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

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:40 pm

Serpent wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:As for reading books aloud, I've done that in Irish (and a couple of other languages).
Same. All of the books I read in French I do so out loud. Sometimes, due to surrounding company, I can't do this, but 95% of the time or more I can and I do. It's excellent for pronunciation work. Reading silently almost seems wrong to me when learning a FL, since speaking is a big part of my goal.
I've read two books in Ukrainian aloud. It did help a lot, but you'll get diminishing returns soon enough. As I wrote here:
Even in L1 we get tired of reading aloud easily. It's just considered an easy activity because it's one of the first things you normally learn to do, especially in class (and it's an easy test).

See also: reading strategies

We can discuss this in your log but basically it definitely sounds like overkill.


Could be overkill, but until I get bored of it, I’m okay with it, it works for me.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Jun 28, 2019 1:15 pm

Wow, I looked back and this is my 7th year of French! 2013 wasn’t as focused but from 2014 onwards I ramped up the hours. Where does the time go!!! I feel like I’m on the home stretch of French only study, because if I don’t make room for other languages soon, I might just never do so. I did introduce other languages at times, but I kept coming back to focusing on French only, as my underlying passion was to always reach C2.

I’ll have another crack at targeting the C1 or C2 this November, and after that I foresee introducing other languages for the long term with French always in the routine in some form or another, since I can’t see myself not wanting to continue to improve my French in the long-term.

Looking back to 2013/2014, it’s great how far I’ve come and yet I’ve not covered anywhere near as much content as I had hoped to. There still remains a huge amount to learn/cover/play with. Still, I’d say it’s been very successful despite the task has been so much larger than I ever envisaged.

Lately my main activities have been Anki (that’s odd for me!!), intensive reading/vocab study, which I put into Anki, and i’ve recently picked up the DALF C1/C2 preparation books again. Oh and extensively, I’ve been watching a fair amount of TV.

My wife and I have just finished rewatching season 1 of Dark, and now moved onto the second season. I feel this is hands down the best series on Netflix. I’ve taken to syncing playback on my mobile with that of the TV. My wife prefers to watch it in the original German, while I prefer French. The solution? We both watch the TV (set to German with EN subtitles), while I use my headphones to listen to it via my phone (in French) while watching the TV at the same time with my wife. Works great! We can watch the same screen but hear it in our preferred language, each one of us.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:39 am

I've discovered, btw that I'm in French, what is called a altermondialiste. I was reading about José Bové, and felt his core stances with regards to where the world was headed from his perspective in the 80s and 90s are spot on with my sentiments, for the most part. I'm not sure where his altermondialiste 'career' ended up in the end, but unfortunately, I suspect he was either worn down by the fight against the system, silenced, corrupted or a combination of these. I don't hold any negative sentiments if he was controlled in the end, as it's fantastic what he set out to do, and if he felt he could not continue, well, he could not. It just is.

I mean it's nice, from an ego perspective to think, 'were I this person or that person, or in that position, I would do so much good'. Well, easier said than done. First of all, if you are not in that position, well it's not your walk in life, and if it is to be your walk in life, get off your ass and walk it! Anyway, once there, I'm sure it's much harder to go against the trend and the trend nowadays all too often seems to be one of corruption and compliance or be slandered, attacked, or damaged in some way. Comply or be dealt with. Ever wonder why so many really don't change a thing?

Why am I so anti everything? If you see problems with the system/the world, is it pessimism? Is it non-acceptance? Is it a chip on my shoulder? Is it some kind of control issue? Am I just a nutcase? I think if you don't question, and you just simply follow without wondering why, why is it you must do certain things, why is it things are set up the way the are... then you are blinded by the picture. You're in a picture and you don't realise it. Do you realise why you arrive at certain conclusions covered in the media? Are they your thoughts/conclusions or are you repeating what someone else has said? If you must comply, then at least think about why you do the things you do.

If you haven't heard of José Bové, look him up.

Edit: Not looking to incite political discussion here. Am looking to incite free, independent thinking.

Edit 1st time for typos. Edited 2nd time to state why I edited the first time (these comments ;) )
Last edited by PeterMollenburg on Sat Jun 29, 2019 3:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby eido » Sat Jun 29, 2019 2:18 am

I've had an itch since I was about 12 or 13 to question things. It was a very simple itch. "Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling?"

