PeterMollenburg wrote:I believe I'm at a B2 level (French). I think it's a pretty safe self assessment. I passed B1, I think 2 years ago now, or thereabouts. I've been studying a lot since, but getting a bit frustrated. Only recently did I say I'm able to weather the storm and not introduce any other languages yet, but I'm itching to introduce Dutch. Problem is, I don't want to hinder my French progress which is really feeling pretty ordinary lately (slow if progressing at all).
My aim was to sit the B2 in May 2017 for French (originally I thought I could reach C1/C2 in a year or even less with hard study- idiot!!!).
This is an old(er) thread, but a good one with lot's of great advice. I find myself referring to it quite often since I feel like I've been stuck between B2 and C1 forever.
I've noticed that when I have no goals in mind, I just use the langue and have a lot of fun doing it. With this "no goals" mentality, my progress isn't as fast as I'd like, but I'm having fun so who cares? When I give myself strict goals (i.e. I will take a C1 exam on this date), I find that I don't have as much fun (since I have to do the "not so fun things" to make improvements). I notice that I do make a lot of progress though, which is nice. However, it is only when I set strict goals when I can become frustrated with myself and not see any progress.
For a boost in self confidence, I highly recommend going back to a book or TV show that you found difficult when you first reached the B2 stage. You'll find that it's a lot easier now and your confidence will go up a ton.
The journey from B2-C1+ is long that it is hard to measure any progress that you are having.
Unlike you @PeterMollenburg, I've never been a big fan of courses, but I do like to take a structured approach for certain things. That's why I was such a big
fan addict of anki (that's a whole different story). I've only had time to skim your log (and this post) since there is so much content in it, so please forgive me if I'm covering something that has been said or something that you currently do. But, if you like courses so much, why not work exclusively with materials designed to get you ready for the C1/C2 exam? I'm working with a few of these books now and I feel like they have pretty good structure, and one is best working systematically from the beginning to end of the book. This seems like a perfect thing for you. Maybe this idea has been mentioned before, and maybe it's something you have done or are currently doing.
Out of curiosity, what is the update since this was posted on December 5th, 2016. Did you find certain advice given to you worked or was able to help you out significantly? I guess I can always go through your log, but I've only had time to skim it since there is so much info. Not surprisingly, a lot of times when I do searches for things it comes back to a post in your log.
Keep up the good work and I can't wait to hear about all the progress you've made. *I do know that you are/were planning to sit on the exams in a few months from now, so I guess I'm asking for a pre-exam update* Are you still feeling frustrated or having the same problems you mentioned when this thread was made?
Sarafina wrote:sillygoose1 wrote:I'm going to go against the grain a bit here. I don't think a C1 or a C2 takes as long as some people make it out to. Then again, I've had some different circumstances. I've stuck to French for three years before I started another language, about six years total now; I'm a young guy with no real responsibilities yet; and I continue to only focus on French a lot.
I could have achieved a higher level earlier. How? By not being afraid of failure early on and just diving right into it. One reason why it took me so long was because if I couldn't understand a dialogue in a show, I'd get frustrated and leave French for a few weeks. I babied myself way too much and didn't want to leave my comfort zone. I was scared that I was wasting time listening to material that I couldn't even understand. One day, I said the hell with this and just decided to marathon a few series because I wanted to see them and there were no subs available in English. After about 50 episodes, everything was clear to me. I caught on and did the same with novels. 500 pages didn't scare me anymore and I learned a lot of vocab. Then I just started to get bored and watch movies. Now I can understand like 90-95% of what I watch in French from shows like Engrenages and Braquo to standup comedy to movies. The marathon of movies, books, and series took me about 6 months. But as I said, I was out of school and work for medical reasons and had literally nothing else to do. I probably reached a higher level in less than 6 months but I didn't notice because it was fun.
Basically, you need to stop "studying." It's time to bust out of your shell and get into it. Pick up some classic literature, watch an easy sitcom then progress onto harder material. I'd recommend H and Nos chers voisins.
That's my exact problem. When I watch a challenging TV series in French and I come across a wall of dialogue that is incomprehensible to me. I get discouraged and avoid listening to French for days.
Did you have a specific listening strategy beyond just binge-watching TV series and movies?
Did you try to transcribe or repeat scenes over and over again if you didn't understand?
Which TV series did you marathon initially?
How hours per day did you spend just listening during that six month period?
I'm late to the discussion but oh well, maybe this will help somebody.
Even tot his day, if I watch a really cool show in Spanish and can't understand it, I get frustrated. I just started La Case de Papel on Netflix, which is a show many people recommend watching in ANY language, because it is such a badass show. Of course, I only want to watch it in Spanish, and not being able to comprehend it at 100% is frustrating.
What I recommend, is having a few different shows that you watch. Find one show that interests you or holds your attention (for me, lot's of action does the trick). Just watch the heck out of this show. Hopefully it's something that allows you to understand the plot without having to understand all of the dialog. You might have to search a bit to find a show with easy to understand dialog.
Then, find a show that you really, really like or want to watch. You can work intensively with this show. For me, I really like the shorter mini series on netflix (where each season has 13 episodes or so). At least with these shorter shows you see the light at the end of the tunnel and can easily re-watch an entire series within a relatively short period of time).
I think TV is best (as in, you'll see the most results) when you are at a solid intermediate level (in my opinion). For working intensively, I like to do the following:
Put the subtitles on in your TL, but no matter what you do, don't look at them! If there is a wall of dialog you don't understand, rewind to the part right when the subtitles pop up but the character has't said anything yet. Hit pause. Read the subtitles, look up words, understand everything. Then, while NOT READING the subtitles, hit play and listen. You should be able to understand at 100% with no problems. If your level is already high enough, doing this for a few episodes (will take a long time), but your comprehension for that show will skyrocket.
A few other things, if you are having trouble reading and understanding the subtitles, then you won't be able to understand the show without them. This means you need to work on your reading comprehension or find an easier show. If you can read and understand the subtitles, but not understand the dialog, then you need more listening practice.
So to summarize, have a show that is interesting to you but you don't care about understanding at 100%. Binge watch this show. Find another show that you care about, something where you want to understand everything. Work intensively with it. Don't get discouraged if you can't understand something....and DEFINITELY do not stop listening for a few days simply because you were overwhelmed. Remember that every single second you listen to something in your TL, it is helping you. It doesn't matter if you are understanding all of it or not. Every single second you spend listening to something in your native language, is a second you missed out on where you could have been improving your TL comprehension.
Just realized that this is off topic of the original thread, but since this is an old thread that nobody has posted on in a while I'll just leave it