Re: Time from B2 to C1/C2? (frustrated somewhat- seeking some feedback pls)
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 7:23 pm
A reminder to everyone that politics is off-limits
We talk languages
http://forum.language-learners.org/
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5037
blaurebell wrote:I think doing what you find fun is always the best way to learn. We have a tendency to selectively and unconsciously forget unpleasant things, so learning is more effective when you just do what you like and have fun with it. If you like courses, do courses! If you feel like reading or watching stuff, do that. One question: What do your Anki decks look like? I actually noticed that I not only hate doing Anki, it also doesn't work for me - maybe connected? I will answer single word cards correctly, but it doesn't transfer to when I read the words in context in books, especially in highly inflected languages. For Russian it's already a success when my brain produces "I should know this from anki". Usually not even that happens and I only realise *after* I look up the word I find I learn vocabulary more quickly and efficiently by just reading intensively with Learning with Text and I always have all this context to make things easier. And I get to practice grammar at the same time! Also, I have very little patience with anki - 10min already feels like torture - and I can keep going for hours with a good dictionary and a page turner. Maybe it's because I don't enjoy anki or because I used word cards rather than sentence or cloze cards, but in any case, make sure anki is actually doing more for you than it does for me ...! I'm still pissed off about the 50h I wasted on Anki with Russian
PeterMollenburg wrote:It's been great in some ways, but at no point do I just allow the language to be absorbed- I analyse the sounds, the grammar, the spelling, enter them into Anki, drill them etc etc - all very abstract, unnatural, reliance on English etc.
blaurebell wrote:PeterMollenburg wrote:It's been great in some ways, but at no point do I just allow the language to be absorbed- I analyse the sounds, the grammar, the spelling, enter them into Anki, drill them etc etc - all very abstract, unnatural, reliance on English etc.
You know what helps me a lot with Assimil? I shadow the audio without even reading the text first, even if I don't really understand what's going on. Only when I can repeat it at the same speed as the audio do I go into the details of it. I find that it really carves its way into my brain that way and I allow the structure to just sink in before I try to understand why something is said this way or that way. I think it also helps that I do intensive reading from a point when I can barely even decipher difficult sentences. This way I learn to live with lots of gaps and imprecise semi translations that clarify themselves over time. I'm actually just like you with my need to do everything "properly" I can be a little obsessive as well. About 10 years ago my supervisor at uni told me that I need to have the courage to leave gaps. It has kinda become my mantra and still I fail at it badly.
I wonder whether you're maybe at a point where you should just cut yourself off from your training wheels and safety nets completely. I know they're so nice and reassuring, but I don't think you need them anymore. How about doing everything possible just in French? You want to look something up on the internet? Only in French. Watch anything, read anything, do it in French, even if it means that you have to read translations or watch dubs. You need a grammar explanation? Only in French. Try to go through your entire day in French, just like any native speaker would. You can still do your courses, just skip anything in it that isn't French. If there is anything unclear, refer to a French grammar or a monolingual dictionary only. If you need to write something down, write it in French.
Other people probably gave you such advice already, but I think we're often deaf to such voices until we've almost come to such conclusions ourselves. We need to be ready to hear it! People told me not to approach Russian in the grammar drill torture way, I did it anyway. I needed to come to the conclusion myself that it's not going to work for me. I'm much happier with my gaps and incomplete semi understood sentences than I was while I was going over every little grammar detail obsessively.
In any case, I think you're ready to just live your life in French, what do you think? Maybe just try it for a weeklong challenge and perhaps you will be surprised how easy it is. With English this made all the difference for me. By now it's been 10 years and I only speak German about once a week. And this was even the case when I accidentally got stranded in Germany for about 3 years in between. After about 5 years of English only I actually had to start writing a diary in German so that it doesn't get too rusty ...! Living my life mainly in English is actually also the reason why I don't break that C1 barrier with Spanish despite living in Spain. I guess I will have to follow my own advice at some point
PeterMollenburg wrote:Actually I already do this 95% of the time. There's perhaps some room for improvement, but not loads.
Have you considered joining a photography club?blaurebell wrote:I've actually considered going back to uni for another degree here in Spain after my PhD just so that I have a bit of a more structured work day, meet some new people, speak more and get more reasons to procrastinate with foreign language tv. A part-time humanities PhD which requires reading in 4-5 languages and where picking up a couple of languages becomes part of the workload doesn't feel like enough of a strain to start procrastinating apparently, I'm having too much fun All that content in Spanish needed for another degree and the qualification would be a plus of course, but it's not really the main reason. I'd just do it to fill in some of my Spanish gaps and have a less solitary lifestyle. I'll have to see what kind of degree I choose though - it's between a photography or a fine arts / art history master where the latter would mean a lot more reading and the former is more communicative. I'll probably decide after I have my Spanish PhD year in 2018, which will mostly require reading and possibly some writing. I suspect that maybe the communicative degree would fit better in the end to fill the gaps, but it depends on how far I get next year.
DaveBee wrote:Have you considered joining a photography club?