Goals and Commitment to fluency through practice (6-month plan)

LingQ Language Challenge Forum
81

Hi, herbfm!

Mostly I don’t drop this crutch due to the “game mechanics”; it keeps me doing a minimum amount of French every day…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither against language learning tools in general nor against audio readers such as LingQ in particular.
On the contrary: With a background in computer science (besides languages), I’m definitely a tech guy when it comes to online (language) learning.
But, both as a former language coach and as an enthusiastic foreign language learner myself, I know from experience (I’ve lived in France and Spain, too) that sooner or later you’ve got to get rid of all the (tech) crutches. That means: no SRS, no audio reader, no relying on subtitles, etc.,- just constant exposure to the target language and a lot of interaction with native speakers
And this is how we operate as native speakers: we don’t usually use audio readers, SRS, video subtitles, etc., we simply use our native language - all the time!

As to interacting with French speakers, I have not had great success finding serious learners or others who were interested in talking with me.
I don’t know what you’ve tried so far (LingQ tutors, Italki, whatever) But, I’d recommend going native! Find native speakers of French and interact with them by talking a lot and, maybe, writing a lot.
There are many topics to talk / write about:: Your personal interests / hobbies, your professional expertise, language learning (experiences), cultural aspects, the news, etc.
This is what Jeff Brown does when he learns a new language like Arabic, Mandarin, etc. How to acquire any language NOT learn it! - YouTube
And it seems to work out great for him - and his students!

My biggest failing at this point is not listening or watching enough French recordings & TV or movies
If you want to become good at fast-paced French, i.e. how native speakers of French speak/interact in real life, then you should focus on that.
For example, watching comedies à la “Faites comme chez vous” can be very helpful in this respect: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=faites+comme+chez+vous+episode+1+
You should try to listen first without relying on subtitles / LingQ. If this is too difficult for you, try again with subtitles and / or LingQ.
In French I can watch this comedy series with ease, but to watch the Spanish equivalent “Aquí No Hay Quien Viva” is much harder for me.
However, using LingQ / YT subtitles and listening to an episode 5-15 times helps me a lot.
If you do this for a few months, you’ll see how much you’ve improved in your target language!
If comedies are too hard in the beginning, start with something simpler like news.
When I studied French at university, our lecturers made sure that we listened to / watched the news all the time. We also had to write short summaries of the news and be able to present / discuss them in class.
To this day I’m convinced that this combined approach of listening/watching, reading/writing and talking about the news is an excellent language training.
If you find a tutor / language exchange partner in French, you can implement this “news approach” yourself. At the same time, you “always” have a plethora of interesting topics (culture, sports, weather, politics, etc.) to talk about.

Good luck
Peter

82

Another insight of my university lecturers in French:
It’s an illusion to believe that knowing more and more words, i.e. word families, collocations, idioms, etc., alone automatically leads to better discussion. Instead, it’s much more important to master a topic to a certain degree.
For example: If we wanted to have a serious discussion about artificial intelligence / machine learning in English, it doesn’t mean much to be a native speaker of English with a huge general vocabulary without having more specialized knowledge about supervised / unsupervised learning,etc.
Or, as I’d put it: Having a more limited vocabulary and knowing what you’re talking about is often more important than having a huge general vocabulary without knowing what you’re talking about :slight_smile:

Have a nice day
Peter

83

Apropos “searching language learners / partners in French”

Do you know the (private) Academy of FrenchAuthentique (https://www.francaisauthentique.com)?

  • L’académie Français Authentique : Académie - Français Authentique
  • Le projet Patreon www.patreon.com/francaisauthentique.
    I’ve been following Johan (the founder) for quite some time now
    because I’m writing a book on digital language learning (for English,
    French, Spanish and Japanese). He’s a cool and relaxed dude
    doing an excellent job.
    If you don’t know his stuff, you should definitely check it out.
    It’s awesome!
    In short: Highly recommended (for French)!
84

I think we are actually talking about 2 different things which I missed last night.

I am NOT using and haven’t significant used the “AUDIO reader”.

My use of LingQ is exclusively as an assisted reader for the immediate dictionary support and the easy of capturing items for later review (mostly phrases for me.)

Though I’ll occasinly hit the play button for a word or phrase to check what I think it should sound like AFTER I’ve pronounced it aloud.

Also, I don’t have any sound or automatic "lingq’s by default.

Using the reader still can be an issue for those who depend on “looking up” too many words .or who spend time “translating” everything.

The latter is something I work to avoid most of the time. Just read the French, and only translate (myself) or use the dictionary if the sense is missing or seems to be nuanced.