As I recently told my Spanish teacher, I used to watch anime and feel free, because there was something different about it. Surreality. It was an escape. After watching two or three hours of anime, which I knew wasn't real but had a profound effect on my growing mind, I'd walk my dog on a quiet trail behind my house and feel like a veil had been lifted. I was different somehow. I would talk to trees and wish in vain to these plants to be better so I could draw these characters, and part of the desire was pure, since I really liked the art style. But part of me knew no one wishes to do that, especially not to things that can't talk and can't be magical. But isn't it funny, I can still believe in magic. And isn't sad, there is no magic in the world.

I used to get annoyed at the unrealistic nature of books, too, when I was younger, and vowed to write better than the authors who made them.

But at some point something switched. I started reading the Internet and found out all these thoughts I was having, which I knew weren't original but seemed so, couldn't possibly have come from me. I was just a drop in the ocean of people in the world, a product of my environment, a re-configuration of stardust. Wasn't I? Or what was I?

When I got home from school I went to my room and just started to think about my own mortality and how my parents fought and the fleeting nature of youth. And I wondered why I was thinking about this, down to the root. I pondered narcissism, to no conclusion. I kept wondering if I was a narcissist, because I have such a need for validation and praise that I get sad and paranoid when my needs for these things aren't met. I used to write in my diary with tears streaming down my face, pen engraving ink into the page like blood pouring out of my body. "Save me, I don't want to be a narcissist." Did I know what I was doing? No. I asked my parents, hesitantly, if I was selfish or what I could do better. I flipped my need to ingratiate into a self-punishing cycle so I could be my own experiment and so, if I properly tamped down on my own ego, I could observe well my peers and have more fulfilling relationships -- because all the Internet psychologists said that you needed to actively listen and you needed to put others first, all sorts of things. And I listened. But not unthinkingly. I thought, "Should I listen to them? They're just people on the Internet." But I also thought, "Why shouldn't I listen to them? Aren't people on the Internet real? Shouldn't there be some amount of trust here?" And then I thought, "I read psychologists are narcissists... If they meant that literally, maybe I shouldn't trust what I read because they're trying to manipulate me."

I tried to go about this very rationally. But while my mind was more flexible (and of course it is to a certain degree now), it was constantly, incessantly buzzing with circle-jerking analysis that never found the answers to its questions. It was tiring and scary, because I lived in constant fear of being wrong, in constant elation at having "opened my mind" to the idea of discovery, and in constant despair at not being able to come to some definitive answer.

I felt like a cornered animal.

I tried to take life by the horns at 18 to further this idea of exploration, under the hypothesis that, "If it's true, the truth will make itself evident to me for it is the truth and if I've learned anything by now, it should be how to recognize it. If it's not, I will have renounced all meaning to my life and it should end."

Obviously, it didn't work.

Now my life seems to have no meaning and everything I tried to rationalize by re-wiring my brain has even less.

But I still crave answers.

I just don't know how to get them. And I don't know myself any better, so I'd say I'm a bit insane.

I caution you: be careful how you handle your exploration of the world, for the world may be a picture, and its size is indeed what makes it imposing and quite powerful. But no cage is more of a trap than your own skin.

EDIT: I started analyzing myself because I thought, if I find fault with the world, I should change myself to be better able to combat the world's challenges.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Fortheo » Sat Jun 29, 2019 1:01 pm

I too just re-watched season one of dark! The french dubbing is well done in my opinion. That show is warping my mind, though. It's come to the point where I need to look at the families family trees in nearly each episode :lol: I like it a lot, though.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby eido » Sun Jun 30, 2019 1:04 am

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jun 30, 2019 2:55 am

eido wrote:


My Spanish is nowhere near good enough to follow this, eido.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jun 30, 2019 2:59 am

Fortheo wrote:I too just re-watched season one of dark! The french dubbing is well done in my opinion. That show is warping my mind, though. It's come to the point where I need to look at the families family trees in nearly each episode :lol: I like it a lot, though.


Yes, it’s a tricky one to get your head around. My wife said to me last night while watching it, that she needs one of those walls with all the photos and pieces of string drawing all the connections. I tend to agree. Such a good show! Yeah, the dubbing seems quite well done, I agree. Glad to hear you’re enjoying it too, Fortheo, and in French as well!
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby eido » Sun Jun 30, 2019 1:28 pm

For the future ;)
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:35 am

Well in June I finished with 66 hours, 48 min of French. My best month since August last year, as I had many a slow month since with all the moving around etc.

My highest scores were:
18 hours, 24 min for television
14 hours, 3 min for extensive reading
9 hours, 53 min for intensive reading (i.e. intensive vocabulary acquisition)
8 hours, 55 min for podcasts

Pretty good, not my best by far, but nothing to be depressed about. All in all a good month.

