FSI French Basic adventure, Polish and beyond

[lusan]

Status
FSI Basic French
I began Part II. It has 100 audios. I plan to do one a day. It will take about 3 months. I decided to go ease and enjoy the ride. I want to avoid burn out. Besides, there is no rush. I need to remember this is a hobby.

Books Read
1. Harry Potter - Vol 2 - 99 %
2. Le Petit Nicolas. - 99%

I discovered that missing about 1 % does not disturb the immersion reading experience. I am enjoying very much reading Harry Potter, which I did not expect it. I purchased the full set. I just began Vol 3 and I read about 50 pages/day. I am dumping the unknown words into Anki. There were 700 in vol I.

Films Watched
Buffy - Seasons 3
No. Episodes: 22
Alita: Battle Angel

I am having a hard time with French movies without subtitles. It bothers me that I follow their plots and intuit the dialogues in the middle of a torrent of words impossible to grasp. You figure, how is that possible? So far I watched 56 Episodes. I plan to pull a full year of serials; I have plenty to go.
I stopped Sub2srs. It takes too much time to create cards and fixing subtitles. It gets very boring quickly.

Podcasts Heard
I stopped Les Ballades. It was too easy. I need more difficult material. I just began listening to RFI. Every day, I read the script checking for unknown words and then just listen.

New thing
Grammar: After a year of procrastination about French Grammar, I jumped into kwiziq. I feel that I do not desire to pass my time winth an open French grammar book doing exercises, so Kwizig might to the job of getting the basic. I find it pretty additive. I wonder if I should make Anki cards on grammar point.

Present Study plan
Reading - Unknown into Anki
Anki
FSI - 1 audio
Grammar - Kwiziq
RFI
Buffy - 1 episode

[lusan]

Transitioning away from Polish

I am so involved with French that the thought of Polish studying, even Anki's cards, listening or watching a Polish movie, makes me nervous. My wife said that I know already enough Polish to talk to her family and, after 5 years of Polish studies, I lost my interest. Well... so... I decided to stop Anki in Polish. From now on, I will just do extensive reading of Polish. I already do it for French and I love the experience. We will see... Am I really free?

[lusan]

Status
FSI Basic French
Started lesson 16. I really feel burn out. I cannot wait to finish this course since it is really exhausting. Another 8 more lessons to go. At the current rate, it might take another 16 weeks or so.

Books Read
1. Harry Potter - All books read. I loved it so much that I decided to watch the movies in French. I just ordered them. I look forward to some magical French moments. I was reading at the 99.7 % reading rate. That is, I was missing at the most 3 words per pages. A total of 4546 pages. -This is 1.36 million words!- It was a real pleasure. Now I feel Harry Potter withdrawal pains. Not bad.
2. Le Livre des étoiles - by Erik L'homme. Vol. 1 A very boring one that I hope to finish this week. I will be transferring all missing words to Anki.

Films Watched
Buffy - Season 4 finished and Season 5 (on-going)
No. Episodes: 93 - Without subtitles
Listening and comprehension are getting better. But I am already getting bored with Buffy. The plots are darn trivial and, at times, silly.

Podcasts Heard
RFI. Every day, I read the script checking for unknown words and then just listen. Almost perfect understanding while reading the test. Eventually, I plan to stop reading while listening, but there is no rush. I need still to increase further my listening vocabulary. Maybe 3 more months will do the job for the news.

Grammar
I enjoy very much Kwiziq. Currently, I made it up to level B2. I began entering into Anki new grammar points as well as my wrong answers to the quizzes. It takes about 1 hour every day. Now I see that that without grammar, French would be very hard indeed.

Present Study plan - Every day
Reading - Unknown into Anki - 2+ hours
Anki - 60 min
FSI - 1 audio - 40 min
Grammar - Kwiziq - 10 tests
RFI - 1 episode but not weekend
Buffy - 1 episode
I am considering to give more emphasis to conversational French next February. By that time, I would be wrapping up FSI. I will probably take an Italki tutor.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Status

Films Watched
Buffy - Season 4 finished and Season 5 (on-going)
No. Episodes: 93 - Without subtitles
Listening and comprehension are getting better. But I am already getting bored with Buffy. The plots are darn trivial and, at times, silly.

Yep. I have always envied those whom Buffy absolutely bewitches. I liked but did not adore the original series, and I gave up entirely after the advent of Spike. It seemed to me that Buffy/Spike started to just regurgitate Buffy/Angel. And that is where I stopped watching the French dubs, too.
Anyway, good luck!

[lusan]

Just before Xmas, I felt a little burned out with my French. However, I am very happy with my approach. Almost finishing FSI Basic French 2. What a course! It starts easy and gradually increases in complexity/difficulty. No question about, the course demand a lot.

In the final lessons, I am just repeating like crazy everyone of the tapes. Also I began using Anki as an active wave similar to Assimil. I hated Assimil 2nd wave approach because Assimil' sentences are mostly useless. FSI are great and I can see myself using the sentences. There is so much high quality material in FSI to extract from it. Of course, there is a limit.

This week I will be finishing with Buffy. Oops.... No problem following most of the dialogues. Though sometimes it is still hard but...the episodes are transparent. Time to move on to another series. Well I will update again after avoir finir avec FSI -probably another 3 weeks-.

I am still thinking about what's next with French.

I need to return to Polish in some fashion. My mother-in-law began to complain that I don't want to talk Polish. I will be in Poland next May. So I need to review some small talk dialogues, cases and ordinary verbs/cases. Well... Relatives!

[lusan]

Great. I just finished with all FSI French tapes. Now.... planning mode:

[joecleland]

This week I will be finishing with Buffy

How are you watching Buffy? I have seen many posts from users saying it's a great show to watch but I don't see it on Hulu or Netflix, so just curious?

[lusan]

This week I will be finishing with Buffy

How are you watching Buffy? I have seen many posts from users saying it's a great show to watch but I don't see it on Hulu or Netflix, so just curious?

I am old fashion: I bought all the seasons through Amazon.fr. -Of course, I bought a non-region limited DVD player to play the DVD at my heart content. Now I began watching Stargate Atlantis. 100 episodes that will take me until April. So far 15 down. Maybe sooner if I decide to start watching 2 episodes/day.

[Lianne]

This week I will be finishing with Buffy

How are you watching Buffy? I have seen many posts from users saying it's a great show to watch but I don't see it on Hulu or Netflix, so just curious?

I am old fashion: I bought all the seasons through Amazon.fr. -Of course, I bought a non-region limited DVD player to play the DVD at my heart content. Now I began watching Stargate Atlantis. 100 episodes that will take me until April. So far 15 down. Maybe sooner if I decide to start watching 2 episodes/day.

I also own the DVDs of Buffy and Angel. If you buy DVDs from Canada, they almost always have French audio and/or subs on them! Then there's no worry about DVD regions, either.

[lusan]

This week I will be finishing with Buffy

How are you watching Buffy? I have seen many posts from users saying it's a great show to watch but I don't see it on Hulu or Netflix, so just curious?

I am old fashion: I bought all the seasons through Amazon.fr. -Of course, I bought a non-region limited DVD player to play the DVD at my heart content. Now I began watching Stargate Atlantis. 100 episodes that will take me until April. So far 15 down. Maybe sooner if I decide to start watching 2 episodes/day.

I also own the DVDs of Buffy and Angel. If you buy DVDs from Canada, they almost always have French audio and/or subs on them! Then there's no worry about DVD regions, either.

I will look into Amazon.ca. I hope the prices are better. I never use subs because I find them too distracting and disturbing the listening experience. Thanks.