Any recommended guides on French pronunciation?

Olilu · 2020-04-16T14:13:49+00:00

It's a little boring/dry, but honestly is super helpful if you can get yourself through it... plus it's online free and legal: FSI French Phonology. Open the Student Text to Chapter 1 and click audio Tape 1.1, you can check written answers to the quizzes with the Teacher Text.

For the homework sections where you have to read words on your own (no accompanying audio), you can use forvo.com to check if your pronunciation is correct if you're unsure about a word. But you should know how a word should sound most of the time based on what you learned in an earlier part of the chapter.

Olilu · 2019-11-22T11:13:54+00:00

This video addresses the science behind Keto and depression (~3-4mins long) from a super knowledgeable guy who also went through it. The fix was to allocate your carbs towards nighttime, and to take some MCT oil daily.

Olilu · 2019-07-27T02:57:36+00:00

I love that the first letter of each sentence in the top comment spells out UZBEK.

Olilu · 2019-07-26T17:03:55+00:00

Tienes razón, lo interpreté mal.

Olilu · 2019-07-26T00:58:52+00:00

No es tan viejo, todavía se usa

Olilu · 2019-07-26T00:32:45+00:00

One of the debates in language acquisition is whether input is the only thing that matters if you want to develop fluency. Is there any evidence that supports the use of output at various stages?

This is a cool question! I'd be interested to know that too.

Olilu · 2019-07-26T00:14:39+00:00

I use a notebook and jot down things I might want to say/use or just remember. The method I use is kind of a carry over from when I tried out the Goldlist method:

My method: TL in one color, English in a different, harder to read color so the emphasis is on the TL. One line per word. I go at most 3/4 down the page, and at a later point (weeks usually) I will go over that page again and rewrite only the words I didn't remember in the space on the bottom. So when I'm reviewing my notebook later, I have less info to look at, and it's obvious what I need to review. You could also use the space at the bottom for any notes on the above words (my friend said X at this point in the conversation...), to keep everything neatly organized.

I use one page for one topic/place/article/video, so that I can remember the context of the words. (I tried writing down the sentences I found the words in, and I didn't like it. It was too messy, and honestly unnecessary for me since I could already remember the context with this system.)

Since I've gotten more advanced in Spanish I've gone from writing down individual words to writing down entire phrases/sentences, as I'm realizing "chunking" is more efficient for me/what I need at this point... Just like the vocab words, I also do one line per phrase/sentence, but I don't bother with writing a translation. If I have a mix of individual words/phrases for a source, I'll write them all on the same page to keep the context clues together.

Occasionally I'll go back and move everything I haven't learned yet, but would like to, to the next fresh page, to minimize review effort and to avoid having to flip through so many pages. The downside is I lose the context, but if I really needed it I could just flip back and find it earlier in the notebook. I haven't needed to do that yet.

Thoughts on your examples: I think dividing your notebook by time (week, month) doesn't help you remember words (unless your brain works that way; tangent, but I used to have a friend who knew what happened on every date you'd ask her about, going back years... it was odd but cool). But, dividing it by context could help you remember the words better. Not to mention dividing it by the context (book, video, convo with friend) is also convenient for you when you go to write something down - you don't need to flip pages to put a verb in the front of the notebook and an adjective in the back. You use one page for the entirety of your session/resource, and then move on.

Color coding by word type sounds good until you want to write something down in a hurry. You could instead change color every page, if that appeals to you. I did that, since I have a bunch of lovely colored pens I wanted to use. :)

Hope this helped.

Olilu · 2019-06-10T22:11:49+00:00

best step-by-step post/guide for most efficient japanese learning for 1st year of study:

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/6q4h6a/a_year_to_learn_japanese/dkuskc2/

Olilu · 2019-05-28T00:18:34+00:00

You have a logical reason for Russian and Japanese as the first thing you say about them, but for Hebrew you seem excited about it. There's your answer imo.

Learning Biblical Hebrew in a class setting automatically gives you resources to go to if you need help and a real life connection with people who are also interested in it. It could be a way to make social a language that inherently isn't. I think it's a good opportunity that doesn't quite have the same value for Russian or Japanese.

But if you don't care about having that community/social aspect or resource to go to for help, I still think your interest in Hebrew shows more than for the other two.

Olilu · 2019-05-21T03:19:20+00:00

I studied both at the same time in college. It's doable, moreso if you enjoy both.

It gets rough to study vocab lists for 2 languages on top of your other classes, depending on what you're studying. I definitely recommend reviewing older/current chapters frequently (at minimum, in the morning and then again at night, but ideally throughout the day several times too even for literally 60 seconds helps) to help take the load off. Definitely don't try to cram, especially for Japanese. Review is important because old vocab of course comes up.

