The turning point in my French learning

                                               I finished my Duolingo skill tree!

Now, my route is somewhat different. I've discovered a really great website called Lingvist, to continue learning my French. I'm actively and extensively using it for a few days until now. It is really addictive for me, because I've gained a thrust in the system.

I've concluded that I, at the very least, have some base in French, and now, which is a great discovery for me, it has helped me in broadening my vocabulary in English, too! :)

I also plan to try out (in the moment of writing this) the website called ReadLang, in which I will mostly import texts which are from the other sources which I have, and from what I find later.

I am also writing the words and phrases which I will paste to some kind of SRS (I haven't figured out which one to use yet)

Because it is really important to understand before you speak, to achieve that, one needs to listen a lot. Now, I won't dwell on how you should listen, on understanding of the spoken language to which you listen to, but I think that, what was missing from my learning is trying to really understand what's going on in listening, and to listen to other things except the series Plus Belle La Vie. I will say that it is also important to have a transcript of the audio, if possible. Therefore, I will focus on, primarily, the things like podcasts with transcript, videos etc.

I also want to mention that I've finally found the language partner, on Language Exchange. Soon, I will be speaking with her. :)

The things I've already been doing regularly and what I plan to do

So far, I've been using only Duolingo and watching TV series Plus Belle La Vie. I concluded that using a few different methods are overwhelming if I want to make a language learning a habit. I was inspired by a method which Olly from I Will Teach You a Langugage, calls "Sprint". I've made finally a routine. Now, because of that, I am going to pick something in French with transcript, which I can understand at least 90% of words. Then I will listen to it on my phone when I take a walk. Afterwards, I will import the text to ReadLang, and do the things which Ron from Language Surfer suggests. I will try to make it a habit.

Conclusion: Duolingo and soap opera are the things I've been using so far every day, and made it a habit, and I will add listening (when I don't go out, I will just listen, and then read and listen at the same time), and then import the text to ReadLang.

See you later! À bientôt !

P.S. I've also started to listen to the French radio. The frequency of songs and especially of the commercials help a lot in learning.


7/7/2015 Update:

I will still stick only to Duolingo and TV series, but I've joined the Instagram Language Challenge, which Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages made. Please read the rules and join me if you want! :) I joined Instagram just because of that, by the way. 

Short Update: Refined Strategy and Goals

I've  continued to use Duolingo, Memrise, Podcast Français Facile and to watch soap opera with the same rules as before, but I've neglected other things. I also have a short-term goal to speak with a teacher on italki.

I won’t have much expectations towards speaking with my cousin, because I don’t even know if I will see her, let alone be able to talk with her, but she knows that I’m learning French for quite some time, so still... there’s some hope. However, I strongly believe that I will be able to speak in a year with my cousin’s son and his family. I want to reach at least B1 level by that time.  It will be a great opportunity to speak because my cousin knows just a little Serbian, and his family doesn’t speak it at all. J So, that would be my medium-term goal. My long-term goal is to spend some time in France someday, and to feel and act like a native as much as I can.

By the way: I’ve started to use Bliu Bliu to maintain my English, and I want again to have a language exchange with a native English speaker

I've finally made my own learning style!

After spending hours of reading language blogs, thinking which methods and resources would suit my personality, finding the right resources,  I’ve  finally came up with my own “perfect” language learning strategy. I want to share everything with you and to be honest, so I want to admit that the lack of money forced me to do that. That is an interesting thing because I thought previously that all good language learning resources are not free. J Also, my cousin from France is coming to my country in 20 days, so I wanted to prepare for that as much as I can without spending any money, though I wish to spend a little money around June 13th, because I want to start having  few conversations with a native speaker. Firstly, I will do 15 minute sessions, twice a week, and then 30 minutes next week, twice.

Every day, I commit to these things:

I’ve started to focus intensively on my pronunciation by practicing because it is an essential aspect of speaking a language.

