Ani's 2018 Log

[PeterMollenburg]

I bet your French is bloody awesome! I like your revolutionary idea, and I'd like to join you, but I quit on you once before, so I won't run that risk again.... and I have too many resources!!! It's insanse! I tell you now if I had my time over I'd save myself a lot of money and buy resources as I need them dammit! Yeah Mauger sounds good... after FIA and FSI, Assimil and the Progressif/ Progressive series... what? The Big Five? Is that what you said????

(PM starts running madly -in circles while pulling hair out -of other peoples heads- wouldn't want to lose his own hair, can't run that risk! and shouting at them "do the &*^%%$& courses for me! #### do the courses now dammit!!). Ahem (clears throat) yes, why I believe that would be an incredibly wise decision, to complete all the Mauger Cours de Langue et Civilisation Francaises.... why wouldn't you? (quietly, secretly, i'm very envious, since there's no room in my bloody schedule!!!). Good luck Ani!

Lol. You know I have no resentment the you quit. That plan was somewhere between overly ambitious and stupid but it sure was fun while it lasted
I really can't figure out what actually you have in your schedule, but no, you cannot go back and be finishing Mauger's volume 1 right now. I get to do it because my French is not bloody awesome. I found three words I didn't know in the preface to the first book, and since I don't really know IPA, I can take the time to learn it while I do the first exercises. I'm so sick of being dependant on Linguee to check phrases, googling how to spell this conjugation of this word I want to use. I feel like a huge cheater. I want to be able to sit down with a pen and write decent French that matches my education level. Also, while I do know a bajillion nouns and have a decent vocabulary, so much is limited to crap you say to kids, that when I try to express more complex ideas or talk about adult subjects I either get tongue tied on more nuanced ideas, or don't have the vocab for other subjects.
These are times I regret not still being in college when I could have sat down on a couch with a couple of Frenchie girlfriends and a couple bottles of wine and talked all night and sorted out all my linguistic problems. Double regret because I did that so many times without learning French and now that I'm ready, the opportunity is passed. It's not so easy to make French speaking friends these days.. at least I have no idea how to do it.
Er uhm.. sorry to get a little emotional there. Betcha didn't expect to walk into that one .

I believe, if we had a "French Off" (whatever that means), that you'd beat me! I still struggle with nuanced complex ideas, and I highly doubt I am as accomplished as many ppl on this forum may think I am, and yet, I really should be. What's that you wanna French off? Pick the online exam... and I'll meet you there! Oh, and uhh... yes I did walk into that one. I kinda know what it's like to a degree. I used to think of how cool it was to hang out with all the young internationals when I was also young... that happened like twice, and now i'm going grey dammit! and chatting up young travellers would be just bloody weird... and actually probably no longer that interesting....

[aaleks]

I'm so sick of being dependant on Linguee to check phrases, googling how to spell this conjugation of this word I want to use. I feel like a huge cheater. I want to be able to sit down with a pen and write decent French that matches my education level.

I wouldn't call it cheating. To me it's a part of my studying. I don't have someone who could check my writing so the googling is my way to find mistakes and learn from them. The other reason why I google-check my texts before posting them here, on the forum, is that I just want to make them readable. From time to time I write unchecked posts only in my log. I guess I should've done that more often because now it's more about psychological dependence than anything else. Usually I know if that or this couldn't be said like this or that (lol.. ) I check just in case, to be sure. But I don't think that studying more grammar would help me overcome that dependence. It seems that's more about writing itself.

btw. I don't know IPA either or at least I don't know it enough to make a real use of it. I can "read" some of those "letters" but that's all.

[Ani]

[

I believe, if we had a "French Off" (whatever that means), that you'd beat me! I still struggle with nuanced complex ideas, and I highly doubt I am as accomplished as many ppl on this forum may think I am, and yet, I really should be. What's that you wanna French off? Pick the online exam... and I'll meet you there! Oh, and uhh... yes I did walk into that one. I kinda know what it's like to a degree. I used to think of how cool it was to hang out with all the young internationals when I was also young... that happened like twice, and now i'm going grey dammit! and chatting up young travellers would be just bloody weird... and actually probably no longer that interesting....

I would totally do a French-off with you. I'm not sure what we could use. You'll definitely beat me, except possibly maybe on listening. But then again, the types of vocab on these tests are my weakest categories. Current events, no. Vampire fiction? I've probably got you beat.

