Sanjiu27's French and English Journal (2020)

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sanjiu27
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Sanjiu27's French and English Journal (2020)

Postby sanjiu27 » Sun Aug 02, 2020 7:36 pm

Hello, everybody! I'm currently learning French and English. In French I'm about at an A2 level, but I'm making progress at a good pace because it's closely related to my native tongue - Spanish. I've planned to listen and to read to content in French for 1.5-2 hours a day until the end of the year, so I expect to increase my passive skills up to a B1 level by 2021. This should let me understand Youtube videos more easily. In English I'm kind of stuck at a B2 level, so I'm going to try to expose myself as much as possible to content in English that goes beyond my level of comfort - I aim for 300-400 hours. This way I think that I'll be able to reach a C1 by mid 2021 (I hope!!).

I'm also quite interested in other languages, but there's only so many hours in a day. Since I cannot focus on every language at once, I think that it'd be good to find learning resources and materials suitable for my level in Russian and German to begin with. I should ask for Basque podcasts with transcripts in the Euskaltegi too. There's a shameful lack of resources on the internet for learning Basque.

That said, here we go:

FRENCH GOALS.

    - Listening: Listen to 60 hours of new podcast episodes with the aid of transcriptions and LWT. Review each episode (without transcription) at least twice during the dead moments.

    - Reading: Read 5 novels, preferably by classical authors and not too difficult. For example: L'Étranger by Albert Camus.

    - Pronunciation: Repeat out loud 22,500 sentences from Glossika, approximately 150 each day (about 15 min.). It should be enough for building a bit of muscle memory according to this article: https://help.glossika.com/en/articles/1 ... er-of-reps.

    - Grammar: Study an introduction to French grammar (like this one: https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/index.html) with Anki. The purpose of this should be solely to make it easier to understand whatever I get exposed to in French, not to learn French.

    - Motivation: Make lists of books that would be amazing to read in a near future.

ENGLISH GOALS.

    - Listening/reading: Listen to 15 audiobooks ranging from history to novels and poetry, preferably by contemporary authors.

    - Pronunciation: Repeat out loud 22,500 sentences from Glossika.

    - Writing: Write 15,000 words in forums and also in iTalki in the form of notebooks. This should help me to overcome (a bit) my lack of confidence in English, even if I make plenty of mistakes.

    - Simple exposure (easy content): Listen to 150 hours of podcast episodes, one hour a day at dead moments such as washing the dishes or walking the dog. Watch North American TV series and movies in original version (with subtitles in English, when necessary).

    - Motivation: Look for compelling content above all.

EDIT: added some context and corrected some errors :lol: :D
Last edited by sanjiu27 on Tue Aug 04, 2020 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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sanjiu27
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby sanjiu27 » Mon Aug 03, 2020 11:29 am

RESOURCES. (in construction)



Français - Intermediate level.

    (a) Short textbooks and grammar books.
      - Text's French Grammar by University of Texas at Austin: https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/index.html
      - Grammaire Progressive Du Français, Niveau Débutant et Intermédiaire (on the advise of Cavesa).
      - Orthographe Progressive Du Français, Niveau Débutant.
      - Conjugaison Progressive Du Français, Niveau Débutant.
    (b) Books with audio.
      - "L'Étranger", "La Chute" and "La Peste", by Albert Camus (1913-60, existentialism, surrealism)
      - "L'Écume Des Jours", by Boris Vian (1920-59, surrealism)
      - "Le Petit Prince", by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-44)
      - "La Gloire de Mon Père”* and "Le Château de Ma Mère", by Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974)
      - "Calligrammes"*, by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918, surrealism, free verse)
      - "Contes de la Bécasse", "Pierre et Jean", "Bel Ami" and "Contes Du Jour et de la Nuit", by Guy de Maupassant (1850-93, naturalism, realism)
      - "Therèse Raquin" by Émile Zola (1840-1902, naturalism)
      - "Le Tour Du Monde En 80 Jours", by Jules Verne (1828-1905)
      - "Les Fleurs du Mal", by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67, decadence)
      - "Le Père Goriot", "Ferragus" and "Eugénie Grandet" by Honoré de Balzac (1779-1850, realism)
      - "Candide" and "L'Ingénu", by Voltaire (1694-1778, enlightenment, satire)
      Available in (except those marked with an asterisk): Genlib, Gutenberg Project, Litterature Audio, Audiocite and Youtube.
    (c) Podcasts with transcriptions.

English - Advanced level.

