Zelda's French Log (+ Modern Greek)

[zjones]

My iTalki trial lesson was great. I was very anxious before the call, but as soon as I started talking with the teacher, I felt a lot better. He was very nice and professional. Without saying "Hey, we're going to speak French now," he just started asking me questions in French, and I felt comfortable enough to answer in French. We spoke for 30 minutes total, half in French and half in English. I think it's really wonderful to be evaluated by a teacher, because they are familiar with common problem areas, and they can identify your strengths and weaknesses. He said my pronunciation was great, my grammar is strong, and that I speak without translating English word-for-word. He also told me what everyone else has been telling me, which is that I need to push through my fear of speaking while also training my listening comprehension.

If I do decide to go ahead with hour-long lessons (which is likely), they will cost $18.00/hr for one, and $13.00/hr for a package of five. Not bad, but also a lot more than I'm used to spending on French.

As an aside, I think I need to work on normalizing my sleep schedule. I know how much sleep affects cognitive abilities and memory, and lately my schedule has been relatively disjunctive. Four days a week, I wake up at 5:00am to go train, but the other three days I'm sleeping in until 6:30am or 7:00am. I feel really awful on the days I sleep in, and then I struggle to find motivation to study French.

[Fortheo]

I've been reading XXI in order. Since the articles are written in different styles and by different authors, the difficulty of an article varies wildly. There was a single-page article with loads of unknown vocabulary, but the next article had just one or two unknown words.

My daily French consumption is primarily reading now, with some audio and a little bit of speaking practice. (I purposely pronounce words in my head when I'm reading, and I often speak them aloud to increase my speaking dexterity.) I think I'm in the process of consolidating my French knowledge.

Oh, yeah, and what's the deal with liaison? I feel like it happens about 50% of the time. And even if I do use it correctly, sometimes my French friends tell me that I sound too formal and unnatural, and that I shouldn't liaise those specific words in conversation. But sometimes I skip the liaison and they tell me I absolutely cannot skip it. So I looked at the Wikipedia page on liaison, and my brain melted out of the bottom of my skull. I had no idea there were so many little rules about when to use liaison and when to skip it. Dumb.

I've honestly never looked into all the rules in regards to liaisons; I probably should, but from my experience it differs from person to person and from le langage soutenu et le langage courant et familier.

If you find any interesting rules about it, I'd be interested in seeing them. I just listen so much and imitate French speakers so much that I've never over thought liaisons too much.

[zjones]

I've honestly never looked into all the rules in regards to liaisons; I probably should, but from my experience it differs from person to person and from le langage soutenu et le langage courant et familier.

If you find any interesting rules about it, I'd be interested in seeing them. I just listen so much and imitate French speakers so much that I've never over thought liaisons too much.

Hi! To give you an idea of the rules, check out the wikipedia page for French liaison : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaison_(French). I only skimmed the article, but it gave me a good idea that studying liaison would be extremely inefficient. I think you have the right idea that extensive listening and conversation will give the best results.

Right now I just try to listen extensively, go with my gut, and accept corrections when they are given to me. (To be honest, I think only one of my friends is perfectionistic enough to correct all my liaison mistakes. Other people realize it isn't that big of an issue at this point.)

[zjones]

Grammaire Progressive du Français Niveau Perfectionnement, finally arrived and I couldn't be happier. This book is chock full of info, useful tips, fun exercises, poetry, and quotes... everything I could want from a self-learning textbook. I want to give Maïa Grégoire and Alina Kostucki a great big hug and a bottle of wine.

There are 85 chapters to the book, with each chapter containing a page or more of exercises. To give you an idea of some of the chapter names:

* ENTRE et PARMI, PRÈS ET PROCHE... Prépositions et adverbes de lieu
* ÇA, C'EST, IL EST...
* LES TEMPS du PASSÉ : difficultés
* BIEN que, QUOIQUE, QUI que, QUOI que... L'opposition et la concession

Between this, reading, podcasts and iTalki I think I'm set for awhile. I'm very happy and I feel like this book is perfect for me.

Thanks @Caseva and everyone else for recommending the Grammaire Progressive du Français books!

[zjones]

Quick update.

I bought a package of iTalki lessons from my teacher. I would like to do lessons twice a week, but for now I have only scheduled one lesson per week due to the cost of lessons. He sent me some self-created listening comprehension exercises (crystal-clear audio and a PDF booklet of questions) of an old French fairytale. Hooray! I gobble up homework, so I hope he has more.

I am working through the CLE Grammaire book one lesson at a time. There are plenty of little things in the Perfectionnement book that I have never learned, which makes it fun and challenging. Because it's so advanced, the lessons don't build on each other; instead, they tackle difficult areas of grammar.