It's true, young internationals are probably not as interesting as they once were. Actually I was never really into the international crowd.. I'm envisioning my girlfriends adequately aging with me. Maybe I should make a social media mission to make French friends...

I'm so sick of being dependant on Linguee to check phrases, googling how to spell this conjugation of this word I want to use. I feel like a huge cheater. I want to be able to sit down with a pen and write decent French that matches my education level.

I wouldn't call it cheating. To me it's a part of my studying. I don't have someone who could check my writing so the googling is my way to find mistakes and learn from them. The other reason why I google-check my texts before posting them here, on the forum, is that I just want to make them readable. From time to time I write unchecked posts only in my log. I guess I should've done that more often because now it's more about psychological dependence than anything else. Usually I know if that or this couldn't be said like this or that (lol.. ) I check just in case, to be sure. But I don't think that studying more grammar would help me overcome that dependence. It seems that's more about writing itself.

btw. I don't know IPA either or at least I don't know it enough to make a real use of it. I can "read" some of those "letters" but that's all.

I thought about you when I wrote that. I do remember you saying that your writing isn't as good as we keep telling you because you've checked it & edited a bunch. The psychological dependence is real and a thief of confidence. So you tell me -- Your writing has looked near native with very minor mistakes for at least 6 months. Do you find writing getting easier? Reduction in thing you need to check? Do you see an end to the google-checking at some point in the future? Or do you feel like you'd need to change strategies to keep a high level of writing without access to the internet?

If writing with crutches is the way to go, I can do more. But I really wonder if that is the solution.. and I'm afraid of writing volume without crutches because I know myself in that I'm prone to learn things wrong.

Some part of me thinks maybe I should just be copying a novel by hand.. or for heaven sakes doing dictée for hours a day.

[Systematiker]

[quote="Ani”]
... and I'm afraid of writing volume without crutches because I know myself in that I'm prone to learn things wrong. [/quote]

This is a real worry! I did this in German, and despite everything writing is still my weakest skill - perhaps that’s not directly connected, however, I have ingrained certain written mistakes from when I would get 30-40 pages ahead of my proofer (ahem, wife) and had produced the same wrong construction 15-odd times. It’s also why I really hate writing in any language, I’m so worried about doing what I did in German. Some stuff was a pain to fix. Some stuff I still do and only catch when I look it over.


Edit: yeah my tablet is screwing up the quote function again

[Ani]

[quote="Ani”]
... and I'm afraid of writing volume without crutches because I know myself in that I'm prone to learn things wrong. [/quote]

This is a real worry! I did this in German, and despite everything writing is still my weakest skill - perhaps that’s not directly connected, however, I have ingrained certain written mistakes from when I would get 30-40 pages ahead of my proofer (ahem, wife) and had produced the same wrong construction 15-odd times. It’s also why I really hate writing in any language, I’m so worried about doing what I did in German. Some stuff was a pain to fix. Some stuff I still do and only catch when I look it over.


Edit: yeah my tablet is screwing up the quote function again[/quote]

So tell me how to fix it! I'll glad to know I'm not irrational (at least on that topic).. what approches do you take to writing now? Short of having a native sitting over my shoulder.. there's gotta be a way that is accomplishable in my lifetime.
I think the anti-moon people did it with anki? Maybe the it only option is massive cloze deletion?

[Systematiker]

[quote="Ani”]
... and I'm afraid of writing volume without crutches because I know myself in that I'm prone to learn things wrong. [/quote]

This is a real worry! I did this in German, and despite everything writing is still my weakest skill - perhaps that’s not directly connected, however, I have ingrained certain written mistakes from when I would get 30-40 pages ahead of my proofer (ahem, wife) and had produced the same wrong construction 15-odd times. It’s also why I really hate writing in any language, I’m so worried about doing what I did in German. Some stuff was a pain to fix. Some stuff I still do and only catch when I look it over.


