A language learners’ forum

zjones wrote: I'm not sure how I could go this long without being aware of this negation.

Because the brutal truth about French is, regardless of whether an individual learner finds French overall to be "easy" or "hard," there is just a lot stuff to learn. Little, annoying, detail-y stuff. Like this. You have to learn rules, then the exceptions to the rules, then the exceptions to the exceptions...it never ends with French.

Cèid Donn wrote:

zjones wrote: I'm not sure how I could go this long without being aware of this negation.

Because the brutal truth about French is, regardless of whether an individual learner finds French overall to be "easy" or "hard," there is just a lot stuff to learn. Little, annoying, detail-y stuff. Like this. You have to learn rules, then the exceptions to the rules, then the exceptions to the exceptions...it never ends with French.

Still much better than English. That is the Queen of irregularity!

Don't worry, Zelda. This is a minor thing. There are people unaware for years that subjonctif exists (it was my case) and learning mistakes due to it.I had to unlearn them. The bright side: there is always something new to explore!

Cèid Donn wrote:

zjones wrote: I'm not sure how I could go this long without being aware of this negation.

Because the brutal truth about French is, regardless of whether an individual learner finds French overall to be "easy" or "hard," there is just a lot stuff to learn. Little, annoying, detail-y stuff. Like this. You have to learn rules, then the exceptions to the rules, then the exceptions to the exceptions...it never ends with French.

Cavesa wrote:

Cèid Donn wrote:Because the brutal truth about French is, regardless of whether an individual learner finds French overall to be "easy" or "hard," there is just a lot stuff to learn. Little, annoying, detail-y stuff. Like this. You have to learn rules, then the exceptions to the rules, then the exceptions to the exceptions...it never ends with French.

Still much better than English. That is the Queen of irregularity!

Don't worry, Zelda. This is a minor thing. There are people unaware for years that subjonctif exists (it was my case) and learning mistakes due to it.I had to unlearn them. The bright side: there is always something new to explore!

Thank you friends, that makes me feel a little better... a lot better actually! I'm continually running into this kind of stuff in French books, and once I think I have reading pretty well under control, I'll switch to a different author and suddenly find all kinds of new phrases. It's actually really exciting, but sometimes I start to feel like I'll never get to where I want to be. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!

Of course you're not the only one.

This is one of the reasons, why I believe most learners can profit from a high quality coursebook for advanced students. To discover what we don't know that we don't know. If you go through all the levels of Grammaire Progressive, there are few such things that would surprise you.

Cavesa wrote:Of course you're not the only one.

This is one of the reasons, why I believe most learners can profit from a high quality coursebook for advanced students. To discover what we don't know that we don't know. If you go through all the levels of Grammaire Progressive, there are few such things that would surprise you.

I agree although I haven't yet used GP. I use books from PUG (Presses universitaires de Grenoble), like L'expression française an L'exercisier, although mine are older editions I got at a steep mark-off via Amazon sellers. (I think some of these titles might be published under a different imprint for markets outside of France now, I'm not sure.) But they are remarkable in helping me fine tune my grasp of French grammar. I still make plenty of mistakes, but I understand better what mistakes I'm making, if that makes any sense.

I discovered a native French podcast called Change ma vie: outils pour l'esprit which is about "exploring your inner landscape" (my words). Clotilde Dusoulier offers advice about handling emotions, challenging core beliefs and anxiety. This topic is one of my guilty pleasures, and being able to indulge in French makes me not feel so guilty about binging on personal development stuff.

That came up while I was searching for some other stuff today! Intrigued to hear you like it. It's sort of up my street but I haven't listened to any yet.

I found this lesson while flipping through the book. Nice job Assimil, I appreciate them working social media into their newer books, considering that it is such an important part of modern culture.

French

I finished Autre-Monde: L'Alliance des Trois and I'm starting the second book soon. I went back to reading Harry Potter Tome 4 because I feel guilty leaving it unfinished. It's still moving quite slow but I did finish the ballroom dance chapter last night, thank the gods.

