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

[schlaraffenland]

You remain an inspiration, PM! Glad to see how dynamic your planning is, how you continue to make adjustments based upon the realities of your current situation as it evolves. And I'll continue to enjoy looking up to you as you work toward your goal.

[PeterMollenburg]

I've been very active here lately, too much so. Too much talking, too much turmoil, not enough studying.

Would you believe I went back to my master list of courses and started working through FSI's Introduction to French Phonology, the very first course on the list (the list I compiled goes from easiest to hardest)! Bloody idiot! I love the idea of working through all my courses, on a MASSIVE MISSION! But realistically, after talking to my wife again this evening and discussing our plans for the near-ish future (we often do this), it would be much better if I could get my ass into gear and at least sit the C1 in November, as next year I'm likely to have much less time. As for kayaking, I need to keep exercising and I'm certainly enjoying it, but dreaming of world titles, I think getting a little ahead of myself right now. Maybe I'll revisit at a later date. When I'm 78 and wonder if I can do it before I die? For French, this means, back to an efficient plan, one in which I'm not fiddling around with easy courses, one in which I'm using every moment I can to advance...

I also saw Fortheo had mentioned in Ani's log having taken the kwiziq placement test for French online. I couldn't resist! I scored C1, and areas that came up as problematic for me (aside from some dumb errors!), were how to use the verb 'devoir' to express 'should have', use of penser with the pronoun y was a little off, and I was a bit weak on a couple of relative pronouns.

So, back on track!

And since I don't want to create a challenge, can't join the 6WC as an advanced learner and am not keen on any other challenges, I've got my own. I've stated similar before, but here it is:

The earliest the oral test for the C1 would be is the 7th of November (2018). The written component on the 13th of Nov. I am considering sitting C2 at the same time. It's a stretch. There are no dates specified for C2 yet. So I'll draw it back to the start of the same week for the oral C1 exam. That makes it Monday the 5th of Nov. We'll see how I feel as the date approaches, as to whether I really will sit the C2. I don't want to flunk both because of greed. So starting tomorrow (24rd of Feb '18) through to and including Sunday 4th of Nov '18, there are 254 days.

My personal challenge is, I'm going to aim for 1000 hours of French in those 254 days to the C1 (and maybe C2) exam(s) in November 2018. Before I go to sleep tonight I will update what I've done so far this year (as I might watch something yet), and thus I can come back and see how much over 1000 hours I need to be by the end of this personal challenge. I'm going to continue to exercise regularly and work full time if not overtime at times and spend time with family and minding the kids while my wife works some days. Thus, I'll need to be efficient. And since I want every chance of passing at least C1, I will need to be efficient with every hour. Furthermore since I need to obtain an average of nearly four hours a day of French, I also need to find moments EVERYWHERE I can. I want to cease being sleep deprived and improve my health. Goodbye PM the nutty human being, hello PM, monsieur le cyborg, et à la fin, monsieur PM, le robot à 100%.

I've changed my log title. Suddenly this is real. Now let's get to it shall we?

Edit: I'm going to sleep shortly. As it stands I have done 129 hours and 59 minutes of study so far this year. So at the end of Sunday November the 4th, 2018, I will need to have obtained 1129 hours and 59 minutes or more to have achieved the objective. Then I will sit the exam(s).

In discussing the plans with my wife just now, and with future plans having just been discussed, we have agreed that past this/these exams in November, that I will reduce my daily desk study time from 3 hours to 90 minutes. I can't dillydally any longer, if I want to pass these exams in Nov, it's get on with it now or never potentially it won't happen for many years from now. If I make the hours, but don't pass it won't have been a failure. I certainly be content with that accomplishment.

I shall update my log periodically, perhaps fortnightly? to discuss my progress.

My study routine will consist of an aim of an aim of 3 hours of study per day at my desk. Extra time will need to come from commuting and other stolen/hidden moments.

For my desk study, to begin with (will modify as/when needed) a four hour rotational routine.

Each hour will contain a beginning 10 to 15 minutes of isolated vocabulary study. The remaining 45 to 50 minutes out of each hour of study will be made up of these four activities to begin with:
1. A challenging course (and when the time is right, exam-specific course/material).
2. Watching/Listening using Yabla initially, then Buffy with transcripts, then GLOSS and onto series when moving towards more extensive listening work (or I may rotate between intensive and extensive listening).
3. Intensive reading using Bien-dire and/or Think French.
4. Extensive reading.

