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

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Le Baron
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 29, 2021 5:14 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:• I'll book to sit the exam (C2 or C1 first then C2 later) in late November 2021.
• This plan begins from July 1, 2021 as I've a lot on my plate right now.

I'll not lie, if that was my aim I'd be wary. Four months for all that? (Perhaps I'm a bit lazy! :lol:). In all seriousness though If I was aiming to jump from B2-C2 I'd give myself at a bare minimum half a year - for some intensive study and then preparation. More likely a good year.

But this is your project and you more likely know the lie of the land and what you're doing. So I wish you the best of luck.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat May 29, 2021 10:05 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:
Language patzer wrote:Yes! Ihope things go well. Do give us some updates, you are motivating others as well (me that is :lol: ).

Good luck with the test, merde mon ami! ;)


Danke schön mein freund! Désolé si ma grammaire allemande n'est pas parfaite. Eh oui, je laisserai quelques commentaires ici de temps en temps, bien sûr !


Clearly I'm rusty, forgot the subjunctive...

Teango wrote:Bonne chance, Pete! I'm rooting for you as always - you can do this!!


Thanks Teango!

Le Baron wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:• I'll book to sit the exam (C2 or C1 first then C2 later) in late November 2021.
• This plan begins from July 1, 2021 as I've a lot on my plate right now.

I'll not lie, if that was my aim I'd be wary. Four months for all that? (Perhaps I'm a bit lazy! :lol:). In all seriousness though If I was aiming to jump from B2-C2 I'd give myself at a bare minimum half a year - for some intensive study and then preparation. More likely a good year.

But this is your project and you more likely know the lie of the land and what you're doing. So I wish you the best of luck.


C2 in November is not set in stone. I may lower the bar and go for C1, so if the reality is a full year or more I might give up. Instead, I'll hope it's shorter/quicker and just get on with it a day at a time and if it takes longer it takes longer.

The leap won't be all the way from B2 necessarily, as I passed B2 a few years ago and have kept studying or engaging with the language daily. I also attempted C2 two years back, so I know what I need to do to a certain extent.

Thank you for your kind words, Le Baron.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon May 31, 2021 1:57 pm

May 2021

26 hours of French

7 hours 6 min of Dutch

1 hr 4 min Spanish


Here comes June! In June I will aim to double the French numbers from May.


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Simple reflections from the matrix...
(if you want to discuss this send me a PM, but I encorage you not to do so, this is for reflection only, if you don't like my ponderings, don't read my log, or simply skip this part)

• Since Covid-19's arrival and the subsequent economic impacts of attempted viral containment, the ultra-rich have become exponentially richer, while the numbers of those impoverished have leaped upwards dramatically.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:48 am

Being really busy continues...

...and mixed in with that are many other things that see my mission starting in July as possibly wishful thinking on the one hand and on the other hand something I just need to get on with and let life navigate around it.

I do continue to up my French use of late, and I continue talking and reading with the kids in French and Dutch and have just started introducing some light Spanish with them here and there in the form of a short story perhaps every 3rd day at the moment, but trying to actually get to it daily. I feel, if I am not keen on reading Norwegian because my pronunciation would be very inaccurate, then I can at least introduce some Spanish stories, the pronunciation of which isn't problematic like Norwegian for me at this stage. My kids are best to hear some Spanish while still young and then perhaps in some years to come i'll get serious and start speaking it with them and hitting the Spanish learning path if I can ever dial my French learning back.

I'm not sure what I've detailed in my log recently, but we are now on land. We headed for the hills after global chaos and lockdowns. While we were aiming for Belgium in the near future the world had other plans, so we adjusted ours. I'd like to think we can still do something like this in future but for now it's life in the monolingual countryside in our trilingual family. Okay, dramatism there.

I'm increasingly becoming uncomfortable with the position health care has taken as an instrument to drive humanity in a direction I don't appreciate at all. While I know many people reading this don't agree with many of my views, I'll tow the line and get to the language points- I'd really like to still find the possibility to travel with my family for lengthy periods (as opposed to holidays) while retaining our sanity and freedom in the world, enough to live some cultural and linguistic adventures of note, I am still considering working abroad or changing careers to allow for more mobility (abroad) but I'm also small or humble enough in this world to realise that my big dreams might not fit into the scheme of more powerful players. It doesn't mean I can't try, however. I will continue with our multilingual family environment and not let the state of the world or my own self-defeating pessimism see me relinquish my ambitions. As they say 'where there's a will, there's a way' and 'dream big', right? ;) So for now it's kids language magazines, French missions, farm work and enjoying the moment.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:01 am

Towards the latter stages of June I seriously considered a multi-lingual study approach in which I made French the central focus with an aim to move forward with the C-level exams.

The other languages of interest would feature in my study routine as well but only in a reduced capacity. For every one hour of French I was looking at doing 30 minutes of one of the other languages each time I'd done an hour of French. Thus, taking turns with each of the three languages (NL, ES, NO). I backed out. Iguanamon helped me see the light yet again....

In the last week of the June I got serious. French mission to start. In the middle of winter, I got up early again each morning to go and study in our garage where I'd set up my desk and learning materials. Beanie on, several layers of clothes as there isn't enough room in the house and if I wanted this to become a reality and I just needed to just get on with it. Many mornings might hover near zero degrees (celcius), but rarely below. So I rose initially at 6am and then progressed quickly to 5am starts. To do so, considering many nights I couldn't make it to bed until 10 or 11pm due to often working evenings and depending on where I work, being sometimes over an hour away from home, I had to change my diet. Eliminate anything causing inflammation and eat what felt as healthy as possible for me (ketogenic diet). This way I could focus on language learning and function throughout the day on less sleep where this would often be the case. Were I to eat more processed foods or simply more carbohydrates, my body would need more sleep.