My reading volume has decreased due to the other resources, which is understandable, but I'd really like to make sure I'm reading Harry Potter every day. Now, when I notice sentences that I'm puzzled by (due to idioms or specific pronouns), I make note of them to go over with my teacher or another French speaker. I used to shrug and move on, but at this point I want to figure them out.

In addition, I have been watching native French videos on YouTube, without subtitles. Sometimes I can understand most of it, sometimes half, sometimes nothing at all.

My goal is to add German in January 2019, with the English version of the Assimil German book. I don't want to rush anything, and I want to enjoy this lovely sweet spot that I've found with intermediate French.

[Skynet]

Great update!

I am working through the CLE Grammaire book one lesson at a time. There are plenty of little things in the Perfectionnement book that I have never learned, which makes it fun and challenging. Because it's so advanced, the lessons don't build on each other; instead, they tackle difficult areas of grammar.

I was going to start with Int. before Perf., but am really happy to see that you're not having problems with the Perf. Impressive indeed!

My goal is to add German in January 2019, with the English version of the Assimil German book. I don't want to rush anything, and I want to enjoy this lovely sweet spot that I've found with intermediate French.

I am definitely rooting for you! I know the excitement that one gets when they have the "Assimil language bug." I am starting on two German Assimil books next week.

[zjones]

I have a VERY nit-picky question about French, maybe someone can help me with it.

1. Why does Jamaica (la Jamaïque) have an article, although most non-European islands don't use an article (i.e. Cuba, Hawaï)? I know there are exceptions to this rule (European islands often use articles, as well as French territories) but Jamaica doesn't fit into either. If the answer is just "that's the way it is", I'll accept that. At this point I'm just curious if there's any rhyme or reason.

merci

[zjones]

This music video contains a poem from the 16th century, Heureux qui comme Ulysse written by Joachim Du Bellay.

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la Toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu'ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux,
Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l'ardoise fine :

Plus mon Loir gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur angevine.



Ridan also added two of his own verses.

J'ai traversé les mers à la force de mes bras,
Seul contre les dieux,
Perdu dans les marées,
Retranché dans une cale,
Et mes vieux tympans percés,
Pour ne plus jamais entendre,
Les sirènes et leur voix.

Nos vies sont une guerre,
Où il ne tient qu'à nous,
De se soucier de nos sorts,
De trouver le bon choix,
De nous méfier de nos pas,
Et de toute cette eau qui dort,
Qui pollue nos chemins soi-disant pavés d'or.

[zjones]

This post is a little rambly, but relates to learning, optimization and routines.

I've been thinking about the role that routine has played in my life. Routine allows me to focus on what I'm doing instead of trying to find "the most efficient" way to learn, which is a rabbit hole I'm constantly tempted to go down. I could never stick to anything in my life until I figured out how to stick to a routine. Exercise was the first success I had with routine, because I started paying for classes on a monthly basis and was loathe to miss any class due to the money involved. French soon followed, starting with the purchase of the Assimil course, which allowed me to attach value to my French unlike my previous clicking around on Duolingo. I have since increased my weight-lifting routine to 5x per week, added weekly running, and plugged small routines into tons of aspects of my life (now I actually wear sunscreen every day, ha).

There's something to be said for optimizing learning and getting good materials, but I took it overboard all the time. With French, I was doing the equivalent of spending hours learning about squat form without ever doing a squat, because I was terrified of doing it wrong. I had to force myself to act, and through that I came to believe that action is more important than perfection, and that regular action leads to results.

In case anyone is interested, some of these thoughts were provoked by this article over at zen habits: https://zenhabits.net/unoptimizing/. I've never seen optimization discussed negatively in the productivity community, so it was really interesting to read. I think that over-optimization has a lot to do with information overload as well (i.e. having so many sources available that one can't make a decision, focus, or retain information well).

So, I'm happy to say I found my groove again when it comes to my French routine. It keeps me busy and studying, without requiring extraneous time worrying about what I should do next. I have everything in order and it feels good to sit down and complete my tasks. Now I just need to keep avoiding children so I don't catch a cold and get all out-of-whack (really though, I'm terrified of this).

[zjones]

Speaking of having everything in order...

I've been struggling with a few of the Grammaire Progressive du Français lessons, particularly the ones that I don't feel provide me any substantial advice or information that I can readily use. I knew the Perfectionnement book would be complicated before I started, but I think I'm in over my head right now. It doesn't help that I've been working on words to do with space and time, which are some of the most frustrating ones for me (dans, en, pour, pendant, apporter, emporter, amener, ramener, emmener.... ARRRGHHH)

So my plan is to change my method but still study the book daily. Instead of doing every lesson in order, I will mark the lessons that I deem the most useful (or fun) and then work through those lessons. The most important lessons are the ones that will aid me in my ability to read more complex sentences. At the end I can go back and complete the remaining lessons if I want.