Ahlan wa Sahlan on Lady Grey's Language Log (Now Levantine Arabic, MSA and French)

[LadyGrey1986]

Today I wanted to share with you two cheesy children's song I listen to in Syrian Colloquial

[url]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/it1ynlwUzKw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/url]

In this song, the phone rings but dad does't feel like answering and asks his daughter to tell the caller he is not at home. He promptly reminded that it is haraam to lie.

[url]<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/it1ynlwUzKw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/url]

In this song, a young rabit ignores his mother's warnings not to play outside, He is almost eaten by fox (who looks suprisingly cute), but luckily manages to escape.

I am almost done with Chapter 3 of Syrian Arabic a Functional Course. I think I am going to take a loot at FSI Levantine Arabic to do some of theier famous pronunciation exercises.

By the way: could someone please explain to me how I can embed video's in a post?

[NIKOLIĆ]

For YouTube videos use this code(?): [youtube][/youtube]

Step 1: Copy and paste the YouTube link like this: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it1ynlwUzKw[/youtube]
Step 2: Keep the part that goes after the "=" sign, and delete the rest, or just copy that part right away and paste it.



baba bi'ulak huwe mu hawn hahaha

[LadyGrey1986]

Time for another small update!

Syrian Colloquial

Yesterday, I have started Chapter 4 of Syrian Arabic A Functional Course, which deals with ordering food in a retsaurant. Syrian food is delicious!

Some examples to make you feel hungry

Baba Ganoush (daddy's favourite): cooked eggplant with tahina and olive oil

Muhamarra: red pepper dip

Mtabbel: another eggplant dip



French

I have watch two documentaries on the 2015 attacks in paris. Thank you WhatiftheBlog for suggesting them to me! I have also booked a trial session with a tutor on Italki to evaluate my spoken French, which makes my feel slightly nervous. I should really get started with reading my novels! I have also continued listening to Le Journal en Francais Facile.

[LadyGrey1986]

Time for a little French update! I had a trial session with a tutor today and according to her, my spoken French is at a solid intermediate level. It just that I don't have to money to book a weekly session with her! I really would to reach an advanced level. Should I just read and listen a tonne and accept my spoken French will lag behind? At the moment, this seems the most realistic option. I don't want to cut down on my Arabic sessions. Arabic, especially Levantine Arabic, is my language love. Now if I were to win the lottery!

For French, I am still listening to Le Journal en Français Facile. I have also started in No et moi en watched an episode of Zone Interdit about "les quartiers sensibles".

I looking a bit at Cavesa here. I know she leArned French in the Czech Republic and she isn't too find of tutors...

[aokoye]

It's funny, I was just debating on hiring a tutor but also just don't have the money right now. That said I would be look for test preparation as opposed to primarily speaking practice. If I were you I would read and listen a lot but I would also see if you can find any French speaking groups that you could go to as well. It might lag behind a bit for now but that doesn't mean you can't eventually bring it forward.

[tarvos]

Time for a little French update! I had a trial session with a tutor today and according to her, my spoken French is at a solid intermediate level. It just that I don't have to money to book a weekly session with her! I really would to reach an advanced level. Should I just read and listen a tonne and accept my spoken French will lag behind? At the moment, this seems the most realistic option. I don't want to cut down on my Arabic sessions. Arabic, especially Levantine Arabic, is my language love. Now if I were to win the lottery!

This is basically the best result most people get out of school in the Netherlands when they learn French/German. It's not so bad all in all, but in reality you need another push forward to get to being comfortable. Five years ago, I was stuck at intermediate French just like you were now for two years straight (and unlike you, I had a more pertinent use for it because I actually travelled to Belgium every month at the time). Intermediate French is how far I got before I actually got stuck in Brussels for a few months with flatmates that only spoke French. The thing that really sent my French into the stratosphere was dropping the reliance on other factors making my life easier at the time (even though a lot of that was actually not really desirable at the time). My experience was that you have both the cultural barrier and the linguistic barrier to overcome, and French was the first language I really improved on my own (with some help from the AF).

Reading and listening can never hurt. It really helped me out a lot. No et Moi is a good starting place. When you're at the intermediate level there are really three things that are going to help you:

1) a LOT of exposure to the written word. I'm not such a big TV fanatic, but I subscribed to a French popular science magazine that I would read on trains wherever I went. I read lots of books (I remember I went on a holiday in France and just kept buying Amélie Nothomb books). It really helped me out. Keep reading, and at this stage, go for volume and speed, not for intricate details. Most sentence structures should be easy to grasp by now. You'll encounter some weird, complex things, but you can tackle them as they come. Probably you'll study them under 3 and start recognizing them soon enough anyway.