So, my routine has been made up of the following activities:

1 writing,

2 extensive reading,

3 course books,

4 watching

5 Vocabulary

For each of the first four activities above I do 40 minutes of study on that particular activity and 20 minutes of vocabulary from my French learning magazines where I'd translate word lists from articles from English to French and French to English as well as read the articles. This was my form of SRS combined with intensive vocabulary study and intensive reading.

On commutes (sometimes over an hour in one direction), I've been listening to podcasts. My favourite at the time being "French Expat, Un podcast", but trying others here and there as well.

For June 2021 I totalled 64 hr and 50 minutes French learning, thereby averaging 2 hours and 9 minutes a day. I also did a bit over 8 hours Dutch reading with the kids and a bit over 2 hours Spanish reading with them also.

In July I got super serious. Rising without fail at 5am, doing 3 hours of my routine studies (at home at my desk or at work during downtime), plus listening activities and reading in French with the kids. Going super well until I just couldn't take a lack of sleep anymore no matter how healthy I felt I was eating, so on the 10th I just saw no point forcing myself to study while falling asleep, so I slept and failed to reach 3 hours that day. My conclusion is that I need to respect sleep more while also eating healthy and if I don't make my target, too bad, so I'm considering winding back to 6am starts. Slow and steady wins the race. Problem is, I have a bucket load of motivation and I just want to get on with the job. My work arrangements aren't is good as they used to be however with late starts, so I just need to work around that and do what I can, it seems.

Writing
Creative writing most days seems to be quite a worthwhile activity. I'm finding I am needing to resort to a lot of look ups for expressions, conjugations at times (imperfect subjunctive) and such activities have to be worthwhile in the long run. Many of these look ups are verifications of form, others not, but still logical in their constructions. Thus, hopefully with time my active vocabulary in terms of both writing and even speaking will improve.

Reading
I finished reading 1984 by George Orwell, finally. I was looking forward to the second half. I had built this book up my mind considerably. I was disappointed in the second half, however. It almost shocked me, although I feel like I should've known what was coming, in that it was so unapologetically dark and miserable. It seemed to beat every last ounce of hope out of humanity as seemingly possible. I was disappointed with the sad fate of the two 'lovers' and disappointed with the role of "O'Brien" in the book when I was fooled, as the main character was, by his apparent appearance. I promptly picked up a more positive book to follow up with - the translation of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman (Le Guerrier Pacifique), which I've read in English before many years ago, but not in French.

Course books
I'm working my way through Vocabulaire Progressif du français - niveau débutant. There he goes again, at it again with beginner resources, you say? Well yes and no. Okay, yes. This is a worthwhile warm up activity before progressing to other books/courses. It's not a waste of time, and is in fact a reminder of many structures and expressions I was either unsure of or even unaware of. When you're not surrounded by the language, no harm in reinforcing, right? Well, to an extent. Anyway, it's good revision with some new content. It's a quick run-through with regards to my usual slow pace and I wanted to knock it off considering I have all the other levels in the Vocab series and I had already completed this level in the Grammar series a while back.

Watching
I'm back at Buffy. This time I've made it all the way through episode 1. Ensuring I understood every single line, and repeated them myself aloud. I'm ready to throw my computer at the wall though as it is a piece of junk that cannot handle a flea looking at it before it craps itself. For the moment though, other things are better worth spending my money on. I re-watched episode 1 after going thoroughly over the script as mentioned. Slow but worthwhile. Beyond me? No. This focused listening is going to go a long way in helping me listen to details that I often miss when watching series or movies.

Vocabulary
I'm using Think French magazines at work and Bien-dire at home. I'm nearly all the way through reviewing the first Bien-dire magazine from 2004. Again, slow going, but in due course PM, in due course. Bien-dire is perhaps my favourite resource in this list.

I'm back to where I was a few years back with my passion for French with more time constraints to work around, so i have to be more organised and I'm yet to even see how I can work exercise into my routine. Still, however my routine unfolds, I'm going to push forward. Today's been the first slack day in my routine (only 12 minutes of French so far), but I needed some mental downtime from the increasing fatigue. Sensible does it.

Throw a half eaten chicken that's not been eaten over your shoulder.
Last edited by PeterMollenburg on Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:59 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:50 am

Previous post extensively edited.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby rdearman » Sun Jul 11, 2021 11:26 am

Remind me again what all this self-flagellation is for?
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:03 pm

rdearman wrote:Remind me again what all this self-flagellation is for?


Finally! I've got your attention! It's to illustrate to you how you don't want to approach language learning and that that's perfectly fine with everyone (I asked them all personally, and consequently you now know why I learn languages -to expand my survey sample size-, mind you many a Frenchy didn't know who you were, weird).
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Jul 11, 2021 5:31 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:
rdearman wrote:Remind me again what all this self-flagellation is for?


Finally! I've got your attention! It's to illustrate to you how you don't want to approach language learning and that that's perfectly fine with everyone (I asked them all personally, and consequently you now know why I learn languages -to expand my survey sample size-, mind you many a Frenchy didn't know who you were, weird).

Peter, I can't explain why, but whenever I read your plans and your progress in French, my own French improves!
It also seems to me that your life is even busier and more hectic than you have described, so my hat's off (or chapeau to keep it in house) to what you accomplish.
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Re: PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

Postby rdearman » Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:08 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:
rdearman wrote:Remind me again what all this self-flagellation is for?


Finally! I've got your attention! It's to illustrate to you how you don't want to approach language learning and that that's perfectly fine with everyone (I asked them all personally, and consequently you now know why I learn languages -to expand my survey sample size-, mind you many a Frenchy didn't know who you were, weird).

No, seriously. Why are you going through all this again? Have you booked a C1/C2 exam or something?
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