Isa's French Log + a bit of occasional ES, IT, JP or ZH

[I_likes_languages]

I also have too many resources and not enough time, but that MOOC looks brilliant. It's worth trying, I guess...

I'm sorry for not answering your post earlier, I was quite literally a bit under the weather this week. It's Friday now and I haven't looked at more than the introduction video yet. I don't think I will follow the course just now I might have more time in September or October. If you're going to do it, it'd be very happy to hear your opinion about the content/quality etc!

[I_likes_languages]

Ça fait désormais deux mois que je me suis lancée dans ce projet et je crois que c'est un bon moment pour ..eu..philosopher un peu sur le progrès que j'ai fait (où pas fait) etc.
Au début, j'avais des objectifs assez vagues : Arrêter de regarder le français seulement comme une langue que j'apprends, mais plutôt comme une langue que je maîtrise suffisamment pour l'utiliser activement. Ce qu'est assez rigolo, parce que je me suis rendu compte de toutes les occasions où je l'utilisais déjà. J'avais commencé à l'étudier au lycée avec une prof trop autoritaire et peu capable. Je crois que beaucoup d'entre vous ont connu des circonstances pareilles, mais en bref ça m'a donné un tas d'insécurités que je n'ai pas dans les langues que j'ai apprises toute seule. Le fait que j'ose poster un texte sur ce forum dédié aux langues et l'évidence même d'un progrès sur ce plan.
Tout de même, il me reste un long chemin à parcourir pour atteindre le niveau que j'aimerais avoir. J'ai pris un peu de confidence, donc maintenant il me faut continuer sans perdre la motivation. Jusqu'au moment mon progrès a été très vite, parce que j'ai plutôt ranimé des connaissances que j'avais déjà qu'étudié des choses nouvelles. J'ai réfléchi sur le chemin qu'il m'a fallu faire pour apprendre l'anglais et j'ai une vague idée de ce qu'il me faudrait faire pour y arriver avec le français (input massif et extensif accompagné et suivi par encore plus d’output et du travail sur mon vocabulaire), mais pas forcément pour y arriver le plus vite et sans pourtant perdre ma motivation. Je compte sur les logs ici pour trouver quelques trucs et astuces supplémentaires. J'ai décidé de prendre un examen en novembre, soit le DELF B2, soit le DALF C1. La préparation aux examens me semble un bon moyen pour assurer que je m'occupe de mes points faibles.
Bref détour : je suis allée au Institut Français l'autre jour (ce que je n'aurais pas osé il y a trois mois, je me sentais tellement mal à l'aise) et après m'avoir entendu parler quelques minutes l'institutrice était prête à me laisser entrer dans un cours de conversation du niveau C1/C2 (Finalement, je n'ai pas pu m'y inscrire parce que le cours était déjà plein, mais ils ne le savaient pas à cause d'un problème logiciel). Ça ne veut peut-être pas dire grand-chose, mais comme ce sont eux qui gèrent les examens je me suis dit que je pourrais tenter le C1 (et en tout cas j'en ai déjà marre de discuter des problèmes en seulement 250 mots, ça finit toujours à m'agacer à cause de la superficialité qui s’en ensuit).
Mon problème est surtout qu'après un jour de travail, j'ai rarement envie d'étudier avec mes livres de grammaire et je me laisse détourner trop facilement par des vidéos, des podcasts ou des romans. Je sais néanmoins que pour vraiment arriver à assimiler une expression que je rencontre il me faut l'étudier un peu plus intensif que ça. Malgré mes bonnes intentions les études ont fini par affecter d’autres parties de ma vie. C’est peut-être à cause de la canicule terrible qui ne semble pas du tout prête à s’en aller, mais je n’ai pas assez bougé ces derniers jours, ce qui doit désormais changer.

[I_likes_languages]

Super Challenge
After I realized that I can count Youtube videos >10min for the Super Challenge I decided to sign up for a double challenge with French. I participated in a SC before (14-15) with Italian and French, and it was great for my motivation. In the end I didn't make it to 100 movies/books in either language. I don't quite remember why. I think the reading part went fine but I couldn't find enough interesting/entertaining material to watch. Maybe I signed up for the 16-17 one too, I seem to have tweeted about that in May/June 2016 but I have no recollection of that SC at all I haven't decided how to do the counting yet, because I remember that I didn't like tweeting everything last time, although the page and the bot are awesome. I just don't like using twitter much.

For the time being, I have created (but not yet fully filled in) this googlesheet. I will try to log everything here and in the googlesheet.

