Let's start with the more interesting and important information. This summer I am participating in two programs. One is in Loch Sheldrake, NY singing in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and the other is in Buffalo, NY singing scenes from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Both of these programs are a blessing to me. After an overall disappointing audition season, these were my last two chances to obtain gigs for the summer. The program in Buffalo, which is called Cadenza Workshop, was discovered almost by accident through a show I was doing with Rochester Lyric Opera. The other program, Opera Advantage, is run by Nico and Carol Castel, whom I have worked with before when I was in Spoleto, Italy. There are points both interesting, amusing, and a little scary with all of this happening so quickly and unexpectedly. First, both of these operas that I am going to be working on are based on plays by Beaumarchais, although I am performing them out of order. Barbiere should be before Le Nozze, but I suppose I get to see the characters as "mature" people prior to their youth. The scary thing about these is that I have about a month to learn and memorize both of them. Additionally, I need to raise some money to cover expenses for these programs. I am currently trying to plan a benefit recital to accomplish this goal and will provide more information as it comes along.
Along the same line as the preceding paragraph, I had my best audition to date yesterday. I auditioned for Syracuse Opera yesterday and changed my daily routine for audition days quite a bit. The results were much better than I anticipated. I used to find myself with little to do, so I would arrive quite early (1-2 hours to be exact) and wait around for my time to come. Yesterday, I instead chose to hang out at my cousin's house until about 2 hours before my audition. I then took the 40 minute subway to my audition place, grabbed a quick lunch at Subway (probably wasn't good practice to have the onions, but I love them so...), used the practice room I reserved (brilliant idea!) to warm up, and walked next door to my audition where I only had to wait for about 20 minutes. My audition began as they all do, the awkward entrance and introduction of the first piece, which was Alfredo's aria from La Traviata. After I sang this fairly well the two auditors conversed a little and actually asked me to sing a second piece! This may not seem like a big deal, but I haven't been asked for a second piece since I switched to tenor, so this was quite momentous to me. They asked for Sam's aria from Susannah and I sang that pretty well also. Some major things that I noticed in this audition apart from the second selection being requested were this: My voice and technique have finally become strong enough and stable enough that I no longer crack or shank high notes, despite nerves. I still have an involuntary finger or leg twitch that accompanies high notes, but the notes themselves are secure. Also, I am able to do more of what I want through intent from both a technical and musical perspective, and I feel I am beginning to make music instead of simply singing words and pitches. My physicality may still be lacking, but I like to think that I am making up for this with how I am treating the text. I don't prescribe to the gesture for every line business anyways. I'm more of a fan of the one or two meaningful gestures during the course of a piece idea. Overall, regardless of the results, this was a successful audition.
Spanish... There is something about this language that I just do not have the motivation to learn it consistently. My LingQ account has lapsed again due to nonpayment, but that doesn't really hurt my feelings, especially with all I have to learn in the next month. On the plus side, during my drive to NYC Sunday and the drive home last night, I listened to Spanish radio as long as I could pick up the station and I managed to find a singer whom I like, Hector Acosta "El Torito." I am currently listening to an album of his on Spotify, actually. I also still listen to Catholic radio on my phone at work in Spanish and speak what I can with my friends who speak. So I am still improving, it is just a very slow pace. Many people want me to perfect my Spanish because of the practicality of it in today's world in the U.S. Perhaps that is why I don't really care that much about learning it. In terms of my own career, there is very little music that I sing that requires Spanish. I'd rather spend my time beefing up my Italian, German, or French. I would rather learn Russian and I will be come 2014. Hopefully come August I will be able to get back into LingQ for Spanish and make a push to get myself to a somewhat respectable level of Spanish before the year is out. I learned French in 8 months; given my current level of Spanish, I should be able to get to a similar level in 4 months.
