I have no regrets.

I love this quote. I love how the French sounds as I let the syllables form in my mouth. I love the song. I love everything about the phrase; what it means and more.

If I were ever to get a tattoo, it would be this phrase because I have no regrets.

Non, je ne regrette rien.

First essay!

Tags

6WC, lang-8, SC

I wrote my first essay tonight! You can find it at lang-8 here. Although it is there, I will post it here for those who don’t use that site:

Bonjour

Bonjour ! Je me présente. Mon prénom est Anna et je suis Australiene. Je suis étudiante. Je vis avec deux filles. Le premier est ouvert et drôle. Elle est de Nouvelle-Zélande. L’autre est travailleur et a très bouclés cheveux. Et moi ? Je dois longs raides noir cheveux avec lumineuses veines rose. Je viens d’ajouter rose et elle n’est toujours me choque. pourquoi le rose ? Je ne sais pas. Je pense que j’ai décidé rose car il est si différent. Lorsque j’aurai obtenu mon diplôme, je dois être une personne sensible avec une apparence respectable. J’ai décidé d’être différent maintenant, quand je le peux !
Pourquoi je écrit ? Je fais HTLAL Super Challenge. Ce challenge signifie que je dois lire 100 livres, regarder 100 films et écrire 100 essais. Je suis un débutant en français donc c’est difficile.
J’ai regardé un film: Dora l’exploratrice.
J’ai lu un livre: Il fait beau.
Ceci est mon premier essai.
J’espère qu’il vous plaira. S’il vous plaît aidez-moi si vous le pouvez. Merci beaucoup mes amis.

More film!

Tags

6WC, SATC, SC

It was a let down after finishing the book, but I’ve also got another film up on the score board.

Sex and the City (en français)

After finishing the book, I was in the mood for more french exposure. The DVD player already had a disc of Sex and the City in it, so I went to the menu and added French audio and subtitles. Having seen the episodes before, I could get a general gist of what was going on, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what happened. As a result, it probably wasn’t the best learning experience, but if nothing else it gave me some good practice. I’m picking up more than just ‘Je ne sais pas’ when listening now, recognising quite a bit. Interestingly, the book I read talked about kissing and marriage, which is definitely in the plot of most Sex and the City episodes, so I even picked up on the new things I had learnt. I really enjoyed that. I watched 5 episodes or so, one of them twice, which totalled at around 120 minutes.

All in all, I could definitely watch these episodes again, but I probably won’t do so intentionally in the challenge.

What I never thought would happen!

Tags

6WC, Il fait beau, SC

Yes, that’s right! I’ve completed a book!

Il fait Beau (easy french reader)

This book is an easy book that follows Benoît and Marie-Anne. The tale has 3 parts, with questions at the end of each. The language is really simple, and gradually builds. There is a great deal of repetition too, so I can understand pretty much all the content when reading now. I’m definitely going to continue with the remaining books in the series, although by the end I was sick of reading “L’histoire. Mon histoire, c’est l’histoire d’un homme. Et oui, l’homme c’est moi Benoît”. Throughout the text it was repeated, adding in little things about Benoît’s profession (musicien) and his dog (Andrè). I suppose it did get more interesting towards the end, which helped. All in all, a great book for beginners.

Allons-y! And we begin!

Tags

6WC, Dora L'Exploratrice, SC

So the challenges have begun! My kindle seems to be playing up, so I’ve been stuck and now have to read my ebooks on my computer and/or ipad until I can remedy this. Of course, my iPad is flat and I can’t charge it until later today, making my on-the-go reading near impossible.

On the positive, I put on a film while I was doing the dishes, expecting not to get very far. I soon started watching the film only, not doing dishes, until it was complete. Yes, that’s right, I’ve done a film!

1. Dora L’Exploratrice:

This went for 90minutes and was a struggle at first. I’ve seen bits of Dora the Explorer in English before, but it was released when I was 9 or so years old, so I was too old to watch it properly. After 30minutes or so, it became easier to watch and I became absorbed. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand all of it, but enough to follow the story. I had no subtitles, which made it a little difficult, as I would have liked some french subs to help me interpret what I am listening to. I believe my reading skills are better than my listening, so that could have helped. That said, I understood enough to follow what was going on, mainly because the show is aimed at 4 year olds. All in all, enjoyable I suppose but I don’t want to have to watch it again!

Other than this, I did an hour of reading last night, but I couldn’t stand reading on my computer and ended up going to bed. Looking forward to getting through my first book which will make me feel so accomplished!

