Adventures in French and Spanish

[Mohave]

PM - Thanks as always for your kind words and motivation!
-------------------------------------------
I wanted to capture some final thoughts on the Super Challenge. I started the Super Challenge somewhere around an A2-B1 - probably closer to A2. I am now able to read Adult French literature at a 98%+ level - a great return on my time invested! It was probably the single best thing I have done for my French, and I highly encourage others to start the Super Challenge in May 2016. I want to thank Solfrid Cristin for starting this challenge!

My Favorite Reads:
1) Le Silence de la Mer - Vercours
2) Jean De Florette/Manon Des Sources – Pagnol
3) Le Petit Nicolas Series - Sempe Goscinny
4) La Trilogie du Mal Series – Maxine Chattam (I’ve read books 1 and 2) (Policier)
5) les Liaisons Dangereuse - Laclos
Bonus : Train d'Enfer pour Ange Rouge Franck Thilliez (Policier)

My Favorite Films/TV Series
1) Engrenages
2) Un Village Français
3) Le Retour de Martin Guerre (I will watch this again and plan to read the book)
4) Kabul Kitchen
5) Le Petit Prince Spectacle Musical
Bonus: Braquo
Double Bonus: Detectives

- Having the weekly counter for consistency and accountability really motivated me to do something every week for the entire 20 months of Super Challenge - even when I went through some major family issues. I am very proud that I maintained that counter for 86 weeks, and I think that consistency and motivation in maintaining that counter helped me finish the Super Challenge.

- I found a "region-free" DVD player and a VPN to be a great investments. The first allowed me to watch DVDs I purchased while in Europe inexpensively or ordered from Amazon.fr. The latter allowed me to watch French TV without GeoBlocks. I also started using MHZChoice Streaming ($8/mon) which had a wonderful selection of French TV series. It would have been a great resource in the beginning because there was English subtitles, but sadly, I did not find a way to turn them off!

- Legal French ebooks in my preferred genres/authors are difficult to find in the US. I hope one day the publishing industry will make this seamless.

- I found similar "leaps" in my reading ability as other had reported in the first Super Challenge. The first book was tough, but after the first 3-4 books, it got easier. Then at about 2,500-3,000 pages I saw another jump. I saw another increase around 5,000 pages. But my best jump was probably around 7,500 - 8,000 pages. That is where I became comfortable reading adult literature, and the last three or four books were completely enjoyable with a good reading speed. So I recommend those considering the next Super Challenge to do the full 10,000 pages.

- One of the best ideas I got from this forum assisted me greatly in finding French authors in my preferred genres. I set-up a GoodReads shelf dedicated to French. This gave me recommendations for several French authors I was not familiar with in my preferred genres. Also, seeing other forum members' GoodReads French shelves was a big help too!

- 10,000 pages did not even scratch the surface on French literature that I want to read; I am already looking forward to the next Super Challenge!

- Here's the link to my Super Challenge Log as I will probably take it out of my signature at some point in the future: http://www.languagechallenge.surrealix.com/participant.php?username=MLuvs2Travel

[PeterMollenburg]

Hey Mohave,

Good to see (read) you! One question... During the SC did you look up all unknown words, just keep reading, look up occasional unknown words, create lists, SRS them, use a pop up dictionary- what was your strategy, how effective was it and what would you change or reccomend for learning the unknown words?

[Mohave]

Hey PM -

It's great to see you on-line also! Excellent question and I should have thought to include it in my summary.

I use several options which evolved over the course of the Super Challenge.

1) I used an iOS app called "French Reader" extensively. It's great - and I can highly recommend it, although I did email the App developer with a few recommendations - sadly without a response. I loved the features in the app. I had built-in capability for a French-English dictionary, a French dictionary, and google translate for phrases, sentences. This app scaled well as I progressed -- I was able to use the French/English book early on and ultimately, I mainly used the French only dictionary in the end, and truthfully, most of the words I needed to look up were not in the French/English dictionary and were not found in google translate. I found these options to be superior to the Kindle dictionary options. Two drawbacks with this app: 1) only non-DRM books can be used (understandable), and 2) the App does not create a word list which can be exported with the words you look up (this was an improvement that I emailed the developer on, but did not get a response). Otherwise, this is a great app!

2) I found when I read using a paper-copy of a book, I read faster.... Many times I did not have a dictionary or access to wifi, and I just had to read and I didn't worry about every little word that I didn't know. I never lost the bubble with this method, but I might have missed some smaller details. When I read with the French Reader app, I tended to want to look up every word I didn't know. I guess there was a balance of reading intensively and extensively - and both have their benefits!

