Jeffers' German, French and Hindi

[jeffers]

One good result of the Super Challenge is that I'm feeling the need to do more formal study in all three of my languages alongside all of the reading/watching/listening I've been doing. E.g. work on one of my textbooks or workbooks. However, I don't really want to just "dabble" because in my experience, doing the odd lesson here or there does not produce the same effect as using a resource consistently for a period of time (even as little as a week). So I'd like to pick a primary resource to use a bit every day, which could be supplemented by other resources on an ad hoc basis. However, I think I can only do this properly with one of my languages at a time.

I thought I would lay out my options so that I could see them all together and make a good choice. My intention would be to do grammar work on one language for at least 2 weeks, after which I may continue with the same or switch to one of the others.

Hindi
Assimil Hindi is an obvious choice here. I'm about halfway through, and gained a lot from using it as an advanced beginner/lower intermediate.
Teach Yourself Hindi by Rupert Snell would be another good option. Quite a good textbook and could fit the need more closely as I'm looking for a grammatical resource to support all the reading/watching/listening. I've gotten to chapter 12 or 13 of 18, and I've always meant to get it finished one day!

German
Assimil is my go to option for German as well. I've made good progress since January and would like to see it through.
Teach Yourself-- I have both Teach Yourself Beginner's German and Teach Yourself German. Maybe one of these would do the job of being a more grammar focused study alongside my Super Challenge.
Michel Thomas-- I have the full original course: Basic, Advanced, Vocabulary. I worked through the basic course 10-12 years ago, but never got into the advanced course. I could do a quick review of the basic course and then work carefully through the advanced one.

French
I have many viable choices here:
Assimil In May I started a review of French basics using the old 1950s French Without Toil, getting up to about chapter 20. It was quite good to do, but the grammar notes are incredibly brief so that wouldn't serve my current purpose. I've been considering doing a thorough review of New French with Ease, including doing an active wave at the right time. I could also just start up with Using French, but maybe not right away because what I really want is a review of the basics.
Hugo French in 3 Months is an excellent book which covers the basics quite thoroughly. When I was last using it I stopped in the middle of week 9 out of 12. At the time I was making Anki cards of all of the example sentences from week 7 onward. I definitely want to finish this some time and then move on to the advanced book.
Grammaire progressive du français (niveau intermédiaire). Despite being intermediate, it starts with beginner topics such as conjugations and adjective agreements. No doubt this is an excellent and thorough resource.
Kwiziq is something I signed up for years ago, and then tried again once a month ago. A lot of French learners on this forum really like it. The downside is that you really have to pay for a membership to get much out of it, since the free version only gives 10 free quizzes per month and I could see using that up in a couple of days. What I really like about it is that it focuses very firmly on specific skills and testing those skills. It will then recommend lessons based on your weaknesses rather than make you keep doing things you're good at.



So there it is, all laid out. I've decided to start with French, and that for the next couple of days I will give Kwiziq a good try. If I like it enough, I will consider buying a 3 months subscription (which doesn't stop me taking breaks for my other two languages).
EDIT: in part, my decision is based on the positive reviews of Kwiziq from this thread: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=14608.

[DaveAgain]

German
Assimil is my go to option for German as well. I've made good progress since January and would like to see it through.
Teach Yourself-- I have both Teach Yourself Beginner's German and Teach Yourself German. Maybe one of these would do the job of being a more grammar focused study alongside my Super Challenge.

I was looking at grammar courses the other day, TY have one by Jennifer Russ (published under various titles). If you're only looking for grammar, you might want to check your local library's catalogue for that.

[jeffers]

German
Assimil is my go to option for German as well. I've made good progress since January and would like to see it through.
Teach Yourself-- I have both Teach Yourself Beginner's German and Teach Yourself German. Maybe one of these would do the job of being a more grammar focused study alongside my Super Challenge.

I was looking at grammar courses the other day, TY have one by Jennifer Russ (published under various titles). If you're only looking for grammar, you might want to check your local library's catalogue for that.

That looks like a good suggestion. Jenny Russ seems to have two books currently in print: German Grammar You Really Need To Know: Teach Yourself (2012) and Essential German Grammar: Teach Yourself (2011). I can't tell if they're the same book with different packaging, but when you go to Teach Yourself German Grammar on Amazon it says that Essential German Grammar is the newer edition of the original. Does anyone know what's what with these books?

[DaveAgain]

I was looking at grammar courses the other day, TY have one by Jennifer Russ (published under various titles). If you're only looking for grammar, you might want to check your local library's catalogue for that.

