Re: PM’s French Re-entry into the Matrix - Phase 1: 500 Hours Extensive Reading

[MorkTheFiddle]

By the way, this course happens to be the favorite of Anthony Lauder as well.
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3f7nBvA6Ag
I like Anthony Lauder but would be interested what you think of him.

FYI, Anthony Lauder was Splog on the old forum.

[PeterMollenburg]

By the way, this course happens to be the favorite of Anthony Lauder as well.
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3f7nBvA6Ag
I like Anthony Lauder but would be interested what you think of him.

Hi Carmody,

I'd not heard of him until you had mentioned him. I took a look at the above clip and another. Seems like a pretty logical sort of guy. His take on courses seems reasonable, and I think I agree with him really - nothing worse than pushing through a rubbish course, or one you simply don't like at all, especially when in French there is such a massive selection out there to choose from. The guy seems quite pleasant to listen to as well. I'm glad he found Assimil's New French with Ease as well as French in Action to be among his favourites, so we are on the same page there. As for Using French.... I think he just needed to stick at it a little longer but that's coming from the self appointed King of French Courses, PK, a.k.a. PeterKingenburg of Frenchola Courses. Anyone for an autograph? I only charge a few grand. Using French to me seems to be more of the great formula of New French with Ease, but slightly dated (which I kind of like - new is not always better). Additionally, Using French rises gradually in difficulty beyond anything in NFWE and introduces some snippets of famous French literature and briefly touches on cultural and linguistic differences in some regions of France... In short I think it's a great course, but we all react differently to learning materials, to the extent that some of us can't stand any courses and would almost vomit at the thought of using one.
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Banned from the forum! (not really)

I also thought I was banned permanently from the forum last night. I was wondering what on Earth I had said. I know in the past i've touched on a lot of controversial issues and almost wondered if I'd been banned due to the new more stringent approach to the forum rules being applied retroactively with regards to an older post somewhere of mine. Thankfully I was wrong, and it was just a glitch. Glad the moderators here continue to do great work, and as rdearman stated, these kinds of glitches are likely to arise de temps en temps.

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My plan for now - the learning materials:

I plan to pick up where I last left off with French in Action maybe 6 to 12 months back. I will continue my FIA journey from leçon 19. Anything up to that point I almost know like the back of my hand so it's pointless reviewing it. Looking forward to working my way through the rest of this course to the end once and for all. I think i'm at a nice level for both grammatical review and to take advantage of the audio/video as well as some of the tougher writings/articles.

At the same time I'll aim to complete my 2nd wave of Assimil Using French while adding a third course to fill out the 3 courses at once approach i'm going to take on for a little while.

Peace out!

[PeterMollenburg]

I have been watching some random-ish videos on Youtube- not something I do very often, but on occasion I do.

It started when sctroyenne posted some nice videos in her log on Montréal and the effects of icy weather on traffic. I was led like a mouse getting wiffs of cheese down the path of various motor vehicle accidents of all kinds - flipping cars, accidents involving snow, idiot drivers. Amazing for me to see this stuff as I don't like to 'lower myself' to watching Youtube random silly shyte, but hey, I am human too (although I don't like to admit it). Typical PM hey.

So, then I thought, why not search some French material if I'm going to watch some 'brainless crap'. I found a guy who commentates his videos in French, and wow some pretty shocking stuff. Here's one if you're curious, but if you suffer from vertigo or really don't want to see people hurting themselves BE WARNED, this video and others he does are NOT NOT NOT for the faint hearted.
https://youtu.be/rNBrLIshxEk

[tomgosse]

So, then I thought, why not search some French material if I'm going to watch some 'brainless crap'. I found a guy who commentates his videos in French, and wow some pretty shocking stuff. Here's one if you're curious, but if you suffer from vertigo or really don't want to see people hurting themselves BE WARNED, this video and others he does are NOT NOT NOT for the faint hearted.
https://youtu.be/rNBrLIshxEk

I must be faint-hearted. I gave up watching after one and a half minutes. My vertigo said, "NO!"

[Jim]

Using French to me seems to be more of the great formula of New French with Ease, but slightly dated (which I kind of like - new is not always better). Additionally, Using French rises gradually in difficulty beyond anything in NFWE and introduces some snippets of famous French literature and briefly touches on cultural and linguistic differences in some regions of France... In short I think it's a great course

I agree. I thought Using French was a really good book, although if your not used to Assimil (as I wasn't) it took some research to find out how best to use it. It covers a lot of ground and merits reviewing several times to get the most out of it.

Banned from the forum! (not really)

I also thought I was banned permanently from the forum last night. I was wondering what on Earth I had said.

