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

[Xmmm]

Anyway, with those frustrations and the discussions mentioned in mind, I'm going back to the drawing board for now. I'm watching Peppa Pig in French, then I will progress to another trickier cartoon or two, then documentary series and so on. And I'm doing it on my own as focused study time, with headphones, paying strict attention to what is happening/I'm listening to. The only thing i'm uncertain of at this stage is whether I ought to relisten to things I don't catch and rewatch episodes, in which I may (not) pause and relisten to the parts I don't catch. But then again, i've allotted time for intensive listening as well (Yabla, Buffy), so perhaps I should just watch those series, which will be progressively more difficult language, without pausing at all, but a rewatch here and there might be ok... we'll see.

Egads.

Why not just throw caution to the winds and watch 100 hours of interesting grown up TV you don't understand (at first) and see what happens?

[Sarafina]

Peppa Pig will be too easy to be of real benefit to you. I remember watching when I was around an A2 level and found it incredibly boring. I think you mentioned that you could understand news programs. I would recommend TV series like Avatar, le dernier maître de l'air or Steven Universe which is not only great visually but also plot wise.

Juliette je t'aime is quite good as well and there is a playlist of over 90 something episodes on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... l3DC02M1xA

How good would you say your listening is now?

[Cavesa]

Hi PM,

I've just caught up with your log but I might have missed something.

I am rather surprised by the popularity of Peppa the Pig. I saw a few episodes, when some of my siblings were little, and I found it absolutely brainmelting and horrible. There are better shows for children, even the small ones. Yes, you probably need something easier than a normal native series now, but that doesn't necessarily mean dropping the expectations this low!

You've done a lot of intensive listening with Buffy, how did it go? How about you either rewatched it, as you've been considering, or trying something similarly difficult? Something you have watched in English perhaps? I found series like Grimm, Once upon a Time, the Stargate (either SG1 or Atlantis), CSI anything, the Marvel shows, and others to be very accessible.

Extensive listening will be hard at first no matter what do you start with and when do you do it. The first episode or two will be very demanding and you won't be just relaxing and you won't understand everything. You won't understand all the details. You'll need to get to that point with practice. A good time and progress unit is one season, from my experience And I think that crap like Peppa Pig is just a way to postpone the real progress at your level. Either you accept the challenge, or you're unlikely to ever get over this obstacle, just like those hundreds of thousands or millions intermediate English learners that never get rid of the subtitles entirely. And let's not forget that Pig is extremely far from the level expected from you in November, if you are still decided to sit the C1 exam. If you want to get there in time, I'm afraid you'll need to push yourself harder in this area. No offence meant, I am saying it as a friendly advice taking into account your own goals stated in this log.

If you want to watch intensively, which is definitely one of the good choices, then why should you delevel from Buffy to That Pig? And if you want to practice extensively, which I definitely recommend, then you'll need to just accept the process at some point. Just like my first singing teacher repeated to me over and over "Lâchez prise!" because I needed to hear it over and over.

[iguanamon]

The thing about training listening is it has to be trained and it isn't easy at first. As Cavesa says, you have to accept this if you want to progress. This is how you train listening. It gets better. You get used to the actors' voices, there are visual clues to help you. You can test your comprehension against the transcript. You can use a transcript or subtitles srt file in various ways to help you to train listening. Take notes. Read an episode review. Watch first and listen without doing anything. Watch again and take notes with timestamps. Check the transcript srt file, etc. etc. Switch it up, remembering your ultimate aim is to not to have to use any aid whatsoever to be able to listen effortlessly. So, go ahead and get a season of something (not Peppa Pig) under your belt without subtitles. Be prepared to suffer but know that it will get easier over time. Just like training for anything, the more you do it the better you become at it. No out of shape or amateur runner starts out by running Olympic record times. When I was out of shape, I couldn't run five minutes. Every muscle in my body hurt and I wanted to quit.. but I kept at it. I gradually worked my way up to 15 minutes, then 20, then half an hour, then an hour.

You are B2 certified. You can do this but you won't have perfection for a long time. I think this may be what's hard for you to accept. It takes daily listening over time to get better at listening. I am glad to see that you are now putting as much importance on listening as a part of your study regime as you have done with courses. I have no doubt that if you keep this up, you will get there.

[Cavesa]

You are B2 certified. You can do this but you won't have perfection for a long time. I think this may be what's hard for you to accept. It takes daily listening over time to get better at listening. I am glad to see that you are now putting as much importance on listening as a part of your study regime as you have done with courses. I have no doubt that if you keep this up, you will get there.

This.

I used to be at this point. And I improved exactly by leaving my comfort zone, accepting the imperfection, and doing the exact opposite of what everyone had ever advised me before(especially language teachers). By biting more than I was supposed to be able to chew. Right now, you seem not to be trying to bite smaller pieces, you seem to be putting your meal in a blender so that you can drink it with a straw. B2 is definitely enough to get started with a normal dubbed show or an easier original show (brave learners who resist frustration better than you and me). Of course it will take time, that's how the advanced level works.

There are other paths. There are learners who profit immensely from intensive listening, from using all the tools iguanamon has just listed, and there are surely many more efficient learners than me. But none of the paths to success includes avoiding the challenge.

[Xenops]

Correct me if I'm wrong, PM, but I wonder if we both tend to be perfectionists. A problem I struggle with is trying to memorize and know everything by heart in a chapter before I feel comfortable moving on to the next chapter, resulting in my spending more than a week on a chapter. Something I'm realizing is that I can't move onto native material until I begin the next chapter of my course book, and then the next after that. I can't wait to be in the B levels so reading native material won't be such a slog.

[Arnaud]

Why don't you watch "Plus belle la vie", about 3500 episodes of everyday french. After that brainwashing (it's worse than any brazilian soap opera), you'll be able to understand anything

[tastyonions]

I saw "3500 episodes" and thought, "Surely Arnaud must be exaggerating." But nope, there really are about 3500 episodes in 14 seasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_belle_la_vie

That's an average of 250 episodes per season. How is that even possible?!

[Lawyer&Mom]

It’s a daily soap. There are about 260 weekdays a year. New episode every day, subtract a few holidays, voila, 250 episodes.

[DaveBee]

I saw "3500 episodes" and thought, "Surely Arnaud must be exaggerating." But nope, there really are about 3500 episodes in 14 seasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_belle_la_vie

That's an average of 250 episodes per season. How is that even possible?!

I think The Archers started during/shortly after WW2 as a educational drama aimed at british farmers. So that's >70 years of episodes for some lucky english language learner!