That looks like a good suggestion. Jenny Russ seems to have two books currently in print: German Grammar You Really Need To Know: Teach Yourself (2012) and Essential German Grammar: Teach Yourself (2011). I can't tell if they're the same book with different packaging, but when you go to Teach Yourself German Grammar on Amazon it says that Essential German Grammar is the newer edition of the original. Does anyone know what's what with these books?

I think TY just reissue them with different titles for marketing purposes. Chung mentioned Enjoy German has the same content as Improve your German, Perfect your German etc.

I wouldn't bother buying one though. Your library will have something, and if not the TY books you already have do cover grammar. I just thought a purpose build course (if easily available) would be simpler.

[jeffers]

I was looking at grammar courses the other day, TY have one by Jennifer Russ (published under various titles). If you're only looking for grammar, you might want to check your local library's catalogue for that.

That looks like a good suggestion. Jenny Russ seems to have two books currently in print: German Grammar You Really Need To Know: Teach Yourself (2012) and Essential German Grammar: Teach Yourself (2011). I can't tell if they're the same book with different packaging, but when you go to Teach Yourself German Grammar on Amazon it says that Essential German Grammar is the newer edition of the original. Does anyone know what's what with these books?

I think TY just reissue them with different titles for marketing purposes. Chung mentioned Enjoy German has the same content as Improve your German, Perfect your German etc.

I wouldn't bother buying one though. Your library will have something, and if not the TY books you already have do cover grammar. I just thought a purpose build course (if easily available) would be simpler.

I don't think my local libraries are open. But the two grammars by Russ I mentioned are each £3.99 on kindle, so not breaking the bank. I've just gotten samples of both on my kindle, so I'll have a look and see what difference there is between them.

[jeffers]

This is a French Kwiziq specific update, nothing about my Super Challenge or other languages.

I did a lot of work yesterday on the A0 lessons on Kwiziq. I knew almost everything, but there were are a few things I didn't know, or didn't know very well. For example, I had no idea how to write the date in French although I'd probably read it hundreds of times. The 23rd of May is le 23 mai, just for the record. I also knew a few of the adjectives that come before nouns, but I didn't really know the whole list and the cases in which even those adjectives follow a noun. Thanks to several years of reading, I had a good sense for these, but it is one of those little things that needs to be nailed down firmly at some point! So I did read every lesson through carefully, and watched most of the linked youtube videos on the topics.

In the last day and a half I've essentially completed the A0 section, bringing my overall score up to 89.31%. Looking at progress by area, all the bars are solid green, and looking at the brainmap everything is green or light green. That's good enough to move onto the A1 lessons. I'm starting the A1 lessons with a score of 7.50%, and with the progress bars all mostly grey. There are a lot more lessons in A1 (134 lessons compared to 28 in A0), and probably a lot more of the little bits of usage that I'm shaky on, so this will take a lot longer than A0.

I'm thinking that now that I'll be getting into the "serious" points of beginner grammar, I will refer to Grammaire progressive du français for some of the topics, and do the exercises.

EDIT: I meant to include print screens of my mind map for A0/A1 and my progress bars for A2.

A0 and A1 brainmap May 23, 2020.JPG

A1 May 23, 2020.JPG

[jeffers]

I didn't do as much with my languages this week because Epic Games gave away Civilization VI for free. There were a couple of nights when I didn't go to bed until morning light! I enjoy the game, but I'm a bit disappointed that the free giveaway coincided with my free week on Kwiziq. Guess which one lost out?

Speaking of Kwiziq, I got to a bit of frustration with two A1 topics: adjectives that come before the noun, and genders of countries (and the related topic of when to use en, dans, etc with places, which was a problem only because I don't know all the genders). Due to lots of input I already knew without really trying most of the adjectives that come before a noun, but a couple of them tripped me up. I've added these lessons to my Kwiziq notebook, but I think I also need to take some notes on paper to help consolidate my knowledge. One problem with Kwiziq is there doesn't seem to be a way to practice a topic, because the quizzes will just have one or two from each topic. What they need is a way to drill a single topic.

The good news is that despite not doing much reading this week, I am still on target for all three of my languages. And my DVDs of season 3 of Agatha Christie's Criminal Games aka Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie arrived today, so I have something new to get stuck into.

[jeffers]

I've been absent from the forums for a good 3-4 weeks, simply because I didn't have the "brain space" to keep up with it. However, I'm still keeping up with my 3 languages, and am on track with my French full SC and my German and Hindi half SCs. And, as ever, dissatisfied with my progress.

