FRENCH
I know nobody cares, but I signed up for French 3 like a day ago or so and we had our first class tonight. Our instructor is definitely very French, haha. It sounds like we’re really going to be focusing on listening skills a lot this semester, which is exactly what I need.
Nervous!
Duo Summo
This will be my…second full year using Duo? I think that’s right. I started in May 2022 I believe.
Anyway, end-of-year stats because I have nothing else today.
Huit cents
I’ve been doing Duolingo for 800 days, yo! That’s a long time.
I’m glad it got me into taking actual French courses. It’s pretty good for building vocabulary, but a lot of the grammatical nuances aren’t mentioned or explained. That’s where the classes have been super helpful (and I’m glad I’d done some Duo before taking that first class; I feel like the extra vocab buildup really helped make that class much easier).
Anyway.
French!
My second class of French started today!
There’s a much broader range of French experience in this class compared to the first one. Some students had French immersion in school; others of us took the intro French class and that’s all we’ve had so far.
It’s intimidating! But I’m ready to learn.
Duolingo: 2023 Review
So my efforts in studying French via Duolingo fluctuated a lot this year due to fluctuations in how busy I was, but I tried to stay consistent with at least doing one lesson a day. Here’s my year-end summary:
I think the combination of the French class(es) and Duo is a really good one. Duo is great for vocab and basics; the French class(es) help with the nuances of the language.
Can’t wait to learn more!
500 Days!
Check it, I just hit 500 days on Duo!
Here are some examples of the level of French I can comprehend at this point:
I’m excited for my second French class this coming winter!
Yo Dawg, I Herd U Like French
So I put some French synonyms in your French definitions so you can learn French while you learn French.
Anyway.
This is a new type of Duolingo exercise, and I really like it. You’re getting your current knowledge of French tested at the same time you’re learning new words. I hope there are a lot more exercises like this!
I did two things today!
Well, I did other stuff too, of course, but there were two BIG things.
One: I signed up for FRE 102, the first actual factual French course in the certificate program. I’m nervous about it because we’re actually graded in this course (rather than Complete/Incomplete), so that’ll be interesting.
Two: I also officially applied for the program to get a professional Certificate in French Language and Culture – FSL Foundations. I’ll get an actual parchment if I complete the whole program!
YAYZORZ
MATCH
One of my favorite little exercises/challenges on Duolingo is Match Madness, where you’re presented with a column of words from the language you know, a column of words from the language you’re learning, and you’ve got a time limit to match the words from each column. Like this:
There are nine levels of this where the number of matches you must make within the time limit.
At least, I thought there were only nine levels. That was until I beat the ninth level this afternoon to reveal this:
MATCH MADNESS EXTREME!
Three more levels. I can get to level 12 but I can’t get through it yet, so who knows if there is anything beyond that.
TESTING MY FRENCH!
I’d say that’s pretty good for only having one French class and using Duo for a bit less than a year.
Let’s keep improving!
Mes livres de français sont arrivés !
Yay!
One is (obviously) a French-English dictionary; the other is a book on conjugating French verbs.
Apprendre le français est agréable !
Trois Cents!
(LOL, “trois cents” rhymes with “croissants”)
I’ve hit 300 days on Duolingo learning French!
That’s pretty cool. I didn’t think I’d stick with it that long, but I’m glad I have! Now I just want to learn even more French, haha.
French!
I bought my textbook for FRE 100, the French class I’ll be (hopefully) taking next semester!
I’m excited. I’ve never taken a language class before so we’ll see how bad I am at it.
Frenchie
So I’m REALLY enjoying learning French, and I’ve just discovered that you can take some French classes through the U of C’s Continuing Education program. I’m seriously considering taking this one, specifically.
And then I can work on this certificate.
Wouldn’t that be super cool?
I also think that I get like one free class a year as a faculty member, so might as well take advantage of that.
FRANCH
How’s my French going? Here are a few examples of the level I’m currently at:
Not too bad for two months’ worth I guess? It’s really fun. I try to make up my own sentences when I’m running and I’ve sometimes had some French in my dreams.
WOO!
D-D-D-Duo!
So I saw some bro sharing a 300-day Duolingo streak on Twitter this afternoon, and that for whatever reason sparked me to download Duolingo and get started on a language.
Turns out I’d made a Duolingo account way back in September 2016, but luckily, I could remember my login info and started things up from there.
I’m going to go for French. Three reasons why:
- It’s in the same general family as English and thus would be easier to learn than, say, Hebrew or Greek.
- It’s one of Canada’s official languages and is thus on packaging and other things up here; it would be something easy to practice and, of course, it’d be cool to know Canada’s other official language.
- (I could possibly read some original, untranslated Leibniz!!!!!)