Showing posts with label Listening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Listening. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
3 MONTH CHALLENGE!
Those of you who read other language blogs probably know about Benny and his "Three Month Challenges." This is my first attempt at a three month challenge and it will be an intensive focus on Spanish. Spanish is my language for this year anyway, but I have a good motivation for the next three months (OK, really 11 weeks, but it's close enough). For the July 4th holiday, I will be spending time with my wife's best friend and family. Her husband is from El Salvador, and they live in a city where Spanish is nearly the primary language. I figure I will use this opportunity and present myself with a challenge to prepare me for the trip. My plan is to upgrade my Spanish from where it is now, about B1, to C1 level in the next 11 weeks. How will I do this?
It is going to require me to up my learning pace and take myself out of my comfort zone. I am going to need to use Spanish as much as possible in the next three months and make my environment a Spanish language zone. I have already begun to do this by switching my iPhone and computer over to Spanish. The second step for me is to change my audio input from English to Spanish. I can easily do this through my TuneIn radio app while I am at work, but I face some challenges in the car because there is no full-time Spanish radio station in my city. I also have Spotify, so if you have any good Spanish language music to recommend, please do! I am also going to raise my work output on LingQ to at least four pomodoros a day, which equates to about two hours of reading and listening daily. Realistically, I only study five days a week, but by increasing the aforementioned areas of my life, I should be able to expose my self to Spanish approximately nine hours a day. This is a good start, but I'm not done. I also need to add more speaking to my weekly routine, so I will attempt to speak with people who I know speak Spanish more regularly and force myself to stay in Spanish even when I am struggling. If I do all of these things, I believe I can reach my goal.
Musically, I have a busy month. I am currently in rehearsal for two different shows that I am in. After that I am hoping to attend a summer program which should put me on the right path to finding more work next audition season. I have had some exciting things happening in my voice and I feel myself growing in confidence every time I perform.
It is going to require me to up my learning pace and take myself out of my comfort zone. I am going to need to use Spanish as much as possible in the next three months and make my environment a Spanish language zone. I have already begun to do this by switching my iPhone and computer over to Spanish. The second step for me is to change my audio input from English to Spanish. I can easily do this through my TuneIn radio app while I am at work, but I face some challenges in the car because there is no full-time Spanish radio station in my city. I also have Spotify, so if you have any good Spanish language music to recommend, please do! I am also going to raise my work output on LingQ to at least four pomodoros a day, which equates to about two hours of reading and listening daily. Realistically, I only study five days a week, but by increasing the aforementioned areas of my life, I should be able to expose my self to Spanish approximately nine hours a day. This is a good start, but I'm not done. I also need to add more speaking to my weekly routine, so I will attempt to speak with people who I know speak Spanish more regularly and force myself to stay in Spanish even when I am struggling. If I do all of these things, I believe I can reach my goal.
Musically, I have a busy month. I am currently in rehearsal for two different shows that I am in. After that I am hoping to attend a summer program which should put me on the right path to finding more work next audition season. I have had some exciting things happening in my voice and I feel myself growing in confidence every time I perform.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Audition Season is Here!
I received some exciting news the other day when I opened my e-mail. I have been granted my first audition for a Young Artist Program (YAP) as a tenor. This is wonderful news for me, especially since the first two responses I got from other programs were declines. I read an interview of Rockwell Blake a few years back in which he stated:
"There’s no cushion. You start out with nothing, you have nothing, and there’s no such thing as an investment in property or something like a dentist would have to go through. You move to New York, take an apartment and go to everything you can go to, and shell out a lot of money to pianists and coaches, which is necessary. One needs to study, regardless, and you have to shell out money for the auditions, and if you are serious about making a career, you go to every audition there is. That means maybe three or four times a week you’re shelling out twenty-five bucks for a pianist just to play three arias for you. So it gets expensive, especially when you have no income."
I have made this into my personal mantra as I begin my real walk into this career. For instance, at this point in the year, I am applying to about 20 different programs. Ultimately more will come up as well as I continue through the season. If you think about it, it is a numbers game like many things in life are. When I first auditioned as a baritone nearly four years ago I only applied to about five programs and, while I managed to be granted auditions at all of those programs, I got accepted into none of them. As an example of some of the odds a young singer faces starting out think about this:
A well-known program may receive 1500 applications from aspiring singers. Out of those 1500, the company will hear approximately 700 auditions. Then, from those 700, the company will pick about 25 singers for their program.
