it's good cos then I can become better haha. But then again I doubt my schedule is going to hold up to her rigourous lessons (??) so perhaps my old tutor Seulgi is best cos we just chat and go through sogang grammar points in a very informal relaxed manner? But I'll have to take another lesson with the new tutor first to decide haha.