    (a) Textbooks and grammar books.
      - Oxford English Grammar Course: Advanced
    (b) Audiobooks.
      Literature (only contemporary).
      - "White Noise" and "Zero K", by Don DeLillo.
      - Cormac Mccarthy's collection.
      - "Infinite Jest", by David Foster Wallace.
      - "White Teeth", by Zadie Smith.
      - "Lincoln in the Bardo", by George Saunders.
      - "American Pastoral" and "Counterlife", by Philip Roth.
      - "Rabbit, Run", "Rabbit Redux", "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest", by John Updike.
      - "The Corrections", by Jonathan Franzen.
      - "Mason & Dixon", "Inherent Vice", "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Against the Day", by Thomas Pynchon.
      - "Cloud Atlas", by David Mitchell.
      - "Beloved", by Toni Morrison.

      History.
      - Eric Hobsbawm's collection.
      - "SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome", by Mary Beard.
      - "A Brief History Of Neoliberalism", "The Condition Of Postmodernity" and "The New Imperialism", by David Harvey.
    (c) Podcast.

Note: I can share anything that appears in this list. Feel free to message me ;)
Last edited by sanjiu27 on Thu Aug 06, 2020 4:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
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sanjiu27
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby sanjiu27 » Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:54 pm

Week 1: 3rd - 9th August.

FRENCH.
    Listening.
      - Listened to the episodes 1-6 of the "Inner French" podcast for the first time. I'm really enjoying this podcast so far.
      - Reviewed the episodes 2-4 of the "Inner French" podcast once, and the episodes 1-2 twice.
      TOTAL: ~5.5h.
    Reading.
    Pronunciation.
    Grammar.

ENGLISH.
    Listening/reading.
      - Listened to the first chapter of "Blood Meridian", by Cormac McCarthy. It's been quite difficult to understand the dialogues of uneducated characters.
      TOTAL: ~30 min.
    Pronunciation.
    Writing.
    Exposure.
Last edited by sanjiu27 on Wed Aug 05, 2020 4:04 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Dagane
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby Dagane » Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:26 pm

Your reading taste is exquisite (or perhaps just exactly the same as mine :D ).

On the other hand, I'm not sure whether relying so heavily on audiobooks will improve your level quickly as you are already capable of understanding the language pretty well. I would rather read the books myself and look up unknown words. As to listening, most films will provide you with dialogues at different speeds and background noise or music, all of which make them more difficult than audiobooks.
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sanjiu27
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby sanjiu27 » Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:09 pm

Dagane wrote:Your reading taste is exquisite (or perhaps just exactly the same as mine :D ).

On the other hand, I'm not sure whether relying so heavily on audiobooks will improve your level quickly as you are already capable of understanding the language pretty well. I would rather read the books myself and look up unknown words. As to listening, most films will provide you with dialogues at different speeds and background noise or music, all of which make them more difficult than audiobooks.


Hey, thanks for the feedback! I'm relying specifically on audiobooks for two reasons: (a) it is not difficult for me anymore to read novels or non fiction (except some authors, like Terry Eagleton), but I still struggle with the listening and (b) they have a high density of words per minute and also a rich vocabulary. I'm trying to push myself very hard out of my comfort zone so that I can definitively break the intermediate plateau where I have stagnated :oops:. I'm not quite sure that I'll be able to achieve this mainly with movies or TV series, or at least not as fast. Anyway, after a few months (well, maybe 6-9 months) I plan to incorporate them to my learning process too. I think that they're specially important to become familiar with the natural, the everyday language, but I'm not at that point of proficiency yet :(
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betise
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby betise » Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:20 am

sanjiu27 wrote:RESOURCES. (in construction)



Français - Intermediate level.

    (a) Short textbooks and grammar books.
    (b) Books with audio.
      - "L'Étranger", "La Chute" and "La Peste", by Albert Camus (1913-60, existentialism, surrealism)
      - "L'Écume Des Jours", by Boris Vian (1920-59, surrealism)
      - "Le Petit Prince", by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-44)
      - "La Gloire de Mon Père”* and "Le Château de Ma Mère", by Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974)
      - "Calligrammes"*, by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918, surrealism, free verse)
      - "Contes de la Bécasse", "Pierre et Jean", "Bel Ami" and "Contes Du Jour et de la Nuit", by Guy de Maupassant (1850-93, naturalism, realism)
      - "Therèse Raquin" by Émile Zola (1840-1902, naturalism)
      - "Le Tour Du Monde En 80 Jours", by Jules Verne (1828-1905)
      - "Les Fleurs du Mal", by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67, decadence)
      - "Le Père Goriot", "Ferragus" and "Eugénie Grandet" by Honoré de Balzac (1779-1850, realism)
      - "Candide" and "L'Ingénu", by Voltaire (1694-1778, enlightenment, satire)
      Available in (except those marked with an asterisk): Genlib, Gutenberg Project, Litterature Audio, Audiocite and Youtube.
    (c) Podcasts with transcriptions.



hi sanjiu! i'm also learning french, just wanted to see if you'd heard about RFI's Journal en Français Facile, another transcripted intermediate resource you might like. there's also euronews.fr, whose videos' all seem to have transcripts.

i stopped reading La peste somewhere in the middle, myself, but the other Camus works you listed were really enjoyable for me. hope you like them. seems like you enjoy literature a lot, judging by your(pretty intense!) English choices.
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sanjiu27
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Re: Sanjiu27's 2020 French, English and Other Languages Log.