These odds seem nearly insurmountable, until you realize that there are hundreds of programs in this country, some of which are smaller programs and therefore receive fewer applications and hear fewer people for the same number of spots. So, you see, eventually you will find the program that can accommodate you. I am confident that I will find a placement for the summer during this season and begin my career.
My language quest has been somewhat trying as of late. I have lacked time and motivation due to everything going on in my life, as I described above. I am still working however and making progress. I found a new app for my iPhone which is called "Audiobooks." This is literally the entire database of LibriVox made available for iPhone. Any language learners who do not know of LibriVox should check it out immediately, as well as Project Gutenberg. These are invaluable resources for language learners as they provide you, between the two of them, with tons of materials for Listening-Reading.
I hope to get to another meetup or two before the year is out to see where I am at with my German. This will be difficult though due to my potentially busy audition schedule.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting tidbit today when looking at my viewership. I had a considerable spike in my readers on my birthday. I can't imagine this is coincidence, but I find it rather amusing. It's like a birthday gift from my readers. I have also noticed a nice steady climb in readership over the years which is encouraging. Ultimately my blog is gaining in popularity and I hope that it is helpful or informational to some of those who read it. If there are ever any questions that any of you want me to try and answer, just leave a comment and I will answer it in my upcoming post.
"There’s no cushion. You start out with nothing, you have nothing, and there’s no such thing as an investment in property or something like a dentist would have to go through. You move to New York, take an apartment and go to everything you can go to, and shell out a lot of money to pianists and coaches, which is necessary. One needs to study, regardless, and you have to shell out money for the auditions, and if you are serious about making a career, you go to every audition there is. That means maybe three or four times a week you’re shelling out twenty-five bucks for a pianist just to play three arias for you. So it gets expensive, especially when you have no income."
I have made this into my personal mantra as I begin my real walk into this career. For instance, at this point in the year, I am applying to about 20 different programs. Ultimately more will come up as well as I continue through the season. If you think about it, it is a numbers game like many things in life are. When I first auditioned as a baritone nearly four years ago I only applied to about five programs and, while I managed to be granted auditions at all of those programs, I got accepted into none of them. As an example of some of the odds a young singer faces starting out think about this:
A well-known program may receive 1500 applications from aspiring singers. Out of those 1500, the company will hear approximately 700 auditions. Then, from those 700, the company will pick about 25 singers for their program.
These odds seem nearly insurmountable, until you realize that there are hundreds of programs in this country, some of which are smaller programs and therefore receive fewer applications and hear fewer people for the same number of spots. So, you see, eventually you will find the program that can accommodate you. I am confident that I will find a placement for the summer during this season and begin my career.
My language quest has been somewhat trying as of late. I have lacked time and motivation due to everything going on in my life, as I described above. I am still working however and making progress. I found a new app for my iPhone which is called "Audiobooks." This is literally the entire database of LibriVox made available for iPhone. Any language learners who do not know of LibriVox should check it out immediately, as well as Project Gutenberg. These are invaluable resources for language learners as they provide you, between the two of them, with tons of materials for Listening-Reading.
I hope to get to another meetup or two before the year is out to see where I am at with my German. This will be difficult though due to my potentially busy audition schedule.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting tidbit today when looking at my viewership. I had a considerable spike in my readers on my birthday. I can't imagine this is coincidence, but I find it rather amusing. It's like a birthday gift from my readers. I have also noticed a nice steady climb in readership over the years which is encouraging. Ultimately my blog is gaining in popularity and I hope that it is helpful or informational to some of those who read it. If there are ever any questions that any of you want me to try and answer, just leave a comment and I will answer it in my upcoming post.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Vocal Epiphany!
The last two weeks I have focused almost completely on the music side of my life. With Rinuccio approaching in a month I have been working feverishly in preparing the role. As I am beginning sing through the role in one sitting, I noticed at first that my endurance was an issue. Luckily as with most muscular actions, the brain adapts quickly and I am having less and less issue with consistency getting through the role. In coaching the role for the first time this past week I had a bit of an epiphany.