Edit: In particular, I've read about half of La femme au carnet rouge and I'm bothered by my level of comprehension, especially as I remember finding Le chapeau de Mitterand by the same author relatively simple a couple years ago. I think this one has more "musings" and less simple narrative compared to the other. But still, I feel like I should find this easier by now! Having said that, I know that after a few more months of reading for the Super Challenge it will seem a lot easier. When I finish La femme, I'll read some Petit Nicolas to refresh my mood, and then read Le chapeau again to see how it goes.

[jeffers]

Things got rather busy for me over the summer because, despite the pandemic (or because of it) we found ourselves with a houseguest. Then the new term started, and despite all of the measures we had in place (or, again, because of them) teaching was more stressful on us teachers as well as on the students. As a result, I never came onto the forum and I also fell pretty far behind on all of my SC goals. The one thing I kept ahead of was my French SC Film challenge, because for my birthday I got season 3 of Les petits meurtres D'Agatha Christie and Engrenages series 1 through 7.

And then, on the last day of the school term, I caught Covid myself. The time I was infected wasn't so bad actually, I had a mild cough, regular chills and slept a lot. I was slowly feeling better and then about three weeks after I was infected I began to feel constantly exhausted, especially when I would do little things like empty the dishwasher. My breathing also felt a bit difficult at these times. So I called the doctor, got a phone consult, and he told me I needed rest and gave me a sick note "for two weeks" he said, but the note actually says it ends on the 1st of March. I'm slowly feeling more myself, but I have good days and bad, and even the good days I feel knocked out after being awake for a few hours. This Monday is when I should get back to teaching lessons (live using Microsoft Teams), but actually I have another doctor's appointment Monday morning, and we'll see what he has to say.

The exhaustion is coupled with stress as well. As a teacher, I am grateful to be in a relatively secure job during this pandemic. However, missing my remote lessons makes me feel insecure even though I have a doctor's note. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night wondering if the school will try to get rid of me in some way because I've missed work.

Meanwhile, the one bit of good news is that all the time resting has actually got me reading my languages again. I've not read a lot because of being tired, but I have read something in German, French and/or Hindi almost every day since falling ill.

Phew! That's enough thinking for now. I'll write a summary of my SC progress in a bit.

[jeffers]

Super Challenge summary (from July to the present)

French Books 1056 of 5000 pages: 1056 / 5000

• La femme au carnet rouge by Antoine Laurain. I finally finished this by mid-July, having found it more difficult than Le chapeau de Mitterand by the same author. Perhaps this was because I'm expecting more of my comprehension now.
• I then read almost nothing in French until December.
• S.A.M a BD in four volumes. I picked up the first volume in Belgium years ago, and slowly collected the set of 4 but hadn't read beyond the first. In December I read volumes 1-3 and around half of volume 4. I can't read this without my reading glasses, and I've misplaced them so that had put a stop to this for now!
• Le Petit Nicolas voyage by René Goscinny and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé. This was the only available volume I don't own on kindle, so I decided to use this to kick start my reading while convalescing. The stories in this volume were unpublished until recently, so while it begins with a story of the family preparing for a voyage and then one of the family on the train, this arc ends and the rest of the stories are unrelated. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed getting back into Nicolas' life, so I followed this up with
• Les bêtises du Petit Nicolas, which is the one my Kindle history tells me I hadn't read for the longest time.
• Les vacances du Petit Nicolas is my current book, which I am reading while listening to the newer audio narrated by Benoît Poelvoorde. He is a quick narrator, so I often need to hit pause and occasionally rewind a bit, but I really enjoy his version of Nicolas. He really sounds like a kid spilling his words out.

I'm behind in my goal if I'm to complete this part of the SC; in fact, I've read less than half of what I should have read by now! However, I just need to read 12 pages per day to complete it, so there is hope.

French Films 5569 of 9000 minutes: 5569 / 9000

• Les petit meurtres d'Agatha Christie S3 I received the american DVD box for my birthday in May, and finished watching the series in July. I had already seen the first few episodes when I had TV5 Monde, but most of them were new to me. This continues to be one of my favourite series in French, or any language for that matter!
• Taxi and Taxi 2, watched with my son who appreciates corny rubbish.
• Engrenages s1-7 I had watched the first few series on Netflix, and then caught a series on the BBC itself, but unfortunately I never found out when the next series came out so I miised it. I also couldn't remember or figure out which series I had last seen, so I ended up buying the box set of series 1-6 and the standalone box of series 7. Starting with series 1 in the beginning of August I've been watching these on and off. My wife joined me during series 5, got hooked, and watched the rest with me. We finished series 7 a few days ago, and when I found out that series 8 is coming out on DVD in February, she insisted I pre-order the set. I have mixed feelings about Engrenages because the police sometimes do really dodgy things. In a TV series it usually means that they get the bad guys and justice is served, but when real life police officers do the same it usually means that the police victimize innocent people.
• Le dîner de cons One of my favourite films, it seems I can rewatch this and still enjoy it as much as the first time!
• Rien à déclarer Watched this with our houseguest who was preparing to go study in Belgium, so it seemed appropriate.

