Lianne's 365 Days of French

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badger
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby badger » Tue May 14, 2019 2:01 am

Lianne wrote:Hey @badger! Funnily enough, right after our exchange about "j'ai été élevé", I read a few pages of my Bescherelle book, and found even more ridiculous examples!! First, here's a section from the book on similar usage to the one we discussed:
Les temps surcomposés utilisent l'auxiliaire habituel du verbe, lui-même composé à l'aide d'un autre auxiliaire. Noter que l'auxiliaire être est en première position lorsque le verbe a une construction pronominale.

Dès que Sylvain a eu fini son travail, il est parti.
Dès qu'elle a été née, on l'a aimée.

But then, it gets wilder! (Thankfully, this next construction is uncommon.)
Les temps surcomposés à la forme passive -- à vrai dire d'emploi très rare -- utilisent l'auxiliaire être pour le passif et l'auxiliaire avoir lui-même composé (avec un autre auxiliaire avoir), en sorte qu'il y a trois auxiliaires successifs, dont deux au participe passé :

Dès que le ministre a eu été opéré, il a repris ses responsabilités.

:shock:

Je te remercie pour ça. :lol:

I'm torn between being horrified :shock: & actually rather liking the construction :D

it could be one to drop casually into a B1 oral if I were ever to take the exam!
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Lianne
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Wed May 15, 2019 2:48 pm

French 365 Day Challenge
Day 133:
29 minutes Pimsleur French III, lesson 8
45 minutes watching Angel
45 minutes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Day 134:
27 minutes Pimsleur French III, lesson 9
45 minutes watching Angel

I hadn't watched any Buffy and Angel since February! I decided to return to it. I want the benefits of watching a lot of episodes of one show, which I haven't been getting jumping around between various Netflix shows and movies. I was happy to discover that I understood more of the dialogue than I remember understanding in the past! It's nice to know I've made some progress. So, I'm gonna stick with these for a while. I just finished season 4 of Buffy and season 1 of Angel, so I still have a combined 7 seasons of Buffyverse to get through.

ASL 6 Week Challenge
May 13-15: nothing :cry:
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: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
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: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed May 15, 2019 5:01 pm

I really like the format of your posts. It makes them and your progress really easy to follow.
And I endorse sticking to one series or one "series-universe." I tried Buffy several years ago, but quit too soon. More recently I watched 100 hours in 1.5 to 3.0 hours binges of just a small handful of other series and made significant progress. I've still a long way to go to understand the fastest TV or movie dialogue, but I noticed the other evening I could follow, with effort, Nota Bene's blog on Youtube. I could not do that 3 months ago.
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Lianne
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Fri May 17, 2019 1:55 am

French 365 Day Challenge
Day 135:
12 minutes listening to News in Slow French podcast
20 minutes reading La vie compliquée de Léa Olivier: Rumeurs

Day 136:
6 minutes listening to News in Slow French podcast
27 minutes listening to Pimsleur French III, lesson 10
45 minutes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Yesterday (day 135) I went straight from work to a book store for a book signing, and didn't get home until nearly 10. I was exhausted. Thank goodness I'd at least listened to a couple of News in Slow French episodes on the bus, since it let me shorten the reading required before I could pass out!

Pimsleur French III remains surprisingly easy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains difficult.

ASL 6 Week Challenge
May 15-16: basically nothing. I meant to do some today. I did learn a few of the vocabulary words. I don't know, I seem to be struggling with my attention span lately (in general, not just with ASL). Maybe I'm just overtired.

But oh! Yesterday I saw an ASL conversation happening at the bus stop!! Unfortunately, while a language learner can pretty easily get away with eavesdropping on a spoken conversation, people tend to notice when you're watching them. :lol: So I didn't get to test out my comprehension too much. I did manage to pick out a few signs, which was pretty cool!

MorkTheFiddle wrote:I really like the format of your posts. It makes them and your progress really easy to follow.
And I endorse sticking to one series or one "series-universe." I tried Buffy several years ago, but quit too soon. More recently I watched 100 hours in 1.5 to 3.0 hours binges of just a small handful of other series and made significant progress. I've still a long way to go to understand the fastest TV or movie dialogue, but I noticed the other evening I could follow, with effort, Nota Bene's blog on Youtube. I could not do that 3 months ago.

Thank you! :D I do love data, and hope to be able to track my own progress effectively.

I calculated that I have 115 hours remaining in the Buffyverse. I wonder how quickly I can binge it. :P
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: 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
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby Lianne » Fri May 17, 2019 6:58 pm

I'm interested in input on my study resources. I shall attempt to organise my thoughts into two main points/questions:

1) Should I keep working on my strong skills, or focus on my weak skills?
Basically I've been focusing on my strong skills. My best skill is reading. I've been doing quite a bit of that. I have also been doing vocabulary, Pimsleur French III, and extensive listening. But my absolute weakest skill is speaking. I think my pronunciation is pretty good, and I can parrot French OK. I can translate the sentences in Pimsleur just fine. But if I try to just speak in French, I freeze. I suddenly feel like I don't know any words. I don't know how to say anything.

So, I don't know whether I should just continue making noticeable progress on my stronger skills, and hope that they sort of drag my weak skills up with them, or whether I should be spending more time somehow improving my speaking. (I know, probably both.)

What I had been thinking was that I would gradually introduce some writing practice and that that would help me get those active skills, which I could then gradually translate into speaking. But I haven't been doing the writing, even though I know I should.