Is that in addition to around 5000 hours you already spent on French? You should consider hiring a tutor.

Yes it is in addition, and Yes, I agree I hired a tutor last exam and that worked fine, so i'm likely to do the same as I approach the exam(s) in November.

He doesn't need 6000 hours. He just happens to have 6000 hours. Real pity that kayak thing didn't come up before French did. Now it doesn't stand a chance because, what, FSI Phonology must be done and must be done now.

It did come up before French, back in the 1990s. I raced, I competed at national level as a teenager, I did some more in my 20s and 30s and I got bored on and off. Now I'm just too busy. FSI Phonology has already been ditched. I'm being mean this time round, no wasting of time = useful courses (okay that's a subjective view). And you're exactly right. I just happen to have done 5000 hours, now I'm using 1000 as a goal to push me towards the exam. Good luck to me!

I see this as PM's "C1 without a tutor" challenge. There must be someone else on the forum who has sat a C1 exam under sub-optimal circumstances (e.g. no tutor, not living in the country where the language is spoken etc.).

It may not be the most efficient way to C1, but it probably can be done.

In the lead up to my DELF B2 French exam I used tutors via italki in the last couple of months. I was able to communicate without issue. Speaking was my strongest grade when it came to the results post exam, so a tutor isn't necessary for speaking practise - those sessions didn't improve my speech imo (or marginally) but it definitely helped with the exam format, because that's predominantly what I focused on with my tutors.

However, and this is addressed more to reineke's comments, part of the reason (along with focus on easy material, courses and phonetics/accent) that I have done 5000 hours (and not attained C1 or C2 yet - although you are probably right my level is likely higher than my self assessment) is perhaps due in part to having insufficient language practise with regards to speaking. The more you speak, the more likely, imo, one's passive vocabulary will become active. Thus tutors would help with that, and in general speaking more would. As I'm not in a francophone country, I don't overly enjoy tutoring and it is difficult for me to get to meet ups and the like, more study has always been my answer.

You remain an inspiration, PM! Glad to see how dynamic your planning is, how you continue to make adjustments based upon the realities of your current situation as it evolves. And I'll continue to enjoy looking up to you as you work toward your goal.

Thanks schlaraffenland! Hope you are going well (language learning included)!

Edited to include replies to various posts.

[smallwhite]

> It did come up before French, back in the 1990s. I raced, I competed at national level as a teenager, I did some more in my 20s and 30s and I got bored on and off.

I know you did kayak before. I mean pity your current desire to do it didn't come up before French. Oh well, at least:
> FSI Phonology has already been ditched.

You know, there's life after DALF and you don't have to do everything before it.

[PeterMollenburg]

> It did come up before French, back in the 1990s. I raced, I competed at national level as a teenager, I did some more in my 20s and 30s and I got bored on and off.

I know you did kayak before. I mean pity your current desire to do it didn't come up before French. Oh well, at least:
> FSI Phonology has already been ditched.

You know, there's life after DALF and you don't have to do everything before it.

Ah, so that's what you were getting at. I know. I'm setting these 'restrictions', and yeah you're right, pity it didn't, but it seems typical of me - everything happens late!

[jeff_lindqvist]

As I'm not in a francophone country, I don't overly enjoy tutoring and it is difficult for me to get to meet ups and the like, more study has always been my answer.

I fully understand this (and have taken the same approach in a totally different field - with great success). Your dedication is very inspiring. I wish you the best of luck.

[PeterMollenburg]

As I'm not in a francophone country, I don't overly enjoy tutoring and it is difficult for me to get to meet ups and the like, more study has always been my answer.

I fully understand this (and have taken the same approach in a totally different field - with great success). Your dedication is very inspiring. I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you kindly Jeff I wish you equally the best of luck in your language learning!

[PeterMollenburg]

Well February went like this:

73 hours and 25 minutes of French averaging 2 hours and 37 minutes per day.