At a coaching a month or so ago I was told to be careful of my pitch on descending lines as I tended to go out of tune. I found this to be odd, because I generally don't suffer from pitch problems anymore. Nevertheless, I have since been paying extra attention to my descending lines to make sure they are in tune. At my coaching last week, with a different coach who knows me and my voice better, I was told again to be careful of descending lines. The catch and epiphany however, was that this coach told me that I was coming out of my resonance. Ah ha! Upon hearing this I was easily able to address the problem and found things to click much quicker. I learned that if I come out of my resonance that I sound as though I am out of tune, but it is more that I become flat in tone rather than pitch. I also learned at this most recent coaching the need for pacing myself. Admittedly I do not really know how to do this, so I am experimenting on my own and doing the best I can to save my big vocalizing for my most "dramatic" parts of this role.
In addition to Rinuccio, I learned last week that I also need to prepare Tinca from Il Tabarro for the same read through. This doesn't bother me much, although I am now stuck waiting for a score before I can learn the role. The estimated delivery time is 10 July, which will give me about three weeks to learn the role. Luckily, the role is even smaller than Rinuccio.
Since my focus has been so much on this upcoming event my language studies have faltered a bit. I still listen to radio horeb and speak with my German speaking friend rather regularly and feel that I am in a good place with German still.
Monday, June 18, 2012
The First Test
I am ill today due to allergies and figure I should try to write this while I have a spare minute. I have been prepring my first tenor role for the past few weeks and I must say that I have been enjoying the process. I am singing Rinuccio from Gianni Schicchi in August. This is my first real test of how my progress as a tenor is coming along. I feel confident about my prospects based on my work thus far. I have already learned the role and am now trying to memorize it. I don't necessarily need to memorize it for this project, but it's a good habit to get into. Unfortunately I am not able to practice today because of the post-nasal drip onto my vocal folds in the last twenty-four hours. Hopefully I will be able to get back into it tomorrow.
German is progressing decently. I am now working my way through Assimil which is a much more subconscious process than Michel Thomas was. With Assimil, it is truly a case of trusting the process and being patient. I do find that listening is getting easier as I progress through Assimil, and I look forward to continuing to advance in the coming weeks and months.
German is progressing decently. I am now working my way through Assimil which is a much more subconscious process than Michel Thomas was. With Assimil, it is truly a case of trusting the process and being patient. I do find that listening is getting easier as I progress through Assimil, and I look forward to continuing to advance in the coming weeks and months.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Adapting the Learning Process
I am getting back in the swing of things somewhat with German over the past couple of weeks. I have been really good about doing my Michel Thomas, however I have not touched Assimil in over a month. I think that I have subconsciously decided that I will move on to Assimil after I have finished the MT. In truth this is probably a good thing because it will give me something to do the second half of the year in addition to LingQ. I am currently debating whether to go back to the beginning of Assimil, or just pick up where I left off. In my split second decision making process I just went through I will pick up where I left off. The last two weeks have been particularly good for my LingQ work.
It never ceases to amaze me the way that we continue to adapt and evolve the longer we work on a specific task. In the case of LingQ I have just recently modified my approach and find that I am getting a lot more out of the program this way. Before, I went through a three step cycle which was laid out this way:
1.) Listen without reading
2.) Read without listening
3.) Listen and read simultaneously
This way served me well and I thought that this way I could train my listening separate from my reading and visa-versa. I recently though began listening and reading all three times through a passage and have found that my comprehension overall has grown markedly. This should not surprise me since the creator of LingQ, Steve Kaufmann, says that you should never read without listening, nor should you listen without reading in the early stages. The more surprising thing to me is that my brain spontaneously decided to try this approach seemingly out of the blue. I am currently creeping in on 1500 words known, which is well behind my goal, but I am still happy with progress of any kind.