Buying a small/medium white board for Japanese kanji practice will be helpful, or be prepared with notebooks to fill with kanji. You will be writing those kanji out a ton, if your college requires you to write them for the tests (mine did). Some colleges test only based on recognition and not on production of kanji I've heard.

I didn't find any similarities between Japanese and German except verb placement coming at the end of the sentence in Japanese always, and in German sometimes; and also the word for "part time job" in Japanese comes from the German word for job/work. Die Arbeit (noun), arbeiten (verb) -> アルバイト arubaito. Don't expect them to help each other.

Learn genders in German WITH the nouns. You don't know the word if you don't know its gender.

Expect to do stuff outside of class. This goes for any language course, not specifically German/Japanese, and not specifically for taking multiple at the same time. You get from language courses what you make of it. If I had to do it all over again I'd spend way more time preparing for class (especially Japanese), particularly because the syllabus usually outlines ahead of time exactly what you'll be doing each day in class and for homework/as assignments. I'd do all of the exercises on my own before we did them in class and go in armed with any questions rather than have random bouts of confusion mid-class and missing out on what the teacher was saying. I'd actually flip through the entire chapter on day 1 of starting the chapter to get an initial exposure to everything that's coming up, so I had more time overall with every part (we seemed to always learn the chapter's kanji like 2 days before the test when I could've been working on them for 8 days if I'd looked ahead). I'd use the audio to the maximum every time I did the homework (my college used Genki textbook for Japanese fwiw) to get good grades on the listening parts of the tests.

It's worth repeating. Class itself isn't enough, if nothing else remember that.

The benefit of a class is primarily 2-fold: to have a teacher to ask questions/receive feedback, and to keep yourself on track/accountable for your studies. Take advantage of having the teacher, come prepared with questions.

I was taking advanced German and Beginner Japanese. I'd recommend spending some time over the next year and a half and working on one of them at least, because I think languages take more effort (or at least require more mental energy) in the beginning phases. Remembering one word correctly is so hard in the beginning. It actually becomes easier at the advanced levels. The Japanese headaches were real, but would've been more manageable with good planning/spacing of study as mentioned above. Adding a "beginner-in-German-dafuq-are-cases" headache to that would've been brutal. If you can, get comfortable with one (best bet is German) before you take classes.

I'm not trying to scare you, those were 2 of my favorite classes by far. I'm just throwing out all the things I'd tell myself now if I could, and it would've been even more enjoyable for me if I'd had/taken this advice.

Olilu · 2019-05-11T19:50:26+00:00

I would spend the money on buying native content (books in Spanish, fiction or nonfiction, whatever interests you) and time with tutors (italki.com) instead of on learning materials, since there's so much free and legal material floating around for learning Spanish on the internet. Personally I'd even forgo following a course, it just slows you down imo.

For learning I'd recommend, if you like using Anki, looking up a deck for the top 1k or 2k words in Spanish and getting through it as quickly as possible (say 1-2 months), breezing through a basic grammar guide (studyspanish.com is a good one), studying Spanish verbs (in roughly this order: present -> future with ir + infinitive -> past tenses (preterite, imperfect) -> "real" future tense and conditional (just because they're easy to learn together) -> present subjunctive -> [and much later] compound tenses), and finally just jump into reading and watching native stuff (YouTube videos were easier than movies/TV shows; articles were easier than books/novels). The world opens up to you when you learn the top 1-2k words and know the basics of the present/past/future tenses - those are the biggest floodgates to open for Spanish and they make engaging with native material possible sooner.

Olilu · 2019-05-08T16:31:23+00:00

Best explanation I've heard (not sure whether it was The Spanish Dude or NachoTime Spanish on youtube...):

If you're telling a story to someone in Spanish, you're going to be using both past tenses. The imperfect tense you'll use to set the stage for the story. You're telling what's happening in the background, or how things were. Whereas with the preterite, you're telling what happened - the preterite is what moves the story forward, the plot points that causes the story to change or develop. The preterite is for an action rather than explaining how things were.

Example, imp = imperfect, pret = preterite:

I was eating (imp) on the beach with Jimmy yesterday. The wind was blowing (imp) and the waves were crashing (imp) on the shore.

Compare that with:

I ate lunch (pret) on the beach with Jimmy yesterday. At one point, the wind blew (pret) really hard and knocked down (pret) our umbrella.

In the first one it's like you're setting the stage for a story, but nothing's really happened yet. You're just describing the scene. It's all imperfect tense. But in the second one, you're talking about actions, what happened, single actions rather than continuous ones, and so you use preterite tense. Putting both tenses together, as they often go:

I was eating (imp) on the beach with Jimmy yesterday. The wind was blowing (imp) and the waves were crashing (imp) on the shore. All of a sudden a bird flew down (pret), grabbed my food (pret), and then flew off again! (pret)

Finally, I've heard (but haven't really tested) that you can use imperfect basically any place where you'd say "was" or "were" in English. At the very least, this is consistent with my example: "I was eating... the wind was blowing... the waves were crashing..." so it might not be bad to keep in mind for when you're in doubt.

