Lianne's 365 Days of French

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Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
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Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 06, 2019 10:45 pm

2 x

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Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Mon Jan 07, 2019 1:54 am

Cavesa wrote:https://www.memrise.com/course/738096/conjugaison-francaise-complete/


Thanks, Cavesa! That course looks amazing.

Day 6 is done! Pretty much the same as yesterday: 15 minutes reading, 2 hours and 15 minutes of watching Buffy and Angel, and 15 minutes of Duolingo reviews.

Tomorrow, it's back to work! So, hopefully I can keep this up. I'm confident I can at least maintain the half hour a day to stay in the challenge. Especially since for the next few weeks I'm going to review some audio courses on my commutes.

Side note: My worst language learning habit is spending time when I should be studying browsing this forum instead. :lol:
4 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

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Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:14 am

A whole week complete!

Day 7:
28 minutes of Pimsleur
45 minutes of watching Angel in French
a quick Duolingo lesson to keep my streak up
0 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:17 am

Day 8:
1 hour, 10 minutes of Pimsleur French 1
1 hour, 30 minutes of watching Buffy and Angel in French (with English subs)
15 minutes Duolingo

Day 9:
1 hour, 10 minutes of Pimsleur French 1
45 minutes of watching Buffy in French (with English subs)
15 minutes Duolingo
15 minutes Memrise (verb conjugations)

I feel like reviewing the Pimsleur lessons is a good use of my commuting time. Even though sometimes the early lessons are painfully repetitive, even at lesson 6 I'm finding that some of the content is worth reviewing for me. Plus, I can actually get through more than a lesson on my walk each way, potentially getting through 3 lessons a day. That means I may be able to finish French 1 in about 2 weeks, and move on to French 2, which hopefully will have some fresh content for me.

As for French Buffy, at first I wasn't using subs, but then I turned them on so I could follow along better. But I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Without the subs I don't understand anywhere near everything, but I do understand some, and maybe struggling along with that would be better than subconsciously (lol) falling back on the subs.
2 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

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Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:58 am

Day 10:
1 hour, 26 minutes of Pimsleur French 1 (lessons 7-9)
15 minutes Duolingo
15 minutes Memrise

My (English) reading has been feeling neglected since starting this challenge, so this evening I skipped Buffy and curled up with my book instead. And thanks to my commute avec Pimsleur, I still got plenty of study time in!
2 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Sat Jan 12, 2019 5:53 am

Day 11:
1 hour, 20 minutes Pimsleur French 1 (lessons 10-12)
1 hour, 30 minutes watching Buffy and Angel (with English subs)
10 minutes Duolingo

I think I may actually be getting more out of Pimsleur than I expected! It's been so long since I really had to translate a whole sentence into French. As weird as that is. I've neglected my French so much, and when I have worked on it, I've mostly done passive things for the Super Challenge. Duolingo is the most I've really had to translate phrases into French. But Pimsleur just asks me to translate sentence after sentence into French. It's surprisingly challenging. It's really reminding me that I haven't spoken French out loud in a year, essentially.
2 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Contact:

Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:36 am

Day 12:
26 minutes Pimsleur French 1 (lesson 13)
6 minutes Duolingo

I have made for myself a fun (depending on your definition of fun) vocabulary learning challenge! Partly because I have trouble deciding on vocabulary to study, and partly because I really want to read Tentation (New Moon) by Stephenie Meyer this year, without a dictionary.

First, I found an ebook of Tentation. Then, I ran it through a couple different word frequency analysers. Finally, I copied the resulting lists into Google Docs. Now, I have a list of some 14,000+ words, ranging from "que" (2522 times throughout the book) to the 7299 words that appear only once. (Wow!)

I don't have a clear plan of exactly what I'm gonna do with this information yet. But tomorrow I plan to start on that. Essentially I want to learn all those words, at least passively. I know this is kind of like "studying to the test" but you have to start somewhere! I think tomorrow I'll go through the first hundred or so words, or however many I can go through before I start not knowing a lot of them. Then I'll formulate a plan for how many I need to cover a day in order to finish the list by, say, summer. Maybe I'll start an Anki deck specifically for this purpose.
1 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
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Contact:

Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Mon Jan 14, 2019 4:28 am

Day 13:
an uncertain amount of time but definitely way more than 30 minutes vocabulary study
about 10 minutes Duolingo

I got through the first 345 words on my list of common words in Tentation! I knew nearly all of those words already. I created a new Anki deck for this purpose and have made 20 cards so far (one way, just passive). Mostly they're for words that I kind of know, but that are used in lots of common little phrases, which I struggle to remember. For example, one of the words was tant, so I added a couple cards for common phrases like tant pis. I look forward to getting further down the list, when I hope the words will be more nouns, verbs, and adjectives, which I find to be more concrete and easier to study.

I have 13,886 words remaining on my list. (List total=14,231) That means if I cover 100 words per day I'd be done by the start of June. That might be a wildly unrealistic speed though. (Yes I did 345 today, but it's Sunday, so I had more time, and I scrolled past all kinds of words I definitely knew well; those will decrease as I go.) I'm just gonna keep learning them and see what speed I can keep up over the next week or so, and then go from there.
0 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
x 1298
Contact:

Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:16 am

Day 14:
1 hour, 19 minutes Pimsleur French 1 (lessons 14-16)
5 minutes Duolingo
30 minutes Anki/vocab list

I did manage to get through 100 words on my list today, despite the fact that Monday evenings are when I tend to feel extremely groggy and get very little done! (That did happen, but afterwards, I managed to fly through 100 words in half an hour, again because I already knew a lot of them.) I'm currently in the middle of the words that appear 30 times in the book.

I know these frequency numbers are a bit off in a real linguistic sense, since each different conjugation is counted as a different word, same as masculine/feminine adjectives, etc., but this is still really eye-opening! More than half the words are only in there once! It really goes to show that even if you know all the most common words, there are just SO MANY uncommon words! In a way it's kind of discouraging. My goal here is just a YA novel that supposedly has a lower reading level than Harry Potter, yet still the vocabulary is so big (from my perspective). But I shan't despair!
3 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them

User avatar
Lianne
Green Belt
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:29 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: Speaks: English (N)
Actively studying: French (low int)
Dabbling in: Italian (beginner), ASL (beginner), Ojibwe (beginner), Swahili (beginner)
Wish list: Swedish, Esperanto, Klingon, Brazilian Portuguese
Has also dabbled in: German, Spanish, toki pona
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=12275
x 1298
Contact:

Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:43 am

Went a couple days without updating, but not without studying!! (I did, however, lose my Duolingo streak, even with a streak freeze in place! Darn.)

Day 15:
40 minutes Pimsleur French 1 (lesson 17 and part of 18)
30 minutes Anki/vocab list

Day 16:
30 minutes Anki/vocab list

Day 17:
45 minutes watching Angel
10 minutes Pimsleur French 1 (finished lesson 18)
5 minutes Duolingo

I had planned to get through more Pimsleur this week, but the weather was against me! Yesterday morning there was a -39 windchill, so I took the bus to work and got a ride home. Today I got a ride in the morning and bused home.

As for my vocab list, I have continued covering 100 words per day! I'm taking this evening off, though. I've already exceeded my half hour of studying, and haven't been fitting nearly enough (English) reading into my days! So I'm gonna go read my book. :D
1 x
: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

Pronouns: they/them


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