I also listened to a handful of episodes of the InnerFrench podcast, but I didn't record these. No worries, this is the one part of my SC that I'm well ahead on!

German Books 903 of 2500 pages: 903 / 2500

• Dino lernt Deutsch Collector's Edition (the first four books in the series). I read through these stories twice (maybe three times?) These are nice and simple beginner readers. The good thing is that the stories are interesting enough. The bad thing is that the vocabulary help is at the very end of each chapter, so I found myself flipping back and forth quite a bit which really killed flow.
• Dino lernt Deutsch- Ahoi aus Hamburg I started this when I was first down with Covid, and have read it four times now. After reading through it once, I decided to read each chapter 3 more times. The first reading I would just read through striclty avoiding looking up any unknown words. The second reading would be the intensive reading in which I would look up any unknown words, or even words I was slightly unsure about. In addition, I occasionally looked up case tables to check the endings. By the third reading I would be able to read with a decent flow, only occasionally looking up a word. This method was far more useful than the haphazard way I read through the first four stories, so I intend to continue with method.

I am nowhere near where I should be for this half-challenge, but I'm still chipping away at it. Typical of me, I went and bought a couple more books on Kindle + Audible: Momo by Michael Ende and Emil und die Detektive by Erich Kästner. I may not be ready for them during this SC, but they are a promise for the future! Meanwhile, I think I'm happy to continue with my easy readers. I'll finish the Dino series, and then go back to the intermediate readers by Brian Smith, or possibly look at the crime series by the same author as the Dino stories.

German Films 995 of 4500 minutes: 995 / 4500

• Dino Lernt Deutsch The other problem with this series is that the audio is a separate purchase from the books, and they are only available on Audible. I bought the audio for the first book, Café in Berlin, and found it painfully slow. What made it worse is that the way the narrator slows down is more about frequent unnatural pauses, rather than speaking slowly. I realized that he speeds up a bit with each volume, so I bought the audio for the fourth book, Momente in München, which was a bit better. In both cases, I listened to the full audio before reading the text, and I ended up listening to them 3-4 times. Later I got the audio for Ahoi aus Hamburg, which wasn't too bad. I'll probably continue to get the audio for forthcoming volumes of the series.

For Christmas I got the Babylon Berlin series 1-3 DVD box set, but I've been waiting until I finish Engrenages before tackling this.


Hindi Books 389of 2500 pages: 389 / 2500

• Children's books. Over the summer I read all of the level 1 books from the set which Merlin shared (see link on previous page). I read each several times through, as many as 10 times or more each. A bit dull, but not too bad really.
• The Chirkuts a short novel that I spotted on Kindle, and bought because the Kindle version and audio on Audible were both quite inexpensive. I read the first two chapters (around 11 pages), but it was hard going because it was quite colloquial, and the story seems quite amateurish to me, so I lost interest for now.
• अक्टूबर जंक्शन aka Aktubar (October) Junction. I bought this for Kindle because it appeared to be a more professionally produced and edited novel, and there were loads of fantastic reviews. I read the preface twice, once through without looking things up and the second time more intensively. This looks llike it will be a much clearer and more interesting read than The Chirkuts.

In addition, I bought the Kindle + Audible of the Hindi translation of Panther's Moon by Ruskin Bond, an author who lived near me in India. I read The Blue Umbrella by him in the previous SC, and I quite enjoyed it.

There is no way I will complete the reading portion of my Hindi half challenge, because it is currently a weak third place in my priorities. Nevertheless, I've read more Hindi in the past 9 months than I have ever read in a single year, so that's progress!

HindiFilms 914 of 4500 minutes: 914 / 4500

• शोले (Sholay, Embers) is the only Hindi film I've watched since my last update. One evening on the BBC news they announced that Amitabh Bachchan, one of the stars of Sholay, had gotten Covid. My wife and son both insisted that we should watch Sholay, so the next night she made a lovely curry and the three of us sat down and enjoyed this classic.

I've been meaning to watch Layla on Netflix some time. Hindi films don't tend to have Hindi subtitles, but Netflix do this with their series, so this will be a new experience. I did watch the first episode, but I found the Hindi subs are a bit too fast for me, so I'm thinking of downloading the subtitle files and reading each episode first before I watch it. A project for the summer perhaps?


So there's the "summary", which of course ended up being longer than I intended! I'm behind on everything except French films, but I am back to making regular progress in most.