A language learners’ forum

Elsa Maria wrote:A belated congratulations on your exam results

And thanks for posting your study schedule. In the homeschooling world, we call that a loop schedule. I'm not sure why I never thought to try a loop schedule for myself, but you have inspired me to do so!

Thank you Elsa Maria. A loop schedule hey? Interesting, I might have to adapt this terminology as we plan to homeschool our children down the track. Glad I've been of some use

I'm a little slow off the mark getting back into my French loop schedule. 1 hour day one, 1 hour day two, zero day three (although I listened to French RFI for 30 min on the fly)! I'll get there, one day at a time - 3 hours is the goal for my loop schedule, but with other interests vying for my attention, 2 hours is often more realistic. While I dropped formal French study post exam I dropped many other things too, thus while working 6 days a week, my lawns were almost 3 feet tall and other things were needing attention. Thus I have a semi-valid excuse for not reaching 3 hours, right? C'mon PM, stop lurking on the forum!

PeterMollenburg wrote:Well, contrary to what I expected, I already have the results of the DELF B2.

Anticipated DELF B2 results:

Listening: 8/25
Reading: 22/25
Writing: 20/25
Speaking: 23/25
TOTAL: 73/100
------------------------------------
Actual DELF B2 results

Listening: 19/25
Reading: 17.5/25
Writing: 21/25
Speaking: 23.5/25
TOTAL: 81/100
-----------------------------------

Thoughts-
Very pleased with myself indeed! I'm glad I made it into the above 80 grade, which in my day in school, usually meant an A-grade. Gotta be pleased with that.

• I was shocked with my listening score. I expected soooo much less than that.
• I was mildly surprised with my somewhat weaker score on reading than anticipated.
• Very pleased with my writing and speaking scores, both pretty close to what I expected but even better. I think I ought to be proud with such a good speaking score given really in all honesty, minimal interaction with other French speakers throughout my French learning journey thus far.
• I checked back at my old B1 scores which was 79/100 overall, so again, happy to have improved on that too.

Congrats to me monsieur le PM. What a zozo I am, a chuffed one who did pretty well on his B2 afterall

Throw a cat over your shoulder

I am extremely late to this party.
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!
You're awesome! Absolutely awesome!

Cavesa wrote:

PeterMollenburg wrote:Well, contrary to what I expected, I already have the results of the DELF B2.

Anticipated DELF B2 results:

Listening: 8/25
Reading: 22/25
Writing: 20/25
Speaking: 23/25
TOTAL: 73/100
------------------------------------
Actual DELF B2 results

Listening: 19/25
Reading: 17.5/25
Writing: 21/25
Speaking: 23.5/25
TOTAL: 81/100
-----------------------------------

Thoughts-
Very pleased with myself indeed! I'm glad I made it into the above 80 grade, which in my day in school, usually meant an A-grade. Gotta be pleased with that.

• I was shocked with my listening score. I expected soooo much less than that.
• I was mildly surprised with my somewhat weaker score on reading than anticipated.
• Very pleased with my writing and speaking scores, both pretty close to what I expected but even better. I think I ought to be proud with such a good speaking score given really in all honesty, minimal interaction with other French speakers throughout my French learning journey thus far.
• I checked back at my old B1 scores which was 79/100 overall, so again, happy to have improved on that too.

Congrats to me monsieur le PM. What a zozo I am, a chuffed one who did pretty well on his B2 afterall

Throw a cat over your shoulder

I am extremely late to this party.
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!
You're awesome! Absolutely awesome!

To be honest, I was kinda hoping to hear from you Cavesa as you have given me a lot of quality advice along the way, so thank you kindly for dropping by and leaving some very nice words, I truly appreciate it

PeterMollenburg wrote:Well, contrary to what I expected, I already have the results of the DELF B2.

Anticipated DELF B2 results:

Listening: 8/25
Reading: 22/25
Writing: 20/25
Speaking: 23/25
TOTAL: 73/100
------------------------------------
Actual DELF B2 results

Listening: 19/25
Reading: 17.5/25
Writing: 21/25
Speaking: 23.5/25
TOTAL: 81/100
-----------------------------------

Thoughts-
Very pleased with myself indeed! I'm glad I made it into the above 80 grade, which in my day in school, usually meant an A-grade. Gotta be pleased with that.

• I was shocked with my listening score. I expected soooo much less than that.
• I was mildly surprised with my somewhat weaker score on reading than anticipated.
• Very pleased with my writing and speaking scores, both pretty close to what I expected but even better. I think I ought to be proud with such a good speaking score given really in all honesty, minimal interaction with other French speakers throughout my French learning journey thus far.
• I checked back at my old B1 scores which was 79/100 overall, so again, happy to have improved on that too.

