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

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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:28 am

Is the big six list tongue-in-cheek? I don't know what unfinished business you have that would require essentially going back to the beginning, but I say don't do even three quarters of that proposed regimen! Any benefits will surely get buried in inverse proportion to the amount of work taken on, and some of it needless work.

This Dutch phrase comes to mind: "Neem niet te veel hooi op je vork..."

Maybe I've misunderstood? What is the aim behind the big six?
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Deinonysus » Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:46 pm

Le Baron wrote:Is the big six list tongue-in-cheek? I don't know what unfinished business you have that would require essentially going back to the beginning, but I say don't do even three quarters of that proposed regimen! Any benefits will surely get buried in inverse proportion to the amount of work taken on, and some of it needless work.

This Dutch phrase comes to mind: "Neem niet te veel hooi op je vork..."

Maybe I've misunderstood? What is the aim behind the big six?

I was actually working on half of his big six around the new year and I found it to be extremely helpful. Even though I already considered myself an advanced French learner, I was learning new things every day. I think there's an idea that once you reach a certain level, you can only work on advanced stuff, but what's the point of mastering, say, the past subjunctive that you'll rarely use when you are still making basic mistakes with verbs in the indicative or misgendering common nouns? Or using the wrong prepositions, or messing up verb transitivity?

To quote Bruce Lee: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

IMO, drilling the basics until you can't get them wrong is grossly underrated.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby luke » Wed Aug 11, 2021 1:28 pm

Deinonysus wrote:
Le Baron wrote:This Dutch phrase comes to mind: "Neem niet te veel hooi op je vork..."

Maybe I've misunderstood? What is the aim behind the big six?

I was actually working on half of his big six around the new year and I found it to be extremely helpful. Even though I already considered myself an advanced French learner, I was learning new things every day.

To quote Bruce Lee: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

IMO, drilling the basics until you can't get them wrong is grossly underrated.

translate.bing wrote:Don't take too much hay on your fork

I agree with you both and believe PM will be fine with his plans.

There's sometimes a tug-of-war between spreading oneself too thin and a nice consolidation.

When we're early in our language journey, at least for me, the "spreading myself too thin" side of the tug-of-war usually has the upper hand.

At a more advanced level, a "circle back to the basics" can take a huge load off and give Atlas a break. It's great for picking up important elements as well as giving a confidence boost and "look how far I've come" retrospective.

PM is at the level where a nice consolidation, however short or long it is, will be super helpful under the circumstances.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 11, 2021 1:40 pm

Deinonysus wrote:I was actually working on half of his big six around the new year and I found it to be extremely helpful. Even though I already considered myself an advanced French learner, I was learning new things every day. I think there's an idea that once you reach a certain level, you can only work on advanced stuff, but what's the point of mastering, say, the past subjunctive that you'll rarely use when you are still making basic mistakes with verbs in the indicative or misgendering common nouns? Or using the wrong prepositions, or messing up verb transitivity?

To quote Bruce Lee: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

IMO, drilling the basics until you can't get them wrong is grossly underrated.


I don't underestimate keeping on top of basics (though many basic fundamentals ought to be already fixed in usage if someone says they are 'advanced', right? Otherwise a person isn't advanced, but still somewhere in the middle). I'm more referring to the business of trawling through a lot of stuff you already know for no good reason, which is a waste of valuable life. And which also has the downside of making you feel you know nothing and hurting your motivation. Once you've mastered the basics you solidify them by using them, not perpetually re-learning them in the didactic way.

I also have problems with moods and tenses, just like anyone, but I don't even aim to know them all because (as you said) many aren't even used; not that much in writing these days either. I even hear English people stumbling over uncommon tenses and doubting themselves, it happens in most languages, so I don't worry too much about having them perfect in French (where they are actually quite difficult).
This can be a problem with reading literature where people then get the idea that they need to understand all those literary tenses, lest they get onto italki and make absolute fools of themselves. Not so. In general, if we consider just past tenses it's best to get the: pluperfect, the past ​infinitive, and the perfect participle, down pat. The others (p​assé simple, passé antérieur, plus-que-parfait du subjonctif, l'imparfait du subjonctif, seconde forme du conditionnel passé​...) you can become familiar with a few for reading news, literary journalism, books... but you don't have to have them to hand to function in everyday French.

There are things that it's useful or even necessary to know, like for example hearing on the news after a report of an earthquake: 'Onze personnes seraient décédés'. And you think 'eh 'would have died'...? When it is the normal way of saying 'Eleven people are thought to have died'. That sort of thing is the real stumbling block and where understanding how certain tenses are commonly used is crucial.

What I mean by saying that that mountain of basic resources is not worth it, is really about duplicating a lot of basic stuff and having a lot of needless work cut out for you. By all means go through the Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises to discover some more difficult literary constructions, but also French Without Toil and New French With Ease? As well as the two Hugo, and Colloquial?! Why? At most just choose one and master it, which is more in line with Bruce Lee's dictum, no?

The CLE are worth going through because they are relatively short and to the point and deal with knowledge one definitely needs; though I've only ever used some of the intermédiaire grammar and the avancé grammar so I don't know about the others. I can't imagine anyone B2 or above needing the débutant editions.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby iguanamon » Wed Aug 11, 2021 2:16 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:...Disclaimer:
I'm likely to give up after two weeks and see the folly of my ways. I'll return again in another year and give up again after three weeks. At age 81 I will complete this and wonder why the hell I bothered, realising for a serving-sized portion of my brain, I was actually insane.