Breakdown:
Courses: 27hrs 44min
Television: 14hrs 19min
Extensive reading: 11hrs 23min
Audio courses: 8hrs 55min
Podcasts: 6hrs 12min
Vocabulary: 2hrs 9min
Intensive reading: 1hr 32min
Audio books: 15min

The final days of Feb and beginning of March were really tough emotionally as we lost a big part of our family, a long-term companion, a best friend, a study friend, someone who brought us so much joy and unconditional love, our little Jack Russell of 17 or 18 years of age. He was already with my wife when I first met her, so I’m not accustomed to our family without him as a central part of it. There’s such a void with him gone. He was always there, even on many of our holidays, taking him on walks in the forest, in town, at the beach, to the supermarket, avoiding assignments etc. We sung songs about him, changed the lyrics of existing songs to be about him (including some French nursery rhymes), he was always in our jokes, and so on. He loved us and wanted to be everywhere we were and he’ll always be in our hearts

[PeterMollenburg]

A tad of an update...

I finally completed Assimil Using French. However, I am reviewing lessons here and there for a bit, but I've at least officially completed the 2nd wave. That entails, for my approach, to understand all the vocab, translate everything flawlessly or very close (I generally allow 1 to 2 minor mistakes in translating an entire lesson while looking at the English, but speaking out loud the French). That takes quite a number of goes. Once I've done that, I then need to shadow it without any errors from beginning to end without pausing the audio, with my best rendition of the French accent as close to native as possible. So that's done, I did the same in the first wave and I've just completed the 2nd wave. I would cringe if I really knew how long I've taken to get through this course. It's been a hell of long time, and i'd guestimate around 2 years. That is ridiculously long (and likely ridiculously inaccurate, but who cares). I got there in the end, despite many, many, many ventures off into other courses, delays, hesitations, snail-paced slow downs. This meant that despite 'mastering' each lesson, by the time I'd get back to that lesson a second time round, or even reading through on my current '3rd wave' (akin to a few read through's including vocab notes etc), the lesson would almost have to be relearned to a degree, with unfamiliar grammar and vocab. That's in some ways a bad things, in some ways a good thing. I can certainly see how this course is designed to work by doing a lesson a day. And in theory I love that idea. There's so many words, expressions and grammatical concepts to come to terms with, that doing things at a snail's pace due to perfectionism or distraction, isn't good for efficient assimilation. I couldn't have done this with French. My accent would've been rubbish, I'd have been pissed off with my mediocre oral skills and so on. Mind you, I am no master of this material. For example, the passé antérieur is still problematic for me. The subjunctive I'm only half on top of. I very much doubt being able to pass a C level exam sometimes. I'd like to think that when/if/were I use Assimil for another language in future, the pace, in theory, will be much faster.

And on the topic of doubt... While having my weekly French day with my daughter, I realised, I'm still somewhat nervous and not completely at ease when speaking this language in slightly out of the ordinary situations (I'm really comfortable with speaking to my daughter). I expressed as much with my daughter's French teacher at the morning's halte-garderie. She conveyed a sense of a reason for myself to be proud of my accomplishments, both with my daugther's French and with my own -adding some degree of incredulity at the quality of my French. I stated that I would've thought at this point, were I to look forward five years ago, that I would feel practically completely at ease with the language now, but that is not the case. I still feel nervous at times, struggle here and there with particular expressions. She of course, praised me and stated that not living in a francophone country, with French not as my native language, it's understandable, and that it may not feel that fluid until I pass a significant amount of time in a francophone country. That among other things has renewed my enthusiasm to go to Belgium in the near-ish future. Thus I have decided I will definitely start the process of attempting to have my Australian nursing qualifications recognised in Belgium.

Now to for the pendulum swing back to the positive side. A week or two back a French parent and his son joined the playgroup, which as a sidenote I thought was great. The French native teacher was having a chat with the father when she brought me into the tail end of the conversation, suggesting to the father get some tips from me on how I have managed to get my daughter to speak so much French. Thus, I was able to deduce (I had not overheard the entire conversation) that the father must've expressed some small degree of disappointment that his son doesn't necessarily use French as readily as he does English (he has an English speaking Australian mother, this is Australia) when replying to his father's French. That was a somewhat interesting moment for me in some kind of positive way.

And that feeling become a bit more positive today when it was reinforced by the native French speaker this afternoon at the Alliance Française where my daughter attends her afternoon kindergarten session. The teacher said that she could barely hear any accent in my French (she asked if my parents were French), which I took as neutral, as in an ideal world I'd like my French accent to sound entirely authentically French, but I've come to realise, that that's not currently the case, but at least I'm close, whatever 'close' means. Recent brief discussions with AlOaf come to mind about aiming to sound as close to native as possible. Then she expressed amazement at the fact that my daughter had been entirely taught French via myself. She said that she knows of francophone children with French parents (in Australia) who don't speak as well as my daughter. Now that was fantastic. That was the moment the comments from the other French teacher recommending I provide some tips to the French father, resurfaced, and in turn made them look more like something solidly positive. It made me feel quite good about my skills and my approach with regards to my daughter.