3) I copied many unknown and interesting words, phrases, idioms, etc into a vocabulary list (but not all) that I did not want to forget. Mainly, it was the very low-frequency words/phrases that I hadn't run across. I did use SRS early-on with these, but as life got will crazy with family issues, I kept them in a list, but have not done anything with them. I suppose that is a project from a rainy day as there is literally hundreds of them!

4). How effective was it? What would I change? I wish I would have been better about SRSing the words I didn't know (the true low-frequency words). And I'd like to have the French Reader app with the automated option to export and dump them straight into an SRS without the kabuki dance of copy/pasting, etc. . I think that would be better in the long run. However, even not doing that much, I still ended up with a 98%+ reading level in adult French literature. There must be something magical happening in the combination of extensive/intensive reading with the unknown words. I will look for an iOS app that has this option (or email the developer again) - as I am continuing to read now, and plan to do another Super Challenge in French - and possibly a 1/2 challenge in Spanish.

A+
Mohave

[PeterMollenburg]

Awesome response Mohave. Thank you very much for taking your time to explain it all to me. I'm very keen to really do a consistent lot of reading from here on and can see myself doing much better than my last attempt at the SC, which was not hugely successful. Your results are definitely inspiring and its time now I joined you in reading plenty of French books. Part of that will involve much less dictionary use than I'm accostomed to.

PM

Edit: I forgot to ask... Did you re-read pages/chapters/entire books? Or single read of a page and move on was your approach?

[Mohave]

Edit: I forgot to ask... Did you re-read pages/chapters/entire books? Or single read of a page and move on was your approach?

I did not re-read books during the Super Challenge, although I read several books in the same series. In fact, I often used them to determine progress. For example, I read Le Petit Nicolas books when I first started the challenge. They were a challenge for me. I read a different book in the same series about 14 months after the Super Challenge to gage progress in my skills. It was like night and day! I could easily read the book in little time compared to the beginning of the Super Challenge! If I was reading and I didn't understand a sentence or paragraph, yes, I re-read it and figured it out, but as a general rule, I did not re-read books during the Super Challenge.

[Mohave]

French

I had great plans for January to be a big consolidation month for my French - to do some intensive grammar and vocabulary exercises to pull together everything after the Super Challenge. That has not happened to the extent I wanted. Here is what I have done:

- Continued with 2-3 language exchanges each week with long-term partners
- Completed 9 chapters of Vocabulaire Progressive du Francais Intermediate - this is really too simple. I think I am going to move on to the Avancé version.
- I had completed Exercises de Grammaire en Contexte Intermédiaire last year, but I thought I would revise key chapters of problems I know I have in Grammaire Progressive du Français -Intermédiaire, and then start Grammaire Progressive du Francais Avancé
- Started reading Le Fantôme de l'Opéra reading a chapter a day and I read a couple of French articles most days.
- Listened to several Podcasts each week mainly Au Coeur de L’Histoire and Monumental. Started L’Eternal (Samedi Noir – thanks kanewai for the recommendation)
- Watched several episodes of Kabul Kitchen and Cain on MHZ Choice.

What I need to do:
-Add more grammar exercises in daily
- Decide if I am going to get serious and do the Output Challenge - which I signed up for, but am only half-heartedly committed to!

Some days I spend 20-30 minutes on French, and some days it is 2-5 hours...

Spanish
After keeping wanderlust at bay for several years, I am going to start Spanish on Feb 1 with the 6 Week Challenge. Thanks to PeterMollenberg's advice, I didnt start Spanish last year, and focused on my French. I feel that extra six months to strengthen my French further was worth it, but with a trip to Peru in early 2017 scheduled, I want to start Spanish now to be able to enjoy my trip! I hope I can have at least a basic level of conversation in a year’s time!

I am probably a false beginner as I haven't studied Spanish in over 35 years! I grew up on the Texas/Mexico border and had to take mandatory Spanish in elementary school. I was exposed to a lot of Spanish, but never studied it after 6th grade. I pursued French in high school and college, and restarted that approximately 2 1/2 years ago. My husband and I have travelled a fair amount in Mexico, Latin America and Spanish-speaking Caribbean so I have some basic survival Spanish and vocabulary, however I couldn't properly conjugate verb or string together a grammatically correct sentence. My goals in Spanish are different than I had for French. In Spanish, I want to have great listening skills and to be able to speak well whereas my initial French goals were more about reading the awesome French literature, watching films, and having enough French to "get-by" when we traveled.