I'm back on the hunt for new French language exchange partners. Why do I do this to myself? Many of them end up fading out in one way or another, but I do have 2-3 LE partners who are great and still contact me regularly.

So apparently I can change the title of the subject field when I'm posting. I guess I'll see what it does.

New attempt at scheduling language-time

I still like doing Greek at 8:00am and then again in the early evening, but my French time is not structured so I'm finding myself subject to all kinds of distractions, procrastination and excuses. Language-learning is more about learning how to battle my impulsivity and directionless-ness than it is about actually learning a language. There has to be a good balance regarding time-management, right? If I track or plan too much, I hate it... but if I don't have any idea of how I'm going to spend my time, I don't do as much French as I would like.

I have a terrible habit: I try a scheduling method (like time-tracking) and somehow think that it will fix my language studies, only to realize that I HATE tracking time. So I stop. Then two months later I try time-tracking again, because "this time it will work!" I think I've done this like four or five times already.

But I've been inspired reading all the logs on here and seeing the changes that people are making in their schedules (Morgana and Stringerbell in particular). I do get the feeling that it helps to shake up my routine from time to time.

So my new idea is to set minimum daily amounts of time for different French activities:

• 1 hour of French reading
• 1 hour of French listening (includes YouTube and shows without subtitles)
• Some amount of French conversation practice (this will take place mainly by online chatting, minimum daily requirement is to at least reach out to someone in French).
• At least 1 minute of spontaneous French speaking (either an audio message to a LE partner or recorded on my phone, and like Pandora's box, never to be opened again)

Again, these are just minimums so I hope to do more. I've tried this out today and it seems to work well. It allows me enough flexibility to choose what I want to do with each given area, but I still have a goal to reach which keeps me in check.

Greek

Keeping my head above water, basically. There are so many COMMON words that are spelled the same but have an accent in a different spot and so they mean something totally different. Also, maybe it's just me but starting in the 3rd week of Assimil Le Grec, the Greek voice actors speak faster and run their words together more than the French speakers did in the first third of Assimil NFWE. I'm not sure if this is due to French being more familiar to me as a native English speaker, or if the Greek speakers are actually talking faster.

Random note

I've been learning new vocabulary and phrases in French from using Assimil Le Grec. I had no idea that un pont does not only mean bridge, but also the deck of a ship. Another word I learned is une escale which means a stop or a layover.

zjones wrote:I have a terrible habit: I try a scheduling method (like time-tracking) and somehow think that it will fix my language studies, only to realize that I HATE tracking time.

It's definitely not for everyone! It works well for me because I really, really love collecting data and I find that it keeps me accountable, but that doesn't mean you should make yourself do it if you hate it. How are you keeping track of your time? I use the stopwatch on my iPhone. If I need to stop to do something else, I just pause the stopwatch, then resume it when I continue. Is that how you were tracking?

I do something totally different with Italian that maybe you could apply to French, sort of an adapted Pomodoro technique. I have a certain number of Italian articles that I want to read for the day (usually 5). I read one article and then I give myself permission to play my turn in Words with Friends (I have about 3-4 games going on at any given point, so it takes me a couple of minutes). As soon as I played all my turns, I read another article. Maybe you could allow yourself to do very briefly one of the things that tend to distract you after you've watched a video, recorded a French message, or read a certain # of pages as a little reward?

Or, you could make some kind of grid (spreadsheet or list style) where each box is a task (like one box for recording a message, one box for reading a chapter in a French book, one box for watching x number of videos or x minute of videos and when you've finished that task, check off the box. Maybe this wouldn't work for you, but I find checking tasks off extremely fulfilling and it motivates me to get more things done so I can check them off!

zjones wrote:I've been learning new vocabulary and phrases in French from using Assimil Le Grec. I had no idea that un pont does not only mean bridge, but also the deck of a ship. Another word I learned is une escale which means a stop or a layover.

Man, what crazy vocabulary to be using with absolute beginners!