Re: PM’s French Re-entry into the Matrix - Phase 1: 500 Hours Extensive Reading

[Tristano]

Hey congratulations for your test, I just discovered about it!
Now you have time for Dutch

[tomgosse]

I can't remember if I congratulated you on passing your test or not. It's one of the problems of old age. So, I will congratulate you now:
CONGRATULATIONS!

[PeterMollenburg]

Hey congratulations for your test, I just discovered about it!
Now you have time for Dutch

I can't remember if I congratulated you on passing your test or not. It's one of the problems of old age. So, I will congratulate you now:
CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks Tristano, thanks Tom

No time for Dutch yet Tristano, i've decided to persue C1 in French. But Dutch remains top of the list as my next language. Tom, I hope all is well with you

[PeterMollenburg]

June was meant to start with a bang, well at least a gradual build up to some really solid French. Then I got sick. Nothing major, a virus of sorts with a really decent sore throat. So I opted out of study for three days, and spent time catching up on odds and ends mainly living in front of my laptop (not extremely healthy, but whatever). I ripped a number of audio CDs, a number of them for language learning programs, which I'd been meaning to rip for years. They were Spanish and German CDs. I realised a pretty decent sized course for which I thought I had all the components, i'm actually missing an important section- a whole bunch of other audio I didn't know existed, but is essentially the bulk of the audio. I thought the CD's I had were it. 'Fraid not PM. Bes' get to some ordering. Dammit, as if I haven't spent enough money lately behaving like a good little citizen of the matrix. Okay, not always good, but ... anyway then I got to reading about Switzerland. I started comparing in my head the reasons for which German would be a useful language to learn given mine and my wife's objectives Europe-wise. German would be super-handy if not very important, depending on the direction we take.

But Dutch is pulling at me like there's no tomorrow and I'd prefer to learn Spanish after Dutch, but still before German. German is an old favourite though, the first foreign language I ever was involved with the learning of. And I loved it! That love will grow again, i'm sure, but do I really want to learn it first.. .well 2nd after French... ? ?

In the end, whatever I decide to study, I need to get on with my French. I feel tantalisingly close to my objectives yet ironically ridiculously far away en même temps.

How to solve this? Get on with the job!

Conclusion: Mission French powers ahead (beginning tomorrow... no... really).

My goal is to sit the French C1 next year. I must study smartly, consistently and efficiently. I will aim to sit the exam at some point during 2018. I don't believe the dates have been released yet for Australia next year, but I will likely, when I think about me and being realistic, target the date later in the year (there are usually two dates- one earlier in the year, the other towards the end of the year). I have close to a year and a half, later date case scenario, to target the C1. I should reasonably be able to reach another one thousand hours of study comfortably, or at a stretch 1500 hours pushing to reach 3 hours each and every day. I'm going to aim big- 1500 hours. I'm not going to count it from here till then, but I will be counting my hours each month. I'll aim for one hundred hours a month. Time to study- wisely! à la prochaine !

[PeterMollenburg]

Just dropping in to give a few small updates.

Life without SRS apps/computer programs

I have fallen into a routine in which for the first 10 minutes of each hour of study I either learn new vocabularly from a picture dictionary or revise words that I have written down in a notebook.

In the past I used to do SRS using Anki or Flashcards Deluxe for the first 15 minutes of each hour.

Now, I don't pressure myself to write down every unknown word, and in doing 10 minutes if I don't cover much, I don't care.

I feel liberated. Dropping SRS at this stage has really been a positive move, and part of me wonders how useful it really was. It probably was, but at this point in time I fail to see it being of much use to me- it would probably raise my stress levels, since i'm very happy the way i'm approaching the learning of new words currently.

Real 'solid' dictionaries

Another step away from electronic formats has been the use of my hard copies of Le Petit Robert (French only dictionary) and Collins-Robert French English Dictionary. I'm relying on these for lookups 95% of the time (as opposed to using the occasional dictionary app, which used to be 100% of the time). This has been another good move, well at least one i'm very comfortable with. I feel more human! Otherwise my future portrait would show me with my face replace by an electronic device i.e. my iphone.

Study routine

So each hour is first taken up by 10 minutes of Vocab learning/review.

The remaining 50 minutes has been very similar to a recent post of mine showing a rotation of materials. This I am still doing, with a couple of modifications, which mainly see the reduction in use of courses.

I'm rotating these:

Study block 1: Assimil Using French
Study block 2: Extensive Reading (a book)
Study block 3: Intensive watching (Buffy)
Study block 4: Intensive reading (Bien-dire French learning magazine).
Study block 5: Intensive watching (Yabla).

I'm REALLY liking the rotation of the above materials. I'm in particular enjoying Bien-dire- reading articles in French some more difficult than others (graded as per CERFL). I can listen to the articles if I want (don't often), and I learn the important vocab from the word lists. This feels like it's really pushing my vocab. I love it. And the rest of the study blocks are quite nice too.

That's me, peace out.

Edit:
A little French translation job for me came about just after I posted the above update. It's a small thing, that perhaps most here wouldn't bother mentioning, but when you live in a sea of English 99% of the time, it's a nice experience.