And here we go…

As I write this, there are 6 hours and 9 minutes until the challenge begins. Make that 8.

While others have been dutifully reviewing grammar over the past week, I’ve done nothing more than listen to some french music while driving (and that was limited) and watched/listened to How I Met Your Mother in French. My real life has been crazy and slows down just long enough for me to have a good start to the challenge in the first week.

I’m planning to start with Il Fait Beau, a graded reader on my kindle. It’s relatively easy, and I can easily without dictionary assistance. Even better, it’s aimed at adults so it’s not a tiny book (but small compared to others). It basically uses the same words the whole way through, slowly introducing more difficult words, with some harder content in the back. It also has quizes at the end of each chapter.

I’ve read a third of it already, but stopped reading when I decided to do the challenge. I plan to start again at midnight and see how far I can get. It is over 100 pages and easy enough that I can read in a few hours, if need be. Or at least I think so. It would be great to finish a book in the first week.

From there, I will continue on to the books later in the series. I believe there are 2 that follow. After, onto a different, but similar series.

Technically, il fait beau will not be the first french book I will have read. I read Le Petit Prince last year, or the year before, and I have a french copy of the velveteen rabbit at home somewhere. I was given it when I was 3 or 4 by some relatives of mine from france. I haven’t read it since I’ve been learning french, but I definitely read it a couple of times as a kid.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with movies. Between my Buffy DVD’s, my housemates Sex and the City, Ally McBeal and Boston Legal, plus the Gilmore Girls and other shows I have back home, I definitely have enough to fill the 100 Movies requisite. It would be great to cover it using only movies though. We’ll see. I suppose I do have French Dora the Explorer too. hmm.

Anyway, there are now 5 hours and 55 minutes until the challenge begins. Good luck to those of you doing the challenge!

waiting…

6 days (7 including today) left to go! I’m really quite excited, but I know I can’t go ‘hard-core’ like I would prefer to.

I had a look at Harry Potter the other night after a post in my forum log suggested it may not be as hard as I would think. While it took me a good 5 minutes to decode the first sentence with the help of my dictionary, I succeeded. I know that I could make it through the book this way if need be, but I’m hoping by the time I get to Harry Potter I have less reliance on the dictionary.

To do my close reading, I photocopied the first page of the book, with one half of the page blank. I then used the french I know and the dictionary to translate, writing it out as I went. I found that this helped me to remember both the meaning of the words and what the sentence was. If I had continued on the page, I would still be able to look over what I had previously read without having to get out the dictionary again.

In other news, my package with Assimil shipped a few hours ago. Now I only have a 10-15 day wait! Yay!

And back to the waiting I go.

Countdown!

10 jours pour aller !

I am very excited about starting the super challenge! I’m so busy with my real life studies right now, but all I can think about is my quest to learn French!

I’ve decided that I will be buying assimil to help learn, but I haven’t yet done so. I’ve heard many good things about the program and I am eager to try it.

I’ve also decided to do the 6 Week Challenge, seeing as I will already be working on French anyway. Whether I have the time to do so is another matter all together.

and back to the real world I go!

Bonjour

Bonjour! Je suis un débutant en français et nous espérons compléter HTLAL Super Challenge. Je voudrais améliorer mon français. et je suis fait.

So yes, I am a relative beginner in the French language. I have been ‘learning’ on and off for a few years, but now have gotten serious. In my attempt to learn French, I will be partaking in the Super Challenge over at HTLAL.

Basically, this challenge entails reading 100 books and watching 100 movies over the course of 20 months. Oh and it must be done in the ‘target language’, for me, French.

As a veritable beginner, this is going to be a très super challenge.

So the rules:

• Every film counts as long as they have at least voice or subtitles in the TL
• TV shows can be used. If it lasts less than 45 minutes (a show/series) it counts as half a film. If it lasts for more than three hours it counts as two films.
• Audiobooks and podcasts count as films. 1 hour and a half is equivalent to 1 film
• Every book counts. If it is less than a 100 pages, it counts as half a book. If it is more than 500 pages it counts as two books. This will be difficult for me as most of the books/easy readers I plan to read are less than one hundred pages.
• You can read and watch things more than once
• Manga and other articles count. Generally the rule that 100 pages equals a book applies. A manga counts as 20% of a book.

So here I am, ready to learn through regarder et à lire (watching and reading).

 

Corrections to my French:

Bonjour ! Je suis une débutante en français et j’espère compléter HTLAL Super Challenge. Je voudrai améliorer mon français. Et j’ai fini.