Glad it wasn't just me that was struck with a sudden bout of paranoia.

[blaurebell]

Glad it wasn't just me that was struck with a sudden bout of paranoia.

I was wondering too ... people tend to tell me that I'm too confrontational without noticing

[PeterMollenburg]

I'm just going to post my latest study routine - if you known me for a little while here, you are probably jaded or have little interest in reading on (that's why I've warned you- so if bored, don't read on!)

It's a four block rotation of one hour per block. Doesn't matter how many hours I do each day, if I finish on hour 3 on day 1 then I begin on hour 4 day 2 and so on - I rotate through these hours. Two of the four hour blocks of study contain multiple activities which I rotate through each time I get back around to that particular hour of study, choosing the next activity which follows the one I did the last time I was on that hour of study. And, some of these multiple activities are repeated within that hour block, as is the case with watching for example, because I feel it is more important to focus on a series 66% of my allotted watching time as opposed to Yabla.

SCHEDULE (rotating) :
-------
FIRST HOUR
ONE COURSE :
• French in Action
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HOUR TWO:
WATCHING and LISTENING
Rotating (one hour of):
• A series (Buffy - includes reading transcripts)
• A series (Buffy - includes reading transcripts)
• Yabla
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THIRD HOUR
ANOTHER COURSE :
• Assimil Using French
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FOURTH HOUR
READING
Rotating (one hour of):

Extensive reading
• A paper back

Intensive reading of either one of these:
• Bien-dire
• Think French

Extensive reading
• An e-book

Intensive reading of either one of these:
• Think French
• Bien-dire
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So that's me, nothing exciting, just yet another plan. I dropped the idea of courses courses and only courses and decided to go with a 50% courses, 50% other important stuff (ie reading and listening/watching)... I'm aiming to stick to this for a while, but you never know, time will tell.

Pretty keen to get into Buffy French box-set now- watched the first half of an episode this morning.

Also have entirely ditched flashcards. I don't care for them now. I'm writing some unfamiliar words in an exercise book and using my two heavy-duty dictionaries to search for unknown terms with a tendency to go for Le Petit Robert (French only) before the equally good bilingual Collins Robert French English Dictionary. It's good to change things up and nice to go a little old school. I'm actually pretty positive about this study schedule.

One of my work colleagues was talking about Holland today and Spain and the French and German languages got a mention too. Tell you what, it doesn't take much for me to get a little stirred with wanderlust. German and Spanish featured and of course Dutch. And I dreamt of living in Valencia.... a city I've never visited, but underlying all that is a rock solid steadfast fixation on French, il faut que je maintienne le cap ! [ même s'il fait plus beau en Espagne ]

[Oscard587]

Hello! I've been read your log and got a question - what do you think about Using French? Do you think is it fine to use after finishing Assimil new french with ease? is there a big gap between two books? Using French seems more challenging than I thought

[PeterMollenburg]

Hello! I've been read your log and got a question - what do you think about Using French? Do you think is it fine to use after finishing Assimil new french with ease? is there a big gap between two books? Using French seems more challenging than I thought

Hi Oscard587. Yes I think Assimil - Using French is a great course to follow Assimil - New French with Ease. It picks up where NFWE left off in my opinion, and the first few lessons, from my point of view, in UF that is, were not really any harder than the end lessons of NFWE. In fact, I sort of found the first handfull of lessons of UF easier than those nearing the end of NFWE. I haven't really analysed why that was the case for me, but I suspcect that it could've been more of a length thing than a grammar thing.

I think if you have completed at least two waves in full of NFWE without skipping anything you should be able to progress to UF without difficulty, as it really is like a continuation. It could depend on your study methods though. If you skip over things quickly (almost like extensive reading) in NFWE, you may get to UF and feel a little lost, but if at least you have worked through the lessons more thoroughly and feel you understand the vast majority of them from NFWE, then I can't see why UF should pose any problems, after all it is designed to follow on from NFWE and has exactly that kind of a student in mind.

My advice if you find UF really difficult, rather than dropping it, or going back over NFWE yet again (if you've already done 2 waves), then rotate perhaps- review a lesson or two or three of NFWE in one study session, then in the next work on UF. You're bound to face challenges, if you need to slow down a little don't worry- who's pressuring you? No pressure, just take more time to master the material if you need to. Review of NFWE or not, take your time if you have to, do whatever works to get you progressing through UF. It's definitely worth it!

[Elsa Maria]

A belated congratulations on your exam results

And thanks for posting your study schedule. In the homeschooling world, we call that a loop schedule. I'm not sure why I never thought to try a loop schedule for myself, but you have inspired me to do so!