Vocally, I have had a similar epiphany in the last week. It has been about a month since my last lesson with JRL and I decided one day last week to listen to the recording of my lesson. At first I did not really think I was going to gain much other than some reinforcement of the things I was already doing. After going through the recording I was amazed at some of the things that I had let slip in the last month. My practice the rest of the week was great and I felt like I made some very big steps forward, all because I listened to a recording of my lesson.
This was a big time for me in learning how to better learn. Sometimes progress may come in different areas than you expect, however it will ultimately lead you to your end goal.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Der Plan
As we have started a new year, I have already put in two days of study on my new language for the year, German. I figure I would outline my basic plan for the year with regards to my acquisition of German.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Mid October
I am nearing the end of my intensive time with French and can say that I am very happy with where I am. I am understanding the vast majority of what I read now and will try and do a reading test from a newspaper before the year is over. My listening is still a bit behind everything else, especially when listening to the radio, however I have begun to work intensively on my reading and listening abilities so hopefully they will both come up in level before the end of the year.
To increase my levels in those two areas I have begun to use LingQ almost exclusively. I even upgraded from the free version so that I could use the program more effectively. I have to admit that I find it to be very helpful. I love the concept of extensive/intensive listening and reading, but it is very difficult to read when having to flip back and forth from a book to a dictionary. LingQ eliminates this by having a pop-up dictionary always present. I have talked about LingQ before so I do not want to spend much time here on it except to tell you all to try it out. As much as I liked the idea of using it for free, I do not feel that one gets the full benefit of the program until you upgrade to a pay version (and come on, it is only ten dollars a month!).
I am currently on the train on the way home from NYC, where I had a lesson with JRL. Today's lesson was a very frustrating one for both of us I am sure. Lessons like the one I had today are huge tests of courage and perseverance. I have gone through a range of emotions in the six and a half hours since my lesson and have landed on a huge desire to get into a practice room and work. It may be perseverance, or it may be ego, however I cannot have another lesson go by like this one did. So I will spend the next month fixing my issues and come back better than I was today.
The largest frustration to me is that I spent the last two months working very hard and came in today feeling pretty good about myself. Unfortunately during those two months I seemed to have regressed on a certain bad habit that I honestly was not paying as much attention to in the time between lessons as I was other technical things. It would appear that I overdid to the point of misunderstanding a certain idea I was given last time and now I must go back and fix those issues which were not plaguing me at my lesson but came back with a vengeance today. If this teaches one anything, it should be that we must always be vigilant! Complacency can only lead to disaster.
To increase my levels in those two areas I have begun to use LingQ almost exclusively. I even upgraded from the free version so that I could use the program more effectively. I have to admit that I find it to be very helpful. I love the concept of extensive/intensive listening and reading, but it is very difficult to read when having to flip back and forth from a book to a dictionary. LingQ eliminates this by having a pop-up dictionary always present. I have talked about LingQ before so I do not want to spend much time here on it except to tell you all to try it out. As much as I liked the idea of using it for free, I do not feel that one gets the full benefit of the program until you upgrade to a pay version (and come on, it is only ten dollars a month!).
I am currently on the train on the way home from NYC, where I had a lesson with JRL. Today's lesson was a very frustrating one for both of us I am sure. Lessons like the one I had today are huge tests of courage and perseverance. I have gone through a range of emotions in the six and a half hours since my lesson and have landed on a huge desire to get into a practice room and work. It may be perseverance, or it may be ego, however I cannot have another lesson go by like this one did. So I will spend the next month fixing my issues and come back better than I was today.
The largest frustration to me is that I spent the last two months working very hard and came in today feeling pretty good about myself. Unfortunately during those two months I seemed to have regressed on a certain bad habit that I honestly was not paying as much attention to in the time between lessons as I was other technical things. It would appear that I overdid to the point of misunderstanding a certain idea I was given last time and now I must go back and fix those issues which were not plaguing me at my lesson but came back with a vengeance today. If this teaches one anything, it should be that we must always be vigilant! Complacency can only lead to disaster.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
End of September/Beginning of October
It has been a bit since I last wrote here. Some good things have happened on both the language and singing fronts, as well as some discouraging things. In my language work I have begun reading Les Fables de la Fontaine which are mostly on my level. I find that the hard thing with reading is that though I know the words I'm reading, I often miss the actual context of the story. I figure that this is similar to listening comprehension and the practice will ultimately make things clearer as well as fill in the holes in my vocabulary. I have unfortunately been rather lax in my other forms of study. I have recently picked back up on Michel Thomas, but as of yet have not gotten back into my Assimil work in about two weeks. I have every intention of working on it again tonight though!