As for my speaking... and any skills I'm doubtful of. Well thing is, I'm not that concerned. It's not drastic, it's not even bad, it's just a case of some weak points needing attention. Speaking, not accent, but speaking practice is one, writing is another (well done Jim btw, if you're reading this, i've been following your log lately and your writing, as far as I can till looks pretty decent, keep up the good work). While TV series are still a bit of a struggle for me. I'll keep moving forward, and at the end of the day, I'm really content with what I've accomplished so far. Were I to fail in November, although it would matter, it wouldn't matter, because I'll get there eventually, and in the meantime, as I said, I'm really content with my French skills right now.

I've been sticking to my rotation of a course, intensive reading, extensive reading and listening practice with some focused vocab at the beginning of each hour. I've accepted that as many courses as there are I'm itching to get into, those other skills need attention, and there are others needing attention down the track too that I'm not focusing on currently. Extensive reading tells me I need to read more. Series and movie (lack of) comprehension tells me, I need more listening practice. Intensive reading tells me there's still much more vocabulary to learn, which would be worthwhile at the C-levels.

The forum remains a source of inspiration on many an occasion, from seeking tips from the experienced learners, to newbies who inspire a little self reflection from time to time.

[PeterMollenburg]

Well I've changed the name of my log again...

Yeah it was inevitable. I'm doing as much French as I can and I've concluded that reaching 1000 hours (from whenever I declared it to November sometime) I think is unsustainable with my current circumstances unless I am a robot and completely inflexible to life around me. I'm sure I've concluded the same numerous times before with numerous missions. And I'll probably do it all again. Work situations change, people get sick, interruptions occur, that's part of life. I really do make a lot of declarations and do some tedious calculations with many such declarations/missions, only to conclude I'm not up to the task. So why bother declaring anything? And if i do, make it sustainable and achievable. I probably won't learn. But maybe its useful in someway, in an attempt to stop distracting myself or procrastinating. It works for a bit, then I flounder for a bit, then I declare another mission, get semi-back on track then see the folly of such. Hmmm, food for thought anyway. Also, such extreme missions don't make for a positive existence even if I do remain on target. Thus, I shall continue studying as much as each day reasonably allows with the wise words of iguanamon in my head:

Do be persistent. On days when you can't be consistent, at least do something in the language. Being persistent keeps you in the game, being consistent wins the game.

...be regular and consistent with your studies every day.

As per usual I've done some fluffing about. I went through many of my resources working out which ones I have digital versions of, so that, were we to be in Belgium in the near future, which materials can I take with me and what can't I take with me. This way I ought to focus on those materials I only have hard copies of. Well, turns out, I own most of my course material in PDFs or ebook formats. The only one big course that matters that I don't have a complete digital copy of is French in Action. My conclusion was I ought to complete that course - it's like the course that has never been completed (ummm, because it is the course that's never been completed), that I've always wanted to complete, but, just haven't. So I might work on that for a while, and I might not. Back to iguanamon's words above

I've been following with interest some of the discussions around the part on listening practice and TV series, in particular Sarafina's approach and progress and Cavesa's advice and experience. The other night I was watching an episode of season 2 of Marseille. I couldn't follow shit! But to be fair, the volume was down a little and I was dog-tired, drifting off constantly. I've also discovered that any series on SBS Australia in French with English subtitles are not helping my listening skills at all, because I keep looking at the subtitles even when I'm trying hard not to. Netflix is much better for this (to be able to toggle audio and subtitles between languages, on and off).

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.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’ve got nothing against Peppa Pig, but it you are looking for something accessable, free, and not subtitled, have you considered the Generation Sitcoms on YouTube? I’ve really enjoyed Les Filles d’à côté. It’s way, way easier to understand than Marseilles, but it’s still grown-ups talking to each other at native speed. Nice predictable plot lines, but some of the actors are actually quite charming. It’s fun. It was shown as part of a block of tween programming, so it’s really not difficult French.

I recommend at least some truly extensive listening. It really doesn’t matter if you don’t understand everything. There are no major plot twists on a show that has one fixed set and a laugh track.