2) Speaking exposure to real, colloquial French. I lived with flatmates that didn't speak much English. One day the bathroom flooded. You learn the word "fuite" quickly in that case. In my case, I also had some experience with an ex who used certain Belgianisms in her speech and how they were used. The two months didn't really build my grammar knowledge, but they developed the confidence to use French in situations where I would normally have deferred to English or Dutch (Belgium, after all). This can be the hardest thing to obtain if you're not living in-country, and it's the reason my French has stalled out at its B2-C1ish level (not a bad level to be at, but it would be better with more practice in real life).

3) Attention to grammatical detail. I'm not just talking about the verb conjugations here, most of these should be pretty familiar to you by know (I was ok with almost all of them except for the subjunctive, really). What I'm talking about is finer points of usage, textual structures, how to express deeper ideas in French that require a bit more elegance. When I hired my tutor, the thing she noticed was that I had a good grasp of colloquial French by that point but it lacked elegance and precision. French is a language in which nitpicking is particularly valuable because it's also how that culture works. Grammar here stops being about what form you are supposed to use, but rather when you should be using which form and why. Personally I did a lot of writing which really helped me up my game. But be prepared - if you go down this route, enlist someone who's critical and tough on your mistakes. The problems at the intermediate level aren't the fact you are making mistakes, but that you are going to make mistakes which are avoidable or easily remedied and weren't caught earlier on because you were relying on coping strategies that allowed you to circumvent obstacles. You've got to be very Dutch and accept fierce criticism of your work. This is a good thing.

I looking a bit at Cavesa here. I know she leArned French in the Czech Republic and she isn't too find of tutors...

I know a good tutor, but she's hella expensive and I can't afford her right now given I'm improving my Spanish. You don't need a tutor per sé, but I like them at intermediate levels as long as they're strict and push you out of your comfort zone.

[LadyGrey1986]

Thanks for your elaborate response, Tarvos. Really appreciated. Having a acute need to communicate in French defintely helps. Need trumps want. I have lived in Brussels too for six months. It didn't do anything for my French though. I did an internship there, but only spoke Dutch and English in the office. I lived in Schaarbeek. but my roommates were from all over except France. Then. as you mentionned, Dutch is still very much present. I did a French minor at uni, and according to my certificate I had B2/C1 at the time (2011). However, this is way too optimistic, especially when it comes to the colloquial language. The weird thing is that VWO-Frans wasn't an entry requirement.
I am going to way two sitcomes; Fait pas ci, fait pas ca et Helenes et les garçons.
I think full-speed, colloquial dialogues concerning everyday situations is just what I need.
And finish no et moi of course...Et le Journal en Français facile.

For MSA, I have listened to three dialogues in Al-Kitaab. The femal protogonist (Maha) really is a ray of sunshine.






Then there is news. I am probably loca, but the Spanish project with my colleague is going to happen. I have a copy of Prisma Spaans for Zelfstudie and I am listening to the Language Transfer Course. So many people are learning Spanish on this forum and are super exicited about it and want to find out what the extraction is.

I have decided to postpone Persian until my Arabic is better, but in the spirit of the Finnish with Extra Muehe project and because I am also learning Spanish I might hit my copy of Assimil's Le Persan sans peine..
We will see,,

Pray for me.

[tarvos]

I lived in Schaarbeek.

My condolences...

University teaches you formal language but there's a difference between that and the spoken language... I learned that the hard way

[LadyGrey1986]

I lived in Schaarbeek.

My condolences...

I know. La Gare du Nord is one of the most depressing places I ever had the misfortune of visiting...
The center of Brussels around de Grote Markt is lovely tough.... good waffles, frites and chocolate too!

[Ogrim]

I lived in Schaarbeek.

My condolences...

I know. Le Gare du Nord is one of the most depressing places I ever had the misfortune of visiting...
The center of Brussels around de Grote Markt is lovely tough.... good waffles, frites and chocolate too!

I also lived in Brussels, for almost seven years. Most of the time I lived in Ixelles though, definitely a nicer part of the city than Schaarbeek although it also has its dodgy parts. I must admit that I actually liked Brussels, but I did not learn much Dutch, because everyone used either English or French.