In other news, I feel that I am to the point now where I can actually begin to call myself a tenor. For the last month and a half or so I have been working on the Duke's arias from Rigoletto by Verdi. These arias have stretched me and almost forced my voice to work in a different way than it has in the past. In the last couple of days my Bb4 has really come into its own and the B4 is not far behind. I am looking forward to the few weeks, during which time I am hoping to have a few lessons, some coachings and even participate in a recital (my first as a tenor)!
The only discouraging part of my singing life currently has been this week. My voice has been feeling different this week and certain things that were relatively secure before are not this week, while other things that were not present before are now starting to present themselves. I assume that this is just some of the growing pains in the process and am not terribly worried by them though. I'm hoping to get back into being slightly more regular with my updates here, but with the holidays quickly approaching we'll see what the reality of that is.
In other news, I feel that I am to the point now where I can actually begin to call myself a tenor. For the last month and a half or so I have been working on the Duke's arias from Rigoletto by Verdi. These arias have stretched me and almost forced my voice to work in a different way than it has in the past. In the last couple of days my Bb4 has really come into its own and the B4 is not far behind. I am looking forward to the few weeks, during which time I am hoping to have a few lessons, some coachings and even participate in a recital (my first as a tenor)!
The only discouraging part of my singing life currently has been this week. My voice has been feeling different this week and certain things that were relatively secure before are not this week, while other things that were not present before are now starting to present themselves. I assume that this is just some of the growing pains in the process and am not terribly worried by them though. I'm hoping to get back into being slightly more regular with my updates here, but with the holidays quickly approaching we'll see what the reality of that is.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
French Update
Since I have some free time at the moment, I figure I will free write a post on my progress as of late.
Currently I am sitting in the library listening to France Bleu Isere out of Lyon and they are currently playing a French version of the Frank Sinatra hit "My Way." It actually sounds very nice in French, although lacks a certain swagger that Frank had when singing this. In listening to the radio I have noticed that I am understanding quite a bit of the words, although they are not necessarily completely making sense in my brain (natural listening) and the pace is still a little fast for me. I have to research some exercise to improve my listening to a more natural level. A large part of this I think needs to be approached by simple immersion (i.e. listening to French radio, watching French TV and movies, etc.). I find that the most annoying and challenging thing about immersion for me is that the only way I can access French radio when driving, which admittedly is how I spend most of my waking hours, is through my Palm Pre which has horrible battery life, especially when using streaming apps. I suppose that my solution to this will have to be podcasts. In keeping with the immersion concept, I have changed much of my computer, internet and GPS to French in recent weeks. Truthfully, I don't even notice that most of them are in French, which I take as being a good thing.
I have been working my way through Assimil and Michel Thomas during my studies and have been keeping a pretty steady pace throughout the last month and a half or so. I only recently started the MT and only do one track a day, so I am only at about lesson eleven or twelve and ultimately the amount of material covered is relatively small. For the most part, however, I am using MT as a reinforcement so I am okay with the slow pace I am taking on it. At my current rate it will take me about three months to get through the course and then I will move on to the vocabulary booster and then the advanced course. In Assimil I am currently on about lesson 33, so nearly one-third of the way through the Passive Wave. I find that I am learning quite a bit from the Passive Wave without necessarily doing a whole lot. The book recommends spending between twenty and thirty minutes per lesson in the Passive Wave, but I find that I am under this number daily (maybe 15 minutes or so per lesson). The program has been helping my listening and in general I have noticed that I am gaining between 2 and 5 new words per lesson at this point. This may not seem like a whole lot, but percentage wise 5 words over the course of about a one and a half minute segment is rather significant. There are also other words in the course of the lessons that I do not know and do not necessarily pick up through just the Passive Wave, but I am sure that I will pick these up during the course of the Active Wave. More importantly than the vocabulary, arguably, is that I pick up new grammatical rules, structures and some colloquialisms as I am going through these lessons and am finding myself retaining some of the work on tenses that they present during the course of my listening and reading.