I've been trying to get into frequent Anki use and use my desk study plan as devised for exam prep, but with 2 kids, new jobs for my wife and myself, major turmoil going on around us with friends and family needing support for various difficult reasons and other interruptions, I just cannot seem to get into a good routine to save myself. However, in doing everything I can do, when I can do it, i'm still managing to get a good deal of French in, as I'm adapting wherever I can to what time I have and what adjustments need to be made to work around other things.

Still, if I don't see some kind of a good routine happening soon, these exam prep books are not going to work through themselves and I'll be avoiding any exams come November yet again!

Le Tour de France
And now there's the Tour de France. Unlike last year when I commenced watching it in French and never really got that far with it for various reasons, and consequently it was the first Tour in many years I'd not watched even a quarter of... well this year is starting much better. For one, I can tolerate the French commentary much more, since I can follow much more. I still struggle a little though, because this is just not something I'm used to (watching/listening to long stretches of French sporting commentary). Oh and one of the commentators has a very tricky accent! It's a rider I know from years of TDF watching, but never realised he sounded like that! He just seems to be completely nasal and like he is speaking from his throat with half a cold - blood tricky (to understand)! However, I enjoy the whole thing, and as we know, this is a major plus in language learning (interesting content), and it's listening practise in an area I've not practised yet = good for language learning. On the whole, in recent weeks I've been doing a lot more listening (TV predominantly) than usual (great series like Dark, have helped!), and surely that can only be a good thing for my French.

Quite shockingly perhaps for some, I still do not understand the commentary with ease. There is a lot I miss and after perhaps catching over 90 (or maybe even 95) per cent of the initial commentary in the first 20 to 30 minutes, I start to lose it thereafter. I get tired. Think watching a bunch of bikes along mesmerising (but beautiful) French countryside with an endless stream of pretty similar tone spoken French AND me being tired lately anyway = I fall asleep and fight to stay away and watch more. I think my comprehension would be higher, or at least remain higher for longer, were I not so tired in general lately. Still, last night, I watched an after show, if you will, called 'Vélo Club" on France TV Sport, and with all the changes - discussion on the stage, interviews, guests, little games and trivia, I did not fall asleep and would've surely understood more that 95% easily.

I guess I am proving that despite thousands of hours of studying, listening as they say around these parts requires listening practise. In all my thousands of hours of studying it's always been in there, but usually it's the news, or I've had subtitles on movies, or I've chosen easy series etc. Well, hopefully in a bit under 3 weeks, with all my Tour de France following (and finally haven broken free of the grip of excellent English commentators - okay, i've snuck a listen here and there, and a read), i'm certainly going to improve.

Not immune to wanderlust
Recently I was praised by an esteemed member of this forum for my long-lasting committment to French over a number of years without having given in to the temptation of taking on other languages seriously. I caved a couple of times, but I've stuck to my guns and always returned to the objective (advanced French). Nevertheless, progress is slow, and I'm wondering if this 100% focus on French is at this point in time somewhat of a hinderance. I mean if I want to learn other languages... well, best get to them at some point. And how many new words are serious language learners out there acquiring on a daily basis in their respective languages, because I feel like most days I'm not learning many if any new words. And yet there always seems to be words I don't know, grammatical structures I struggle with and TONS of idioms I have no clue about. Then i see a pile of French learning magazines I'm excited to subscribe to for my kids for home schooling and I think, well I'm really going to be involved in this French advancement thing for years to come, so why the hurry (with exams)? And there are some great Spanish kids learning mags. Why not teach the kids some Spanish when there's so many great resources out there (unlike Dutch - such magazines are either now out of print or NEVER post to Australia!) and it's such a big language!

So, would it be better, to put my French into cruise control now and introduce more languages (to myself and the kids)? OR should, as I stated, just aim for November this year with French alone and then introduce one or more other languages? OR, do I keep going exclusively with French right through next year, because once I reach (if I can) C2, and with C2 certificate in hand, then I might feel like I've finally graduated and earned the right to study the hell out of all and many other languages to my heart's content? Do I sit C2 in November even if I might fail miserably? Do I sit C2 and C1 to cover myself? Do I sit C1 and then go the long cruise control path to C2 while introducing other languages? Am I really C2? I am nowhere near it? Am I miles beyond it? Am I just capable of passing it if I get myself into gear?

Oh, and Norwegian, German and Luxembourgish are trying to get my attention for future possible work-scenario reasons. Spanish makes little sense work-wise, yet these three make little sense for other reasons. NOT ENOUGH TIME IN MY DAY!!!

Anyway, that's me for now. I hope everyone else is studying well. Back to Le Tour... (even though I should be going to sleep!)...
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