This last is one of the other reasons I still use it so much: I am mostly learning teh NUANCES of French rather than the vocabulary or base meaning.

An example today was “susceptible” which has the obvious meaning to an English speaker but also means “Likely” or “apt to” or “even problably” to the French. That MIGHT be in an English dictionary but I say something is succeptible there is very little implication of likelyhood in English, only a risk, perhaps small.

As to SRS – we’ll disagree but likely because we use it differently.

The SRS is the fastest way to spin up in a new language – e.g., by rapidly ingesting the first 5000 or so rmost common (mostly) oot words

It usually takes me about a month though I COULD do it faster – to get a good strong pass through them (in latin alphabest though I think it didn’t take much longer in Arabic.)

Now I do NOT recommend continuing (those same words in) the SRS past mostly knowing them so we can read and listen and thereby learn from context.

85

Yes, I am a techy too, but generally those topics are full of common root words in French and English so they offer little problem.

My earlier strategy was to read from a wide variety of source and also ingestt the vocabulary from the video series we watch (mostly NetFlix and some youtubers). Just extract them and send them through a word extracter counter for sorting, lop off the easy ones and the rare words and learn the middling common ones.

As to subtitles, I am mostly stuck with them in French since my wife is almost deaf and depends on them though almost always IN French.

86

  • LingQ
    Using the reader still can be an issue for those who depend on “looking up” too many words .or who spend time “translating” everything.
    Yes, this is a kind of tech dependency that should be avoided - at least in the long run.
    I use LingQ mainly for listening. If I’m stuck somewhere, I read the respective text passage or, occasionally, look up some phrases, collocations or idioms.
    But in English or French this is rarely the case. However, the combination of reading, listening and LingQ reviewing is very important to me at the beginner stages in Japanese and Portuguese.

  • Language subtleties
    I am mostly learning teh NUANCES of French rather than the vocabulary or base meaning.
    Ah, I see.

  • SRS
    The SRS is the fastest way to spin up in a new language – e.g., by rapidly ingesting the first 5000 or so rmost common (mostly) oot words
    I’m on your side here.
    But, there’s a serious problem with focusing on individual words in language learning using SRS, word lists, vocabulary books, etc.
    In linguistic / second language acquisition research, it’s called collocation problem.
    We had a short discussion on this topic in the LingQ premium forum a few days ago. See:
    https://www.lingq.com/es/community/forum/premium-access-forum/how-do-you-review-new-vocabula?post_id=283278

Have a great day
Peter

87

Then we agree on SRS – those who think this is how they finally “learn” the language are generally disappointed and those that come to believe the SRS doesn’t have a place, especially early when spinning up the abiiity read or listend enough to be able to start learning from context are missing a valuable too.

I also think those that do the SRS too “slowly” are misunderstanding the value and losing a lot of advantage and momentum.

At my peak, I was dealing with about 600-800 words per day, missing about 5-10%, by releasing something like 100 per day.

At 100 per day it takes 50 days to burn through the first pass of 5000 words but the goal isn’t to memorize or fully learn them but to gain critical mass.

At about 1000-3000 mostly known words or within about a month, juvenile and simple adult books – something starting to hold interest for the material in and of itself and not just for learning the langauge – become feasible, especially with a dictionary.

88

I also think those that do the SRS too “slowly” are misunderstanding the value and losing a lot of advantage and momentum.
Yes, I’ve come to exactly the same conclusion.
The older I get, the more I prefer a more aggressive, ultra-focused learning style à la Scott Young’s “ultra-learning” rather than “learning an L2 / machine learning / programming language etc. in only 5-10 minutes a day”.
If I did the latter, I’d need “decades” to master anything.
But, of course, it’s a matter of experience: The more languages you’ve learned, the easier the whole process gets. Learning the first foreign language is usually the toughest experience.

something starting to hold interest for the material in and of itself and not just for learning the langauge
I agree. As soon as I’m interested in a topic, I forget about language learning. I just focus on the topic - whatever it is.

Have a nice Sunday
Peter

89

Knowledge of foreign languages is usually very well encouraged by employers. You are a very determined person. I’d like to know what stage you’re at right now. How much did the quarantine affect your plans? I personally managed to change two jobs during this time. I found the last one on the site Urgent! Royal mail jobs in Edinburgh - June 2023 - 716 current vacancies - Jooble. I wonder what I should do next.

90

Thanks a lot for such a detailed plan. It seems to be really helpful

91

You are welcome, and thank you for the comment and encouragement.

