Kat's French Learning Log

[Phantom Kat]

It seems like ages since I made my Finnish learning log back in the old forums.

So I've always been interested in French on and off since I was kid. I can still recall some of those useless sentences from a French program we had for the PC. (The gorilla is on top of the car. The dog is on top of the carpet.) I haven't delved into language learning in so long that I thought I should tackle French once and for all. I love its pronunciation and how it taunts me with how close it is to Spanish.

Materials and resources I have:

- Assimil French with Ease
- Rocket French (Levels 1, 2, 3)
- 501 French Verbs
- Two French/English dictionaries that I dug up from the depths of my bookshelf
- Tumblebooks (for French children's books with audio)
- My sister, who's around B1-B2

Output Challenge! 50,000 words

335 words

And here we go!

[tomgosse]

Bonjour et bienvenue !

Welcome to the forum. Please take a look at our French group. The link is in the signature. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

À bientôt,
Tom

[Phantom Kat]

Bonjour et bienvenue !

Welcome to the forum. Please take a look at our French group. The link is in the signature. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

À bientôt,
Tom

Merci! I'll definitely make use of the French group and all those wonderful resources!

[Phantom Kat]

So here's a rundown of what I've done so far. I started my French journey around a week and a half ago.

Assimil

I finished up Lesson 8 last night. I'm finding it easy to follow along with the dialogue, and after two or three reviews I just need to glance at the English to make sure I understood everything. I'm trying not to analyze the grammar notes too much right now. As long as I can understand the grammar in the context of the lesson dialogue then I'm good. (Especially since Rocket French has lessons on grammar.) However, I'm certainly making it a point to go back and redo the lessons with the most grammar notes.

Also, my personal laptop died on me and my work laptop doesn't have a CD drive, so I'll have to make due with only the first audio CD.

Rocket French

I've done up to Lesson 1.11. The notes on être were really welcomed. Now I feel I'll understand a little bit more of those song lyrics I've been listening to and those children's books I've been reading. I really, really like the fact that it's forcing me to speak and work on my pronunciation. ("No, I did not mean minecraft.") That's really where I feel I'm getting the most bang for my buck. I like the fact that the dialogues are short and are split into recordings that I can go back and repeat as many times as I want.

Tumblebooks

There's 45 French children's books with audio on here, so I've just been listening and following along to the ones that have caught my eye. The fact that there's no English translation forces my brain to work overtime and think back to everything I've covered so far in Assimil and Rocket French. I'm also relying a lot on the Spanish --> French vocabulary transfer that's going on.

Sneaking French at Work

Elementary teacher here. I put on Christmas carols on French while the kiddos were finishing up their Christmas crafts. I had some vocabulary words reinforced while they were struggling with their origami. lol

What's coming up?

- It looks like Lesson 1.14 of Rocket French will be covering the "de la, de, and des" grammar part that Assimil had in Lesson 6. I'll compare those notes with Assimil to really hammer it home. This will also be the perfect opportunity to write some practice sentences.

- Flashcards. I need flashcards. Since Anki won't work on my work chromebook and I don't want to bite the bullet for the paid app right now I'll go old-school. I'll start with making flashcards of the most frequent words that pop up in the children's books on Tumblebooks, then with the ones that pop up on Assimil and Rocket French.

- I need to start writing practice sentences. I know that's the reason I still remember the Finnish I do. I've also been avoiding the Write It! portions on Rocket French, so I'll need to review the lessons I've already done and do those portions. (Probably on paper because it makes memorization so much easier.)

[rdearman]

As for anki you don't actually have to pay for it or install it. The web version works in all web browsers, so it would work on your chromebook and on your phone. I'm assuming you've an IPhone since that is the version you have to pay for. The android version is free.

You also might want to check out the Master list of Resources for the French thread, there are a ton of links and resources there.

[Phantom Kat]

As for anki you don't actually have to pay for it or install it. The web version works in all web browsers, so it would work on your chromebook and on your phone. I'm assuming you've an IPhone since that is the version you have to pay for. The android version is free.

You also might want to check out the Master list of Resources for the French thread, there are a ton of links and resources there.

Ooh, I see that now! Thanks for the tip. I was going off when I used Anki last, like 2012. Off to make my decks now.

I'll definitely check out the list of Resources.

[Phantom Kat]

Rocket French

Went over Lesson 1.12, the verb avoir, and how to use with feelings/emotions. Nothing too different from Spanish. I'll add those conjugations to Anki to get them down.

As for Lessons 1.13, 1.14, and those cardinal numbers.. who hurt you, French? I'm glad I don't have to teach Math in French!

Other things

Find out my PS3 can play CDs, so now I'm not limited to the first Assimil CD.

[Phantom Kat]

Rocket French

Finished Module 1. I went back to redo the exercises for Lesson 1.1 - 1.5 to get some vocabulary and conjugations review. I'll review more before I take the Module 1 test.

Tumblebooks: Bambou (Level K-2)

For the most part I followed this story about a monkey and her pet human very well. What I really like about Tumblebooks is that pictures can be animated, and that really helps with figuring out the meaning of words (i.e. like having the monkey actually slide down to show the verb gliser).

Tumblebooks: Un Amour de Luluo

This one was harder to follow along. I still got the main gist of the pages, but there were more words I couldn't decipher through context. I added a nice chunk of words to my deck.

Assimil

I completed Lesson 9 and reviewed Lessons 8, 7, and 6. It's getting tricky keeping all of these grammar notes straight, so it looks like I'll be making my own exercises for each one. I'll review cet, cette, ce, ces and du, de la, des, de first.

[Phantom Kat]

Writing Practice

I finally took one of my unused notebooks and began to write. I forgot how much I love seeing a page fill up with repetitive sentences and notes on the margins. There's just something calming about meticulously writing and double-checking all the resources scattered around you. I also remember more details when I write them on paper, as opposed to on the computer.

I worked on making nouns from singular and plural, then using the singular in plural with definite and indefinite articles. (le, la, les) and (un, une, des). That led me to working on using definite articles with Verbs of Preference. I finally cracked open my 501 French Verbs book. I have a lot of colored sticky notes lying about, so I'll mark the Verbs of Preference with a specific color for easy reference.

After that I worked on de,du, de la, de l', des when it concerns "of, of the" and "some, several." My sister came into town with her SAT II French Book, and I got some notes about this.

[Phantom Kat]

Writing Practice

I decided to tackle conjugating verbs in the present tense, starting with words with -er endings. Pretty straightforward, although I have to keep an eye on when I use -ons and when I use -eons, like with verbs like nager and manger. (So nous mageons vs. nous chantons.)

I use a lot of -er verbs to create simple sentences with plural and singular nouns. This ended with me writing some wonderful sentences, like, Le chien enterre le corpse de la fille.

After that I worked on verbs with the -ir ending. I ran into some verbs like couiller that are conjugated like -er verbs. Looks like I'll be tagging the irregular verbs in 501 French Verbs so I can keep on using them during writing practice.

Lastly, I worked on ce, cet, cette, ces with nouns, combined with -ci and -là for further clarification.

In total I wrote 23 sentences with these verbs and articles.

The Output Challenge

So I've decided to take part in the output challenge! I'll only be doing the written portion, so I"ll be doing 50,000 words. If I can win the actual NaNoWriMo then I can do this one, too. I'll only be counting actual sentences written in French and not conjugating practice or plural/singular/"some" practice with noun articles. Today I wrote 170 words. I'll keep an updated count on my first post.