So yeah. We’ll see how this goes. I know Duo doesn’t replace actual language courses and experience, but it’s a good start, right?
bllpp.
Someone (PERHAPS ME??????!?) needs to write a story featuring many of these words.
They’re great. I love this kind of stuff.
Speak the Speak
I hadn’t heard “pencil crayons” until Nate said it when referring to my colored pencils. I guess it makes sense, though. They’re like crayons but in pencil form?
I have never heard “garburator” in my life and if I didn’t see what it was referring to, I would think it was Canada’s name for Bigfoot or something.
What kind of nerd is down with “soccer baseball?” “Kickball” is a fairly unambiguous term; you’re kicking a ball like in soccer, but you’re doing so in a game form that’s like baseball. “Soccer baseball” could imply that, but it could also imply that you’re whacking soccer balls around with a baseball bat. Which I guess is kinda cool.
Definitely heard it referred to as “hydro bill” in BC.
Odd.
Jendah
‘Sup?
So this is quite depressing (but also unsurprising): “Gendered Language in Teaching Reviews” is an interactive chart made by Ben Schmidt that allows you to see how frequently certain words are used on RateMyProfessor.com to describe male and female teachers. It also breaks it down by field.
A few:
Words that did not have that consistent gender split: lazy, stupid, boring, engaging, quiet, bad professor, good professor, harsh.
Conglomerate
This is interesting. Check it out if you like linguistics at all.
A Thought I Had Today:
We use the same prefix “im-” for both impossible and impossibility, but why do we use “un-” for unstable but “in-” for instability?
I did a bit of internetting to see if I could find a reasonably believable answer. Turns out the word “unstable” dates back to the 13th century and borrows from Old English and Old French, both Germanic languages. Germanic languages use the “un-” prefix.
“Instability,” on the other hand, is slightly newer and dates back to the 15th century. It borrows from Latin; Latin uses the “in-” (or “im-”) prefix.
Both “impossible” and “impossibility” borrow from Latin, hence the same “im-” prefix.
The more you know!
Bias
Are there certain sounds and/or combinations of letters in the English language that you find unappealing, regardless of the words they’re in?
For example, I don’t like the long “o” sound (like in boat or moat or goat), but only if it’s spelled with “oa”. Tote and smote and wrote are fine.
Same with “s”. I only like that sound when it’s spelled with the “s”, like pass or summer or loose. I don’t like pace or rice or ceiling.
Words that end in “b” drive me nuts (job, crib, drab). Even if the “b” is silent (like in limb).
I’ve never really liked “w” in general.
Not a big fan of the long “e” sound, either, especially if it’s spelled with “ea”. Lease, east, peanut. Beer, Weedle, and peer are fine.
So what do I like?
I like the “k” and hard “c” sound. Coin, click, coffin.
I like “ch” and “tch”. Batch, cheddar, kitchen.
The “h” sound isn’t bad, either. Hoop, honor, rehire.
I like “v”, but only at the beginning of words. Vacancy, victorious, vanity. Not glove or rave or reverberate.
I dunno.
Hey, remember back when my blogs were good?
Me neither.
I may have mentioned this video on here before, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never posted it or really talked about it. And I re-discovered it the other day, so here you go.
This nifty little song is called Prisecolinensinenciousol. Written by Italian Adriano Celentano, the song’s lyrics are total gibberish designed to sound like American English.
Catchy, ain’t it? I remember one spring when Nick and I would talk to each other in fake French we actually convinced some dude at Hastings that we were really speaking French. We’re bad people, oui?
This is perhaps the most hilarious thing I’ve read in awhile
Oh man. This is fantastic.
“The Swedish Chef does not speak any known language, and the fact that his nonsense words are so widely interpreted as Swedish-sounding is bewildering and annoying to Swedes.”
“Riad, one of 18 members of the prestigious Swedish Academy, which determines who wins the Nobel Prize in literature, wrote an article in the Swedish language magazine Spraktidningen titled “Börk Börk Börk. Ehula Hule de Chokolad Muus.””
““There are three things that people talk to Swedes about pretty uniformly: the Swedish Chef, Abba, and Ikea.””
Hahahaha. Gotta love the Swedes.
TODAY HAS NO TITLE OH GOD
The online class is helping with the sentence structure and whatnot. However, since the only words we’ve learned how to say are “pencil,” “book,” “magazine,” “box,” “yes,” “and,” and “this is a,” I figured I’d see if I could expand my vocabulary a little using the random article search in Greek Wiki. These are now the words I know:
- Metal
- Gallium
- Titanium
- Glass
- Biology
- Genetics
- Bibliography
- History
- Technology
- Litre
- Size (not even close to anything in English)
Yay!
Eigenblogger 