I’m constantly adding new words, phrases and sentences to my personal course on Memrise, from the texts which I encounter.

I use Duolingo every day with the “Insane” daily goal.

Français Facile is currently my favourite language course. I save audio and text to my computer and revise them every day and I am trying to reach at least 500 words of reading there every day.

I listen as much as I can.

I am doing also other little things which mean a lot, like writing short sentences and post them to italki or Lang-8 to be corrected and learn from my mistakes, I use Forvo when I need to know how a specific word is pronounced, etc.

The most important thing is to do every intentional learning activity throughout the whole day, divided into smaller parts.

The things I do when I am not actually studying:

Listen to the radio, watch television programmes, watch soap opera, listen to other podcasts without transcript. I don’t try to understand all these things. I just want to be surounded with a language as much as I can, and switch my daily non-productive activities with the similar things, but in French.

The reason I wrote this is because I wanted to share with you my immense happines because of that and that I’m feeling accomplished . Thank you for reading this post. I appreciate it a lot! 

How does your learning go right now and which language(s) are you studying? What is you own method? Feel free to share!

How I find inspiration, motivation and my exploration

Hello. Today I want to mention a one person's blog which gives me much inspiration and additional exploration, and above all - motivation! Here's the link:  http://www.lindsaydoeslanguages.com/
Please take a look if you're interested in language learning, and other things about languages! It is the best thing I found so far about languages, among other blogs. It encouraged me even to sign up to Instagram and Pinterest for example, to be even there surounded by languages! I've spent my time a lot in a last few days reading it and doing things which are suggested there.

Motivation

I want to mention also another person whose YouTube channel with plenty of advice helped me the most when I firstly ventured into language learning. His name is Steve Kaufmann. If you have a wish to start learning a new language but you think that you can't do it, he has even a playlist of his videos on that subject (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiFB-yYuG2hiBCnQLusaH6cNJ7odgfNUT)



I got lost these days in blogs, videos, social websites, etc. about language learning and all things language.. With this post I am stopping my "procrastination" and I'm going back to LingQ to do something, as I think it already became my habit to spend some time there every day. À bientôt! (see you later!) :)

Poesie (A Poem)

I read and listened to a poem by Victor Hugo called "Demain, dès l'aube" I will write it down in French and add two pictures of the words in the poem. It touched me in a certain way. It was the first time I read a poem in French, and that was from famous Victor Hugo! (I learned the unknown words on Memrise and added a picture for 2 words there, so it inspired me to write this post)

Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

(bruyère) 

(houx)

"Just LingQ" period (90Day Challenge)

I won't go into details now on LingQ because I don't feel like advertising it, it has a lot of it, but it helped me really lot. So, I'll do it anyway, but little. Simply put: you have there audio for every text, for absolute beginners to very advanced learners. It is focused on "real language". You mark words which you don't know and learn them by flashcards, that's how most people do it there. etc. etc. The focus is on exposure to the language. By the way, that little cute creature is my LingQ avatar, which grows as you learn new words, and has other features. I'll stop it here.

So.. I've in February 5th I've started my 90Day Challenge. It consist only on meeting your certain targets. The main goal is to do tasks there every day for the next 90 days.. From the beginning, I haven't done it in that, "right" way.. I said earlier that I don't like rules. ;) But, that challenge helped me a lot. I wasn't listening too much, and now I listened to language spoken by native speakers a lot more than I did before. My reading improved immensely, besides other things. My challenge ends in the early May and I plan to devote my time before that to keep up with my targets. I've now been active on LingQ and met my daily targets for a few days in a row and I plan to keep it that way, I will try to not miss a day. I guess I now have more motivation. :) 

My current challenge stats are:

My stats to Intermediate 2 level are these:

I'm halfway there - yaay! :D


I want to tell you now an important thing. My only focus on LingQ will end by the middle of May, max. I will then continue to be active on Duolingo, and on the other websites.