We (my family) are staying in a hotel as my wife is providing some education for nurses in the city, and the family need to be close by as the littlest is still breast fed. Anyway on taking the lift to go downstairs a little while back, I could've swore I heard an Asian woman speaking French. I listened out as we began our descent. Yep, French. At this stage I don't hesitate a second at such an opportunity. Turns out she's Vietnamese and her (assumed) husband French, but both reside (most likely have for a long time) in New Caledonia. It's rare to find French speakers in my experience who don't speak English, but i'm sure there's a multitude of them about.

They asked me to translate for them at the front desk of the hotel as they thought they were to get a room with a kitchen(ette) and not a room with just a microwave, fridge and sink. Small, job, but it was a nice experience.

I don't want to rant, but the amount English is being pushed in my opinion nowadays is very sad. There's nothing wrong with any other language communicating in business, at seminars or whatever. Nothing wrong with English either, but it's dominance is becoming alarming. Even big languages like French could one day find themselves marginalised even in their native lands. I hope this doesn't turn out to be the case.

I read the ohter night about French language disappearance in Vietnam, and how those who know the language their (older generations) are quite fond of it and proud to speak it. Yes they didn't want to be a French colony, but learning the French language for most seems to have been something enjoyable. Then, according to the information I was reading, post Vietnam war, the French just dropped the language from Vietnam altogether almost overnight, despite it being well received (again- according to what I was reading). Then soon after English language schools started appearing and the Vietnamese are now all too happy to attend, when it's provided free of charge (I would too). Are we deliberately pushing a global language here? I think so. France backed off imo, because it was likely instructed so (whether publicly known or not). The English language is not becoming/has not become a global force by accident in my opinion.

[Elenia]

I've been really enjoying my Swedish paper dictionary. A thing I really like is seeing other words as I search through the dictionary. Also the tactile aspect and having to keep the word in your mind makes for a more enriched experience.

[arthaey]

I too have recently switched back to paper dictionaries when studying, for the previously mentioned reasons and also because there are less distractions. My paper dictionary never shows me a pop up notification that I have a new email!

[DaveBee]

I read the ohter night about French language disappearance in Vietnam, and how those who know the language their (older generations) are quite fond of it and proud to speak it. Yes they didn't want to be a French colony, but learning the French language for most seems to have been something enjoyable. Then, according to the information I was reading, post Vietnam war, the French just dropped the language from Vietnam altogether almost overnight, despite it being well received (again- according to what I was reading). Then soon after English language schools started appearing and the Vietnamese are now all too happy to attend, when it's provided free of charge (I would too). Are we deliberately pushing a global language here? I think so. France backed off imo, because it was likely instructed so (whether publicly known or not).

I'm a little confused by this. France was the colonial power in Vietnam, and driven out by force by the Vietnamese.

After Vietnam they would have been occupied with the collapse of their position in North Africa, and their new focus of establishing a customs union in Western Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_co ... lonization

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_em ... lonisation

[PeterMollenburg]

I read the ohter night about French language disappearance in Vietnam, and how those who know the language their (older generations) are quite fond of it and proud to speak it. Yes they didn't want to be a French colony, but learning the French language for most seems to have been something enjoyable. Then, according to the information I was reading, post Vietnam war, the French just dropped the language from Vietnam altogether almost overnight, despite it being well received (again- according to what I was reading). Then soon after English language schools started appearing and the Vietnamese are now all too happy to attend, when it's provided free of charge (I would too). Are we deliberately pushing a global language here? I think so. France backed off imo, because it was likely instructed so (whether publicly known or not).

I'm a little confused by this. France was the colonial power in Vietnam, and driven out by force by the Vietnamese.

After Vietnam they would have been occupied with the collapse of their position in North Africa, and their new focus of establishing a customs union in Western Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_co ... lonization

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_em ... lonisation

I'm not surprised by your confusion, as I was being both unclear and pretty vague. I don't deny the French were driven out by force, nor that they were busy/occupied elsewhere post Vietnam War. Their language didn't have to be eradicated from the land was my main point, and why was it, really? I'm not looking for answers here, the question there is rhetorical. Although with rhetorical questions, the answer is meant to be rather clear, again i'm being vague-ish. And why was it replaced with English? There were English speaking forces in Vietnam who were also seen as the enemy. Yet English language instruction followed, while the French were 'occupied'. It's suspicious imo. Let's just say I'm a little suspicious of official narratives when it comes to world history/events and that includes how English has (miraculously <-sarcasm) become a global language. Reading Wikipedia isn't not going to enlighten me. You're welcome to respond, but part of my lack of clarity was due to the fact I don't want to upset the moderators with politics. It's hard sometimes where language often is soaked in politics. My main idea here is that I do not believe what we're told when it comes to how English has become a global force, while languages like French simply disappear or 'fall out of favour'.

[Ani]

Is English really objectively worse as lingua franca than French or Latin? You don't need to answer that, but I just can't agree with you on the global language conspiracy. Common language will spread wherever people have trade, and the larger and more robust the trade, the more it spreads.
I certainly think it is nice to protect minority languages where that is even possible but my distaste on the spread of English is definitely more because I am already a native speaker. Not as much fun when everyone already speaks your language.