He'll probably make a week. :lol:
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Xenops » Wed Aug 11, 2021 4:01 pm

Le Baron wrote:
What I mean by saying that that mountain of basic resources is not worth it, is really about duplicating a lot of basic stuff and having a lot of needless work cut out for you. By all means go through the Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises to discover some more difficult literary constructions, but also French Without Toil and New French With Ease? As well as the two Hugo, and Colloquial?! Why? At most just choose one and master it, which is more in line with Bruce Lee's dictum, no?


Well, PM does consider the possibility that he is mad. :? :lol:
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 11, 2021 4:07 pm

Xenops wrote:Well, PM does consider the possibility that he is mad. :? :lol:


Aren't we all effectively mad here? Who else in their right mind would go off on these madcap multiple language learning escapades? :lol:
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Deinonysus » Wed Aug 11, 2021 5:38 pm

Le Baron wrote:I don't underestimate keeping on top of basics (though many basic fundamentals ought to be already fixed in usage if someone says they are 'advanced', right? Otherwise a person isn't advanced, but still somewhere in the middle). I'm more referring to the business of trawling through a lot of stuff you already know for no good reason, which is a waste of valuable life. And which also has the downside of making you feel you know nothing and hurting your motivation. Once you've mastered the basics you solidify them by using them, not perpetually re-learning them in the didactic way.

I also have problems with moods and tenses, just like anyone, but I don't even aim to know them all because (as you said) many aren't even used; not that much in writing these days either. I even hear English people stumbling over uncommon tenses and doubting themselves, it happens in most languages, so I don't worry too much about having them perfect in French (where they are actually quite difficult).
This can be a problem with reading literature where people then get the idea that they need to understand all those literary tenses, lest they get onto italki and make absolute fools of themselves. Not so. In general, if we consider just past tenses it's best to get the: pluperfect, the past ​infinitive, and the perfect participle, down pat. The others (p​assé simple, passé antérieur, plus-que-parfait du subjonctif, l'imparfait du subjonctif, seconde forme du conditionnel passé​...) you can become familiar with a few for reading news, literary journalism, books... but you don't have to have them to hand to function in everyday French.

There are things that it's useful or even necessary to know, like for example hearing on the news after a report of an earthquake: 'Onze personnes seraient décédés'. And you think 'eh 'would have died'...? When it is the normal way of saying 'Eleven people are thought to have died'. That sort of thing is the real stumbling block and where understanding how certain tenses are commonly used is crucial.

What I mean by saying that that mountain of basic resources is not worth it, is really about duplicating a lot of basic stuff and having a lot of needless work cut out for you. By all means go through the Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises to discover some more difficult literary constructions, but also French Without Toil and New French With Ease? As well as the two Hugo, and Colloquial?! Why? At most just choose one and master it, which is more in line with Bruce Lee's dictum, no?

The CLE are worth going through because they are relatively short and to the point and deal with knowledge one definitely needs; though I've only ever used some of the intermédiaire grammar and the avancé grammar so I don't know about the others. I can't imagine anyone B2 or above needing the débutant editions.

I would say that ability to perform complex tasks in a language is separate from the elimination of errors, and you can certainly get to the point where you can fully function in a language even if you can't make it through a sentence without making basic errors. If I recall correctly, Barry Farber did this when he processed refugees in "caveman Hungarian". IMO, the elimination of errors is more difficult and time consuming than learning to perform more advanced tasks, but it's quite a worthy goal even if some people skip it.

I will agree that using a language is very important, but I have personally found explicit instruction to be very useful as well, even for basic things that ought to be way below my level. There's always some helpful small detail that I have missed before, even when going over the most basic material. If you hear the same thing explained five different ways, maybe it's only the fifth way that really clicks.

I think there's a difference between getting bogged down in the details when you're just starting out in a language and never reaching an advanced level, and doubling back to get the basics rock solid once you are already advanced. I'm not missing out on any French experiences by spending a lot of time reviewing the basics because I can already read books, watch the news, and go on tours in French.

I personally have not used the débutant level of CLE. I started at intermédiaire. I don't doubt that there are things I could learn from the débutant level, but buying all of those little books adds up and I didn't think it would be the most effective use of my time or money. I will say that even after many years, I was correcting mistakes and misunderstandings within the first few skills of the French tree the last time I reviewed it.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Le Baron » Wed Aug 11, 2021 8:20 pm

I don't greatly disagree with that, and I'm not against explicit instruction. However I don't think there needs to be any vast separation between functioning at an upper level and eliminating problems; or that one needs to go through a basic course to somehow find things that were missed. Just working in the language makes it evident what is still a challenge because all the basics are constantly used, no matter how sophisticated the padding is.

I don't know how a person could reach the level of being able to understand the news, films, books properly without first having a good grounding in the fundamentals of a language. Maybe it's my perspective, but I don't think there much in a basic course that will greatly assist a person at a more advanced level. Perhaps the last 5-8 units of a course will offer something or focusing on known weak spots using learning material (which is what I do anyway). But the all-or-nothing, shotgun approaches are like wearing a dinner jacket to go to McDonalds. It's overkill.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby iguanamon » Wed Aug 11, 2021 9:45 pm

Regardless of whether PM's approach is the best or most appropriate, if he wants to go through all the French courses he missed out on while learning French to B2, it's his language journey to take and his alone. To each his/her/their own.
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