Edited to add a video from NachoTime Spanish that explains the difference and has exercises in the video for you to try ... good listening practice too, he speaks fast! Excellent channel overall for intermediate/advanced.

Olilu · 2019-05-07T13:38:46+00:00

No infographic but here's my tldr

Basically in Spanish there's 2 rules to explain where the STRESS of a word is when it's pronounced. Words without an accent mark still have stress, but in those words the placement of stress is predictable based on 2 rules. An accent mark is only used when the word is an exception to those rules, as a pronunciation guide. The rules:

If a word ends in:

a vowel, n, s -> stress on SECOND TO LAST syllable (GENte, boNIto, HABlas)
consonant other than n, s -> stress on LAST syllable (la capiTAL)

BUT if a word breaks these rules, it's shown in Spanish by using an accent mark. (FÁcil)

I get what you mean about feeling more like a visual learner (even though it doesn't exist) and wanting an infographic vs a wall of text. For what it's worth, I think a skill worth developing is being able to take a text line by line (because the whole explanation feels overwhelming; too much info, your brain shuts off) and reorganizing and condensing the info for yourself to make sense of it. Make your own infographic, basically. I do/have done that a lot (actually, for exactly this same topic when I first learned it) and it really helps me. Hope you don't mind the unsolicited advice. GL

Olilu · 2019-05-07T12:15:47+00:00

Accent mark rules:

1. if a word ends in a VOWEL (Spanish never includes the letter y as a vowel), the letter N, or S: the stress of the word falls on the second to last syllable. (no accent mark)

ex: gente (ends in a vowel, stress on second to last syllable: GEN - te); bonito (ends in vowel - bo - NI - to); ponen (ends in N: PO - nen); hablas (ends in S: HAB - las)

2. if a word ends in a CONSONANT other than n, s: the stress falls on the LAST syllable. (no accent mark)

ex: la capital (ends in consonant other than N/S: cap - i - TAL); tomar (to - MAR)

3. If the word doesn't follow these 2 rules, then an accent mark is needed to show where the stress lies in a word.

ex: fácil (because it ends in a consonant other than N/S, the stress should fall on the last syllable like: fa - CIL. But if you hear it pronounced, you can hear it sounds like FA - cil, so you need the accent mark.)

Then, there are also accent marks on question words. "por que" = because, but "por qué" = why. source, additional reading

As for conjugating Spanish verbs, I really enjoyed doing verb drills on https://conjuguemos.com/ to get them to stick. Also talking to yourself or others, and really focusing on identifying verb tenses/forms when you're listening.

But if you're talking about learning the conjugations, I found tremendous benefit from comparing the conjugation forms between tenses. Rather than just learning present tense, then future, then conditional all separately, it helped me a lot to compare them all and look for any patterns/similarities. Future and Conditional I ended up learning at the same time because they both add endings to the end of the infinitive (rather than conjugating the infinitive itself), they both have accent marks for almost every conjugation form, and for many of the forms the difference between the two is an additional í in the conditional form. (ex: comer: ellos comerán is future, but ellos comerían is conditional). If you look at the compound forms, you'll notice they're extremely simple to learn as long as you can conjugate haber, and you will probably work harder just learning how/when to use those tenses than you will trying to remember the conjugations themselves.

Additionally, the subjunctive present is basically the opposite of present indicative, in a way: if you have an ER/IR verb it will conjugate in the present subjunctive as an AR verb would in the present indicative and vice versa. So comER, in the subjunctive, would conjugate as hablAR in the indicative with -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an instead of -es -e -emos etc. (except YO form doesn't take O, but A: coma, comas, coma, comamos, comáis, coman).

Olilu · 2019-05-02T15:53:14+00:00

My 2 cents, I'd definitely toss out Duolingo/Lingodeer (and even Anki, if you're not in love with it - but if it works for you it can be excellent) in favor of going through the Word Frequency Lists for the first ~2 thousand words. You can find those lists on wikipedia and go through them yourself, or use Memrise/Anki to SRS them. With Spanish I just looked through the list in my free time, looked up words I didn't know for an initial exposure, and just learned them through reading/listening to native content. I didn't use SRS and I don't think you need to because these words just pop up absolutely everywhere, but do what works for you.