Postby sanjiu27 » Tue Aug 04, 2020 9:56 am

betise wrote:hi sanjiu! i'm also learning french, just wanted to see if you'd heard about RFI's J, another transcripted intermediate resource you might like. there's also euronews.fr, whose videos' all seem to have transcripts.

i stopped reading La peste somewhere in the middle, myself, but the other Camus works you listed were really enjoyable for me. hope you like them. seems like you enjoy literature a lot, judging by your(pretty intense!) English choices.


Thanks very much for the suggestions! I wasn't really sure of adding "Journal en Français Facile" to the list because some people said in Reddit that it is not actually that easy, but I'll give it a try :D. I didn't know about euronews, it's definitively a great resource. They speak quite fast there, but I guess that you have to get used to it at some point of your learning process. I'm going to add both, thanks again.

I'm already familiar with most of the books from the French list because I read them back in high school as required or suggested readings in my literature class, so I hope this time I'll enjoy them a little bit more in their original language. In addition, I usually enjoy books that speak of the absurd, the despair, and/or the harshness of the reality of everyday people - such as John Fante's Ask the Dusk and John's Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath -, so I've sort of great expectations for "La Peste". Why didn't you like it that much, if I may ask?
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Re: Sanjiu27's French and English Journal (2020)

Postby crush » Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:03 am

There are a surprisingly large amount of resources for learning Basque online. I regularly listen to Euskadi Irratia, they often have interesting topics and speakers and speak really clearly. For transcripts, check out ikasbil.net. They have hundreds if not thousands of audios/videos with transcripts, i believe largely taken from radio programs. They also have tons of other stuff available, including recommended books based on your level, writing/listening exercises, etc.

There's also ikasten.net, which is a very comprehensive course for learning Basque, with grammar explanations, vocabulary, tons of listening/reading exercises, and so on, also available for free.

There's also EITB nahieran, which has Basque shows and movies available to stream online for free.

And then, i'm not sure if this is available everywhere, but at least in Gipuzkoa when you sign up for a library card you get access to their eliburutegia which lets you rent 4 ebooks online every 3 weeks.

If you have trouble finding resources for learning Basque just ask me, i'd be more than happy to help get you sorted out.
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sanjiu27
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Re: Sanjiu27's French and English Journal (2020)

Postby sanjiu27 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:41 pm

crush wrote:There are a surprisingly large amount of resources for learning Basque online. I regularly listen to Euskadi Irratia, they often have interesting topics and speakers and speak really clearly. For transcripts, check out ikasbil.net. They have hundreds if not thousands of audios/videos with transcripts, i believe largely taken from radio programs. They also have tons of other stuff available, including recommended books based on your level, writing/listening exercises, etc.

There's also ikasten.net, which is a very comprehensive course for learning Basque, with grammar explanations, vocabulary, tons of listening/reading exercises, and so on, also available for free.

There's also EITB nahieran, which has Basque shows and movies available to stream online for free.

And then, i'm not sure if this is available everywhere, but at least in Gipuzkoa when you sign up for a library card you get access to their eliburutegia which lets you rent 4 ebooks online every 3 weeks.

If you have trouble finding resources for learning Basque just ask me, i'd be more than happy to help get you sorted out.


Thanks, I appreciate this very much. I was sort of expecting something like "Inner French" in Basque, but I haven't find anything so far besides "Euskonew" or "Ikasbil". There is like tons of audios and texts separately, but it's rather difficult to see audio + text at the same time. For example, it's incredibly complicated to find audio-books or movies dubbed in Basque that are also subtitled in Basque :(
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crush
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Re: Sanjiu27's French and English Journal (2020)

Postby crush » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:29 pm

sanjiu27 wrote:For example, it's incredibly complicated to find audio-books or movies dubbed in Basque that are also subtitled in Basque :(

This is something i've been complaining about for years, Basque movies and TV shows don't have (publicly available) subtitles. There are subtitles for shows as Euskaltzaindia and other Basque linguistic groups have used them for spoken language corpora, however i haven't found any of them available online or for purchase. Basque movies/shows have Spanish subtitles, foreign movies have Basque subtitles, but there are practically zero movies/shows with both Basque audio and Basque subtitles :/
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