Youtube/Listening: I had lost my interest in youtube videos for a while, all the never ending talking became a little much. I switched to only watching France24 documentaries for a couple of days, and they are mostly over 10 minutes so they all count. Then I was sick for 3 days last week and spend one of those days in bed watching Limitless on Netflix (French dub). I'm still busy trying to calculate the time I spend with videos >10min on youtube since May 2018, but it's a lot. Add to that about 30 podcasts from rfi à 20min (Grand Reportage) and I'm already done with half the video part of a normal challenge So it seems my input has been unbalanced lately and I need to read a little more. Now that the weather has cooled down again I'm also planning to spend more time outside and with sports again, that will probably leave less time for youtube/Netflix but maybe some for podcasts.
Reading: I haven't started with La cité des dieux sauvages yet. When I ordered it from Amazon.fr I also ordered a bunch of other books, and I'm reading "Perline, Clémence, Lucille et les autres..." by Jeanne-Marie Sauvage-Avit now. I had ordered the book without looking at the page count because the story seemed interesting, but it turned out to be 800 pages long. The story follows several French women through the years 1914-1924.

[BalancingAct]

To express "small aside" or "short digression" in speech or writing, you can say "petite parenthèse" (rather than "petit détour").

[I_likes_languages]

To express "small aside" or "short digression" in speech or writing, you can say "petite parenthèse" (rather than "petit détour").

Thank you!

[I_likes_languages]

I think I've burned myself out a little/oversaturated my brain with French videos/podcasts. I've watched or listened to French for more than 40 hours this month (I reactivated my Netflix account...). I could probably continue to watch more videos at the same pace, but opening a grammar book or working on pronounciation seems impossible. I think I should spend the evening repotting my plants or something like that. My original hypothesis was that to reach C1/2, I'd just need to consume as much French content as possible, as fast as possible, and then produce a lot of output. It seems that I might have to revise that plan and space it out a little more for my brain not to melt. But I've worked so hard to establish the habit of watching French Netflix/Youtube/listening to rfi that I find it hard to take a break and fill the freed time with other activities . I considered replacing French with Italian/Japanese/Czech/Mandarin for a week instead of doing totally language-learning-unrelated activities, but I'm really not sure what to do Any suggestions? I don't want to destroy my new "habits", but they don't seem sustainable either.

On a more positive note, I have found an awesome teacher for my exam preparation on italki. Super focused, and experienced with German-speakers. He lets me talk/read out my texts and takes notes, then he corrects me. But not by just telling me the correct way to say/write something, but instead by pointing out that I made a mistake, and then he provides hints which let me figure out what the mistake is as well as the correct form/word/expression/pronounciation; then he explains the rules. He's much more busy and more expensive than my other tutors though

I've really really grown to like rfi's "Géopolitique, le débat". I didn't like the free/debate format in the beginning, but now I might even prefer it to the BBC's well-scripted and orchestrated podcasts like the Inquiry (which is still one of the best podcasts on current issues/geopolitics I know).

EDIT: I've started to read one article on wikiHow every night. I choose them by clicking on "Au hasard". Today I got "Comment ne pas être étrange". Uhm. Thank you Internet?

[I_likes_languages]

I still haven't restarted studying grammar, but I've finished my 800-pages long book, "Perline, Clémence, Lucille et les autres..." by Jeanne-Marie Sauvage-Avit. I really liked this book: interesting story and setting, good characters, good balance between historical detail and story-telling. It was fun to read, even though the whole story seemed to be constructed to make a point and lead to a conclusion. The main character is a little too succesful in anything she does, unless patriarchy or strict, pre-modern social norms derail whatever she is doing. The main theme of the book is social change, more specifically how WWI led to social change and womens' fight for more rights and liberty (but rural-urban relations and social mobility and other themes come up too). It's a positive book, despite being set during and after WWI.

Most of the books I read/shows I watch in my languages I chooes rather randomnly, telling myself "at least I'm improving my ...". I don't want to continue aimlessly like this anymore. My time is too limited and I spend so much of it with French now, so I don't want to put off looking for "good" (read: stuff that I actually like and that impresses me somehow) content anymore. I've long wanted to read some of Zola's les Rougon-Macquart books, so I'm starting with that next, and maybe something more light-hearted in Italian to give me a break whenever that gets too depressing to continue. Where do you go to find good books? Amazon reviews are mostly worthless, maybe goodreads.com? Youtube is not much help here (so far), given the age of many of the "Booktubers" their recommendations seem to be mostly YA novels.

I'll also have to make some time to read "Le Roi de fer" in September. I already read the first chapter, it looks promising. I looked through Youtube and there are a couple of good videos about the guerre de cents ans, such as this on by Questions d'histoire. I'll try to review more videos later, but none of the history Youtubers I subscribe to have done a video specifically on Philippe le Bel (and the others were either super long (=didn't watch) or not very good).

[Socolata]

Where do you go to find good books? Amazon reviews are mostly worthless, maybe goodreads.com? Youtube is not much help here (so far), given the age of many of the "Booktubers" their recommendations seem to be mostly YA novels.

Babelio can be useful. It looks like GoodReads I think, but it's in French. Personally, I use it like a reminder, but tags (étiquettes) and recommendations (Vous aimez ce livre ? Babelio vous suggère...) may be useful. You can also check the rating. SensCritique is an another site of the same kind.
I watch only one French Booktuber, HajarRead. She reads lots of interesting books.