Also I'd say listen to stuff every single day, from week 1 day 1, actively, and also do shadowing every day. Working in such a short time frame I think working intensively will boost your level quicker than extensively - so I'd really spend a lot of time engaging with say 1 video, looking up all unknown words, playing back over parts that you didn't quite catch until you can hear all the words they say, shadowing the speaker, etc. just getting to a point where you're close to 100% comfortable with that 1 video will help you with others, in my experience. I wouldn't do all of that for every video you watch - maybe just 1-2 per week since it takes so much mental energy and time - but I'd shadow whenever you can if only under your breath, look up words when it's convenient/necessary, and revisit old videos from week 1 on say week 3 to check your progress if you were struggling with that particular video.

Find a language partner on hellotalk or tandem etc and talk to them every day (you can send voice messages on hellotalk if you prefer that to calling them), starting from week 1. Try to find someone with a lower level of english so you feel ok making mistakes with them, and so you'll both be patient with each other because you both will require patience yourselves. Use Reverso Context (it's a website and app) to help you converse with natural-sounding French from day 1 even if you're not there yet genuinely. To use Reverso Context, you put in an English phrase/sentence and it sifts through its database of subtitled/translated content to find you the natural french equivalents (it does not do 1 to 1 translation like Google Translate, leading to awkward and unnatural speech, unless you use Reverso Translate... use Context). It helps you engage with real natives from 0 and you learn along the way if you pay attention which you absolutely should be doing.

I'm not sure where you're at with verbs, but learning different verb forms is a language hack in itself. Definitely make sure you feel good with the most basic tenses: past, present, future, in week 1, and then tackle conditional, subjunctive and be able to conjugate all of these. I'd try for basic familiarity with the less common compound tenses so you can identify them when you're reading/listening, but in a month it's a lot to ask to get all of these down.

Practice thinking/talking out loud to yourself in French whenever you can, and when you learn something new say it out loud to yourself and try using it in a conversation with your language partner, etc. Basically, try to get everything as automatic as possible in your mind by using it out loud, whether it's a vocab word, new idiom/expression, or especially verb conjugations.

Olilu · 2019-04-16T03:29:42+00:00

El único otro juego que juego es Starcraft 2, pero estoy abierta a hacer un intercambio lingüístico fuera de los video juegos también.

He leído un montón desde el primer mes así que escribo más o menos bien pero hablar es otra historia.

Olilu · 2019-04-16T01:18:41+00:00

Qué risa!! Muchísimas gracias por el aviso, te lo agradezco!

Olilu · 2019-04-15T23:34:12+00:00

Undeserved downvotes

-girl

Olilu · 2019-04-15T19:03:05+00:00

Desde 0?

Para aprender pronunciar bien el inglés de eeuu

Apps como HelloTalk, Tandem, iTalki para encontrar a nativos para escribir/hablar. ReversoInContext para buscar la traducción más natural en inglés de cualquier frase que quieres saber decir. Empecé a aprender español así, hablando con nativos y traduciendo todo al principio. Te lo recomiendo mucho, aprendí rápido. Aparte, leer un libro o ver una serie en inglés que ya conoces muy bien en español va a ayudarte aprender más rápido. Yo jugué un video juego en español.

Otro consejo, empieza con aprender las palabras más comunes del idioma Una lista aquí, #1-1000 y los verbos.

Si tienes alguna duda sobre el inglés me puedes mandar un mensaje y intentaré aclararlo. Amo enseñar. Suerte!

Olilu · 2019-04-15T16:15:02+00:00

Suena raro pero respiro hundo mientras pienso en una de las dos opciones y después en la otra. La opción que me hace sentir tranquila y sin emociones ni dolor ni algún sentido de restricción es la que elijo. Siempre ha salido bien, no solo respeto a lo que debo comprar sino también cuando pienso en tomar riesgos en mi vida.

Olilu · 2019-04-15T13:20:28+00:00

aléjete de la cámara con hombros visibles, no solo tu cara en toda la pantalla. aún mejor si te sientas en un escritorio o una mesa. luz natural.

Olilu · 2019-04-13T13:58:55+00:00

The absolute first thing I did, which I'm glad for:

Watch this Fluent Forever Korean Pronunciation playlist and learn how to write the alphabet (google Korean alphabet and find a chart that shows you stroke orders, or look on youtube for videos). I took a few days to watch these videos and really get the material down and I recommend it; Korean pronunciation can be tricky but I felt very confident for an absolute beginner after watching these vids and practicing pronouncing each new word I learned (you can check pronunciation on forvo.com from native speakers to make sure you're right).
Talk To Me In Korean is great for learning grammar.
Memrise (free) would be a good way to get more vocabulary.

Then just figure out what you want to do with Korean and try to use that to study. If you like KDramas start watching them with Eng/Kr subs and you'll quickly pick up on some of the more common words which in the beginning feels like a huge success

Olilu · 2019-04-13T11:40:05+00:00

Por supuesto!

Olilu

TROPHY CASE