My planned resources:

Pimsleur I and II
FSI Spanish (Barron’s Mastering Spanish version)
Spanish for Reading
Destinos

Happy Language Learning!

[PeterMollenburg]

Merci pour tes réponses au sujet du Challenge Super et tes méthodes quant à la lecture même et...

¡Buena suerte con tu español!

[Mohave]

I started my Spanish journey on Feb 1 with the 6 Week Challenge! It’s interesting because I find myself generally having more hours in French than in Spanish each day – mainly because French media is so much easier for me to consume at this point – and because French podcasts, TV series, news, etc is just a part of my regular life now. With two weeks of study in Spanish under my belt, I am miles away from doing anything meaningful yet with the language, and yet, I find myself invariably further along in the language than I was with French at the same point. I think part of this is just the Spanish language itself and part of it is my early exposure to Spanish and love of French. For instance, I can listen to Spanish language TV show and I know where words start and stop (this was much, much later in French), I can understand and pick out basic vocabulary words and in many cases, understand the gist of the dialogue. I can hear the difference between accents from Spain and Mexico (it was much later in my French journey before I could distinguish French accents from Quebec and France) and I find pronunciation so much easier than French. So far, the little Spanish grammar I have been exposed to seems easier. I love the “efficiency” of the Spanish language (i.e., not using pronouns, etc). I also think I am smarter in how to learn a language.

Spanish What I have done:
Pimsleur I (Lessons 1-15)
FSI (Barron’s Mastering Spanish) Lesson 1.1 – 1.3
Destinos (Lessons 1-8) *video only (I have the textbook, but haven’t used it yet)
Assimil Spanish with Ease (Lessons 1-7)
Spanish for Reading – almost finished Chapter 1
Notes in Spanish Podcast (Beginning) Episodes 1-2
The Time In Between Series (Netflix US) – I have watched only 6-7 episodes of this with English Subtitles, but I am in love with this series! I am looking forward to being able to read the book in Spanish of course. (I am only counting 1/2 the episodes for the 6 Week Challenge due to my reliance on English Subtitles)

I am debating between using FSI (Barron’s Mastering Spanish) and Assimil Spanish with Ease. I own the Barron’s course, and I was able to talk my library into purchasing Assimil Spanish with Ease with CDs. I loved Assimil French Without Toil, but I don’t feel the immediate love yet (after 7 lessons) with Assimil Spanish with Ease.

I must be crazy, but I am actually thinking of doing a ½ a Super Challenge in Spanish this round, and so am going to put a little more effort into Spanish for Reading.

French
I’ve still managing to consume more French each day than I am Spanish. Here’s what I have been doing:

Watching/Listening
Cain – Finished Season 1 and started Season 2
Le Sang de la Vigne – Finished Season 1
Samedi Soir – L’Eternal 1/3 (Thanks kanewai for the recommendation!)
RFI Francais Facile
RadioCanada Bulletins de Nouvelles Nationaux

Reading
Le Fantome de L’Opera – Leroux
Various news articles each day

Language Exchanges
Completed 5

I just received my copy of Le Retour de Martin Guerre – all the way from the UK. My plan was to hold it until the start of the Super Challenge in May, but I don’t know, I may need to start it sooner! The movie was just to thought-provoking and interesting!

*I will come back an edit to put in accents, etc as soon as I get on my iPad.

Happy Language Learning!

[PeterMollenburg]

Interesting start to your Spanish journey there Mohave. It looks like you've really started at a good time. For what it's worth Destinos is awesome! Get into it, books and all. When I start Spanish (whenever that will be) I'm going to smash Destinos out of the park!

Keep up your French, I must read Le retour de Martin Guerre some time soonish too and we can compare notes.

Enjoyed your update!

[Mohave]

Interesting start to your Spanish journey there Mohave. It looks like you've really started at a good time. For what it's worth Destinos is awesome! Get into it, books and all. When I start Spanish (whenever that will be) I'm going to smash Destinos out of the park!

Keep up your French, I must read Le retour de Martin Guerre some time soonish too and we can compare notes.

Enjoyed your update!

Thanks as always PM! Do you recommend that I go ahead and purchase the workbooks etc? Do you recommend Destinos as a primary/core course? I've been looking at it as a supplemental course to either FSI or Assimil.

PS - I ordered a used copy of Le Retour de Martin Guerre from an UK seller that was listed on Amazon.com. I only paid $6 (US) - including shipping.