I see you talk about Émile Zola and les Rougon-Macquart, I just share a link: Au bonheur des dames, "livre enrichi" ("enriched book" ?) by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), with audio, transcripts, etc.

[I_likes_languages]

Babelio can be useful. It looks like GoodReads I think, but it's in French. Personally, I use it like a reminder, but tags (étiquettes) and recommendations (Vous aimez ce livre ? Babelio vous suggère...) may be useful. You can also check the rating. SensCritique is an another site of the same kind.
I watch only one French Booktuber, HajarRead. She reads lots of interesting books.

I see you talk about Émile Zola and les Rougon-Macquart, I just share a link: Au bonheur des dames, "livre enrichi" ("enriched book" ?) by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), with audio, transcripts, etc.

Thank you for all the recommendations Socolata! The BNF link for Au bonheur des dames is awesome, I think it will really help me with the book. I've only looked through the first few pages, but it seems to give a lot of extra information, there are pictures of what the places looked like back then etc...they also did another livre enrichi, Voltaire's Candide. I also watched some of HajarRead's videos, she is really good. I saw you posted in the French resources thread as well, thanks for those recommendations, too!

Reading: I've started to read Germinal because it's the book I had heard most about (and the one I found at the library). Au bonheur des dames has moved higher up on the list, it is now in the top 5 together with L'Assommoir, Le Ventre de Paris, La Bête humaine and Nana. The first chapter of Germinal was really hard because it describes the mine and all the different jobs people do around there; like les haveurs, les chargeurs, les moulineurs, les herscheuses, les galibots.... I still don't understand what some of them actually do and I won't put those words into anki either. The second chapter seems much easier though, but I'm starting to dislike Étienne.

Test preparation: I had two more DELF/DALF preparation sessions via italki. My tutor (who is a certified DELF/DALF examiner according to his profile) had me do the writing/speaking part for B2 and C1 respectively, and said I could pass both if I took them today. I'm beginning to question my understanding of the CEFR scale. The grading seems to leave a lot more leeway for minor mistakes than I thought. During the writing part of the C1 exam you also have the advantage of having three excerpts to base your writing on, which in my view makes it much easier than the B2 one where you have to come up with the entire thing yourself. Anyway, it's just label after all, and I still find it motivating enough to stick to my plans for November. Taking the test itself will not have any miraculous effect on my language level, but the preparation might add up to something. At the moment, scheduling tutoring sessions is the only thing that motivates me enough to write more serious texts.

Watching/Listening: It's la rentrée, so a lot of podcasts are finally adding new episodes! I've been trying to combine podcasts with sport/workouts, with very mixed success so far. My headphones are really bad, they seem to have little holes where the wind blows through when I use them while running or cycling. The first episode of La Trêve on Netflix was very promising, and I realized that Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries have French dubbing. I'll have to wait for the weekend to watch a couple of episodes.

Grammar: I can't bring myself to open a grammar book right now. I solemnly vow that I will review at least one grammar point within the next 7 days.

Vocabulary: Still chugging along, at a reduced speed of 15 words per day so I don't run out of words before I can motivate myself enough to add new ones. I could do better.

[I_likes_languages]

Reading: 250 pages for the Super Challenge, not including Réveil Courrier which I read almost every day (I discovered Courrier International in 2005 and have been a subscriber to their online version on and off since then). Still reading Germinal and Le Roi de fer. I also finished Miss Marple au club du mardi last week, which was waaaaay easier. I remember receiving Miss Marple books in German for my 10th or 11th birthday, so that's not too surprising.

Listening: Au coeur de l'histoire is quite good, I also listened to one episode of Grand bien vous fasse! (found this on someone's log?) and really liked it. Awesome choice of topics. I've also watched a couple of videos to try and improve my running, I liked Gilles Dorval, but it may just be because he looks a lot like my old PE teacher. He mumbles a little and the quality of the audio is worse than for the avarage young popular youtubers.

Pronounciation: I recently went through the exercises on http://phonetique.free.fr/ and realized that I can't distinguish between different nasales. Vent and vont or coupons and coupant sound the same to me. I'm working on this with one of my tutors (which makes her laugh a lot...hm..), and I'm planning to do some shadowing next week.

Grammar: I looked at the passé simple, but only just now and because I said I would



I signed up for the a half Super Challenge in Italian and Japanese. That may be insane, but it's supposed to be a challenge after all. I'm not planning to abandon French (only 1/3 done with the double SC), but I do want to experiment with adding a second and even third language. I figured that I'd have to somehow learn how to maintain (and subsequently study) more than one language in addition to German and English eventually, so I might just start now. Both Italian and Japanese are languages which I've learned to a high level before. I can comfortably listen to podcasts and watch series in both, though my Japanese reading is much worse than my Italian. Also, some weeks ago a new and quite active Japanese language exchange popped up about 10 min from where I life, and ignoring it is getting harder and harder. Aaand I've been wanting to listen to Veleno and Risciò for a couple of weeks now.