2) Am I too late to do things like FSI or Cortina?
In other words, would I be wasting my time to now do FSI Basic and/or Phonology and/or Cortina? I hear so many good things about them. But sometimes I think it's ridiculous to start doing courses for beginners when I'm not a beginner. BUT, if some of my skills suck so bad that I feel like a beginner, then maybe I should act like one.

In Conclusion
I like the activities I've been doing. I think I'm progressing. I'm reading novels that are comprehensible input. Peppa Pig is very comprehensible, and Buffy is moderately so. Pimsleur French III is easy, but I think is still teaching me things. I'm enjoying my Nouns course on Memrise.

I just want to make sure I don't get too comfortable. I want to make real progress. I want to be able to have conversations in French; it feels ridiculous that I can't yet.
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: 3 / 100 French SC (Books)
: 7 / 100 French SC (Films)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Books)
: 0 / 50 Italian Half SC (Films)

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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri May 17, 2019 7:56 pm

Lianne wrote:2) Am I too late to do things like FSI or Cortina?
In other words, would I be wasting my time to now do FSI Basic and/or Phonology and/or Cortina? I hear so many good things about them. But sometimes I think it's ridiculous to start doing courses for beginners when I'm not a beginner. BUT, if some of my skills suck so bad that I feel like a beginner, then maybe I should act like one.


There's no big need to do a course for beginners if you're more advanced. On the other hand, if you have gaps (especially regarding the basics), you should work on those.

Of course, you can do whatever you want, and even go through a beginner's course at more advanced stages - maybe you'll use the material in a certain way. (I review my Assimil courses now and then.)
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby StringerBell » Fri May 17, 2019 8:06 pm

Here's my suggestion:

Pick a topic that you'd like to discuss (your day, a hobby, an annoying neighbor, whatever). Write out some simple sentences describing that topic that you'd like to be able to say. Run those sentences by a native speaker to make sure that the way you wrote them sounds natural and there aren't mistakes. Then, use those sentences to do scriptorium. (The way I've been doing it is to write out a sentence/phrase while saying it aloud 5x, then I just say it aloud a few times, and I keep revisiting those same sentences throughout the week). I'm finding that the act of physically writing out sentences while saying them aloud leads me to remember them much better than Anki cards, but if you really like Anki, you could put these sentences on cards and quiz yourself.

This is a very slow-going process, but this should help some of those sentences that you'd like to use to stick in your head. You can also do this with very generic (but useful) sentences that you'd like to throw out mid-conversation (such as: I didn't think of that, Then I realized..., I couldn't believe it, or whatever you find yourself saying in English regularly).

My experience has been that speaking greatly lags behind my comprehension, and it's normal.
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby iguanamon » Fri May 17, 2019 8:15 pm

Lianne wrote: Am I too late to do things like FSI or Cortina?
In other words, would I be wasting my time to now do FSI Basic and/or Phonology and/or Cortina? I hear so many good things about them. But sometimes I think it's ridiculous to start doing courses for beginners when I'm not a beginner. BUT, if some of my skills suck so bad that I feel like a beginner, then maybe I should act like one.

Understanding is one thing, "automaticity" is another. You can work on certain aspects of French with a course like FSI and you don't have to do the whole thing. You can skip to where you feel you need more work. The drills will help do exactly what the word implies- drill concepts into your mind until they become more automatic. If you don't need the work... move on to something else. You can also search for vocabulary drills online, e.g.: le sobjonctif. You don't have to do beginner courses or even start at the beginning of other courses. Do what you need to consolidate and/or acquire knowledge.

Those of us who live outside TL countries and don't get much opportunity to speak and/or write need to do those activities in order to make language concepts more connected in our minds. It certainly can help. Each language activity tends to inform the other- writing helps with speaking; listening helps with reading; reading helps with writing; speaking helps with writing; reading helps with listening... etc... etc. The skills don't all have to be worked on equally. Speaking can lag behind writing, writing can lag behind reading, etc., but working some with each skill can help with the others.
Last edited by iguanamon on Fri May 17, 2019 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri May 17, 2019 10:15 pm

I like Jeff's and StringerBell's and Iguanamon's advice. Also, I would advise FSI, if you can stomach them. Personally, I don't like FSI, but from the little that I did I thought it would be effective for anyone who can stick with it.
You might also try finding plays like Feydeau's. Take one of the roles and when your lines come up, mute the sound of the actor and read or speak the lines yourself.
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Re: Lianne's 365 Days of French

Postby badger » Sun May 19, 2019 5:52 pm

I started doing FSI Basic French a few weeks ago & I'm rather enjoying it. I think you're at a somewhat similar level to me & my active skills also lag behind my passive skills. it's worth remembering that although FSI courses teach the language from scratch, they are aimed at very able, already-multilingual learners, so it's not really fair to consider them at the same level as Pimsleur, Michel Thomas et al. (both of which I tried & didn't get on with). the content obviously does start out pretty basic, but it does require an immediacy in the verbal production drills that certainly stretches me a bit. if it really is too basic you can skip ahead a few levels.

I think it's probably an approach that you either like or you don't, but it's free so it might be worth an hour or two of your time to try it & see if it works for you. to get a flavour maybe start on Volume 1 unit 3 rather than right at the start.

here's the link I downloaded the course from:

https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-french-basic.html
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