I do not necessarily have a great measure of how well I can speak the language at this point, although I seem to have an easier time staying in French when talking with my friend and I generally have a certain level of comfort in my conversation that I did not necessarily have a couple of months ago. I think I mentioned earlier that I have changed my learning plan for my languages. I have progressed to a more realistic plan of spending all of my time with one language until I have learned it to a level that I consider fluent, which I will describe eventually to the public, and then move on. I believe that I can reach this level in most languages I am working on in a year and thus I still will be well within my goal of ten languages by the time I am forty. My progression through languages has also changed based on my needs for my intended profession. The order is thus:
Currently I am sitting in the library listening to France Bleu Isere out of Lyon and they are currently playing a French version of the Frank Sinatra hit "My Way." It actually sounds very nice in French, although lacks a certain swagger that Frank had when singing this. In listening to the radio I have noticed that I am understanding quite a bit of the words, although they are not necessarily completely making sense in my brain (natural listening) and the pace is still a little fast for me. I have to research some exercise to improve my listening to a more natural level. A large part of this I think needs to be approached by simple immersion (i.e. listening to French radio, watching French TV and movies, etc.). I find that the most annoying and challenging thing about immersion for me is that the only way I can access French radio when driving, which admittedly is how I spend most of my waking hours, is through my Palm Pre which has horrible battery life, especially when using streaming apps. I suppose that my solution to this will have to be podcasts. In keeping with the immersion concept, I have changed much of my computer, internet and GPS to French in recent weeks. Truthfully, I don't even notice that most of them are in French, which I take as being a good thing.
I have been working my way through Assimil and Michel Thomas during my studies and have been keeping a pretty steady pace throughout the last month and a half or so. I only recently started the MT and only do one track a day, so I am only at about lesson eleven or twelve and ultimately the amount of material covered is relatively small. For the most part, however, I am using MT as a reinforcement so I am okay with the slow pace I am taking on it. At my current rate it will take me about three months to get through the course and then I will move on to the vocabulary booster and then the advanced course. In Assimil I am currently on about lesson 33, so nearly one-third of the way through the Passive Wave. I find that I am learning quite a bit from the Passive Wave without necessarily doing a whole lot. The book recommends spending between twenty and thirty minutes per lesson in the Passive Wave, but I find that I am under this number daily (maybe 15 minutes or so per lesson). The program has been helping my listening and in general I have noticed that I am gaining between 2 and 5 new words per lesson at this point. This may not seem like a whole lot, but percentage wise 5 words over the course of about a one and a half minute segment is rather significant. There are also other words in the course of the lessons that I do not know and do not necessarily pick up through just the Passive Wave, but I am sure that I will pick these up during the course of the Active Wave. More importantly than the vocabulary, arguably, is that I pick up new grammatical rules, structures and some colloquialisms as I am going through these lessons and am finding myself retaining some of the work on tenses that they present during the course of my listening and reading.
I do not necessarily have a great measure of how well I can speak the language at this point, although I seem to have an easier time staying in French when talking with my friend and I generally have a certain level of comfort in my conversation that I did not necessarily have a couple of months ago. I think I mentioned earlier that I have changed my learning plan for my languages. I have progressed to a more realistic plan of spending all of my time with one language until I have learned it to a level that I consider fluent, which I will describe eventually to the public, and then move on. I believe that I can reach this level in most languages I am working on in a year and thus I still will be well within my goal of ten languages by the time I am forty. My progression through languages has also changed based on my needs for my intended profession. The order is thus:
- French
- German
- Italian
- Spanish
- Russian
- Czech
- Swedish
- Portuguese
- Arabic
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