Congrats to me monsieur le PM. What a zozo I am, a chuffed one who did pretty well on his B2 afterall

Throw a cat over your shoulder

I was on holiday and missed this....Congratulations!!!!

BOLIO wrote:

PeterMollenburg wrote:Well, contrary to what I expected, I already have the results of the DELF B2.

Anticipated DELF B2 results:

Listening: 8/25
Reading: 22/25
Writing: 20/25
Speaking: 23/25
TOTAL: 73/100
------------------------------------
Actual DELF B2 results

Listening: 19/25
Reading: 17.5/25
Writing: 21/25
Speaking: 23.5/25
TOTAL: 81/100
-----------------------------------

Thoughts-
Very pleased with myself indeed! I'm glad I made it into the above 80 grade, which in my day in school, usually meant an A-grade. Gotta be pleased with that.

• I was shocked with my listening score. I expected soooo much less than that.
• I was mildly surprised with my somewhat weaker score on reading than anticipated.
• Very pleased with my writing and speaking scores, both pretty close to what I expected but even better. I think I ought to be proud with such a good speaking score given really in all honesty, minimal interaction with other French speakers throughout my French learning journey thus far.
• I checked back at my old B1 scores which was 79/100 overall, so again, happy to have improved on that too.

Congrats to me monsieur le PM. What a zozo I am, a chuffed one who did pretty well on his B2 afterall

Throw a cat over your shoulder

I was on holiday and missed this....Congratulations!!!!

Thank you kindly BOLIO. I hope you had a nice break.

PeterMollenburg wrote:Yes I think Assimil - Using French is a great course to follow Assimil - New French with Ease.

What should one expect after finishing Using French?

I completed several beginner courses in German such as Pimsleur, Michael Thomas, Alles Klar A/B, Deutsch - warum nicht, Mission Europe and Flieg mit. I also went through one fourth of Rosetta Stone, half of Duolingo and a bunch of flashcards. After this, I still felt like I had a long way to go when trying to move on to native material - especially listening. Would you say Using Frech does a good job closing this gap since it's marketed as an advanced course or am I expecting too much from it?

Stefan wrote:

PeterMollenburg wrote:Yes I think Assimil - Using French is a great course to follow Assimil - New French with Ease.

What should one expect after finishing Using French?

I completed several beginner courses in German such as Pimsleur, Michael Thomas, Alles Klar A/B, Deutsch - warum nicht, Mission Europe and Flieg mit. I also went through one fourth of Rosetta Stone, half of Duolingo and a bunch of flashcards. After this, I still felt like I had a long way to go when trying to move on to native material - especially listening. Would you say Using Frech does a good job closing this gap since it's marketed as an advanced course or am I expecting too much from it?

Hi Stefan. I would say it helps indeed in closing the gap, especially in terms of grammatical concepts and simply getting used to -bit by bit- more complicated language. Still, although it's labelled "C1", which I feel it actually is by the end of the course, Using French alone will not necessarily get you to pass a C1 exam. Yes the course by the end is C1 level content, but you need more of it, you need broader vocabulary and even more examples of language in general. Reading one C1 level book for example won't mean you can pass a C1 exam- that's too narrow. Sorry, getting slightly off track...

Nevertheless if you've done some beginner courses and followed NFWE with Using French, I don't see any reason why one couldn't endeavour to read native content that's not overly complicated due to Using French having closed the gap between beginner courses and native content- build up reding gradually if you like post UF, or find something that interests you (whatever works).

Alternatively, after UF, you could continue to do other language courses at the same time as reading native content. This way you're seeing language in it's natural setting (through reading) and getting a feel for it, while analysing the grammar and doing exercises on the other hand through a course or two.

Hope that helps.

Stefan wrote:After this, I still felt like I had a long way to go when trying to move on to native material - especially listening.

The problem with German and native material is actually a combination of vocabulary, word order and parsing of long sentences. It's a problem that isn't quite as pronounced with a language like French because there is so much vocabulary overlap and the sentence structure isn't that difficult. The gap is simply smaller. With German the gap is big and only doing courses simply won't give you the experience to deal with native material. Developing a broad enough vocabulary for native material is harder because there are fewer cognates. Parsing of strange word order and long sentences is also something that only improves with lots of exposure. With Russian I actually had the same problem and the only way to work around it was to jump into it with a dictionary anyway and look up the translation whenever I couldn't figure out a sentence on my own. With languages that have less overlap at some point one simply has to jump in at the deep end. If you wait until you feel "ready" you might have to wait forever.

Congratulations about your test, PeterMollenburg! (I think everything that is to be said about it has already been said).

Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:Congratulations about your test, PeterMollenburg! (I think everything that is to be said about it has already been said).

Thank you kindly Tillumadoguenirurm