I haven’t been posting much or reading on the web site lately but I am still reading daily using the Android app.

Today will be day 331 of an very high count streak.

92

Oddly, I haven’t even told my company about my French study, even though I actually work (in the US) for a very large French based multi-national.

Maybe I should put that on my performance review – though no one will care.

My reading is fluent, although the more I read French the more it seems to be much more difficult to understand for an American. Probably due to now reading anything at any level freely and seeing patterns that weren’t visible before or weren’t in the beginner material offered in most courseware.

Today is my 331st day of a very high level streak in reading with LingQ. I am probably going to drop it next month when my one year subscription runs out but I’ll keep reading, in French, German or Spanish most likely. (I did start reading some German a few weeks ago but dropped it due to other commitments.)

Last night we watch “Mosul” about an Iraqi “SWAT” team in the days right as ISIS (Daesh) was being chased out of the city.

There was English subtitles which my wife needs in any language due to near deafness, but only French audio that we understand so we turned it on without hesitation.

It was quite good, though a little drawn out by the end.

93

Your goals and the constant work that you do is awesome! As I know, the knowledge of foreign languages is usually very well encouraged by employers. You are a very determined person. I’d like to know what stage you’re at right now. How much did the quarantine affect your plans? I personally managed to change two jobs during this time. I found the last one online, and it’s also connected with translations and the work with foreign languages as well

94

Your goals and the constant work that you do is awesome! As I know, the knowledge of foreign languages is usually very well encouraged by employers. You are a very determined person. I’d like to know what stage you’re at right now. How much did the quarantine affect your plans? I personally managed to change two jobs during this time. I found the last one online, and it’s also connected with translations and the work with foreign languages as well

95

The quarantine affected me very little if any, since I have been working 100% from home for a decade or more.
Though I was offered 2 really lucrative jobs last week, I declined both mostly because I am almost ready to retire.

I read fluently. I hear and understand less so. I can speak my mind, but it’s crude.
To polish this, would require about 1 - 3 straight months in France ONLY among the French.

96

Answered above, but also, I am right at the end of a solid 366 days of intense Lingq when my 1 year membership will expire.

It occurred to me to resurrect my German and Spanish, at least for reading but as of now my plan is to drop the Lingq membership and focuse my attention elsewhere or using other tools for French or other languages.

There was a glitch in my streak last week, even though I haven’t missed a day, so I will have completed 366 days of LingQ, every single day, and serious study of French every single day going back more than 13 months as I started just before Christmas 2019 with everyday intensive practice.

BTW, I think my accent is pretty good when I am concentrating but it deteriorates some when I’m trying to think how to say something.

97

Ok, that’s it, 366 days of LingQ mostly at more than 100 per day, and always at my goal of 50 (even though there was some stupid technical glitch and LingQ dropped my streak a couple of weeks ago, and apparently again today, I’ve done it every day without missing for one full year, a Leap Year.

My 1 year subscription has expired so likely I’ll not be able to create more LingQs (or very few) but it has worked well for me despite the numerous bugs and terrible user interface mistakes in both the web and the Android version (I used the Android version for most of my actuall reading.)

Thanks everyone who read this thread, and I may post again.

This is however the official completion of my 6 month turning into 1 year experiment.

I read French fluently at an adult level though I still find surprising turns of phrase in French that aren’t clear fairly often and even illogical meanings where the French use an odd forms which most English speakers would hear as ignorant double negatives and contradictory syntax or ambiguous meanings.

I got my money’s worth; I am not renewing.

98

Awe that’s so sad to hear that you won’t be renewing. That’s great to hear of your progress though! Great Job Man!

99

So we (my wife and I) ended up doing almost 14 months of serious French study every single day, 7 days per week, starting some time in December and continue through today (Feb 10). We also watched a lot of French TV, movies, and YouTube – mostly together.

This doesn’t mean we’re stopping our study of French, but I’m probably not going to consider it a daily “must do” task, and will mostly continue to read and watch French language video content for enjoyment.

I’m am considering German, she’s considering Spanish, and I have a ton of other things to study, mostly technical subjects.

Due to studying of technical subjects I had practically ceased reading novels for pleasure, but French has re-engaged that life long habit which perhaps will continue along with the technical subjects.

100

Excellent job, herbm: kudos to you!

You probably don’t have time for this, but it would be interesting if you could do a brief “retrospective” on your learning experiences, i.e.:

  • Which approaches, strategies, and tools have worked best for you?
  • And which ones would you discard if you had to start over?

Anyway, I wish you good luck &
much success in all your further projects

Peter