Edit: yeah my tablet is screwing up the quote function again[/quote][/quote]

So tell me how to fix it! I'll glad to know I'm not irrational (at least on that topic).. what approches do you take to writing now? Short of having a native sitting over my shoulder.. there's gotta be a way that is accomplishable in my lifetime.
I think the anti-moon people did it with anki? Maybe the it only option is massive cloze deletion?[/quote]

Not helpful, but:

I did a multi-part continuing education course for native speakers on becoming a better writer, and I still have my wife look over the vast majority of what I write (if anyone else will see it) because I’m prone to repeat mistakes. If i go a long time without writing something at a high level, more error creeps in, too, so I actually do a fair bit of writing for myself in German. That still doesn’t solve all the problem, though. I still hate the way I write in German, and the number of revisions I need to get my “voice” back if I’m not writing lots regularly.

I don’t know what the answer is for doing it right the first time, but fixing it is major work (that doesn’t completely work!).

[aaleks]

I thought about you when I wrote that. I do remember you saying that your writing isn't as good as we keep telling you because you've checked it & edited a bunch. The psychological dependence is real and a thief of confidence. So you tell me -- Your writing has looked near native with very minor mistakes for at least 6 months. Do you find writing getting easier? Reduction in thing you need to check? Do you see an end to the google-checking at some point in the future? Or do you feel like you'd need to change strategies to keep a high level of writing without access to the internet?

If writing with crutches is the way to go, I can do more. But I really wonder if that is the solution.. and I'm afraid of writing volume without crutches because I know myself in that I'm prone to learn things wrong.

Some part of me thinks maybe I should just be copying a novel by hand.. or for heaven sakes doing dictée for hours a day.

Yes, it's getting easier. When in the beginning I needed to check things to be able to write something, now it's mostly just in case. And, tbh, I think that now the checking makes more harm than good, and I really need to stop doing it. The thing is that when I feel that there's something wrong with a sentence - a wrong article, tense, wording itself - usually it's really the case. One of the things I had to learn - not to push it, not to try to complete the sentence no matter what but instead just to put it differently, as I actually would've done if I'd been writing in my native tongue. But I still fall in that trap sometimes.

There's one thing that I need to check anyway - spelling. I believe I've already written that I remember how a word sound but often have a hard time trying to figure out its spelling. Of course if I used the word several time I would know how to spell it but sometimes that's really a challenge. I remember how I tried to guess the spelling of "enough" the very first time

Turning back to my google-checking, I think it's helped me because I also read explanations why it's so or so on wordreference, quora, and other sites.

p.s. this post I wrote without the google-checking

[reineke]

If I had to pick one course and stick with it.. maybe finally doing the Mauger blue books? Reineke has never lead me astray I know I have books 1&2 on my shelf. I honestly can't remember if I bought the 3rd book. I just found the 4th book for a good price and ordered it.

Awww...

[smallwhite]

I could use more study of the type of grammar that covers "verb tense used in x type of expression".

Like what, for example?

I think I should actually commit to grammar studying again and this time stick to one resource until it's done.

Why do you think you should commit to grammar studying again? (Not implying you shouldn't, just asking why).

Why do you think you should stick to one resource until it's done? (Also not implying you shouldn't, just asking why).

[Ani]

If I had to pick one course and stick with it.. maybe finally doing the Mauger blue books? Reineke has never lead me astray I know I have books 1&2 on my shelf. I honestly can't remember if I bought the 3rd book. I just found the 4th book for a good price and ordered it.

Awww...

<3

I could use more study of the type of grammar that covers "verb tense used in x type of expression".

Like what, for example?

I think I should actually commit to grammar studying again and this time stick to one resource until it's done.

Why do you think you should commit to grammar studying again? (Not implying you shouldn't, just asking why).

Why do you think you should stick to one resource until it's done? (Also not implying you shouldn't, just asking why).

1) après que + futur antérieur vs. avant que + ne + subjonctif

2) Because of mix-ups & second guessing, and I think the amount of input required to be confident would require more time than just actually studying. This is a decent portion of what I Google-check to be sure I got it right and I think I could eliminate it pretty quickly. Also, grammar studying would involve lots of conjugation & agreement practice which is also spelling practice, and I spell like a 4th grader.

3) The lions share of my grammar comes from looking things up individually & especially reading discussions on wordreference. I notice when I go through my paper grammar books that I find tidbits very quickly that I never thought of looking for ex. When I first opened CLE grammar avancé on the very bottom of the first page was the difference in usage between Les Français & Le Français. I'm not sure I *ever* would have noticed that myself.

I look forward to any recommendations although I'm worried you're going to say "French isn't very different from English so you should have gotten this by now"