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Introductory Languages move too fast! (1 Viewer)

flaganarchy

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Do most people agree? I already dropped the second semester half of my Introductory Spanish for some more ECOP :)
 

flaganarchy

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I would rather it if they gave us vocab lists to rote learn, in comparasion to the idea: 'I will talk 95% Spanish and hopefully they can pick it up through context"
 

sandersen

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Are you serious, introductory spanish was so slow!
 

Alex499

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introductory french exploded my brain. It didn't help that they combined beginners and intermediate in the lecture and she's doing all this grammar and I'm just like... wtf the extent of my french vocab is bonjour. Plus pretty much everyone knew SOME french, like did it in year 9&10. I was so lost. I dropped it today, had to get special permission but it's definitely worth it.
 

Alex499

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Modern European History. It was a bitch to try and get permission though.
Went to the student centre who told me to go arts.
Arts told me to go to Sophi
Sophi told me to go to some guy who was completely unrelated
unrelated guy told me to go back to sophi
Sophi told me to go to Robert Alrich
And he gave me permission
And then I had to go through Sophi and Arts again and sign all the relevant forms. And email the tutor to see if I was allowed in and get the copy centre to do a special print just for me. It sucked. Pretty much all organised now though.
 

jaimebien

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Glad you got it settled. :)

I'm doing Advanced French but I'm not really enjoying it. I did think of dropping it but then I realised despite how much I disliked it at first, I would regret not continuing French (having spent more than 4 years on it). Hope you like your new unit!
 

Alex499

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Yeah I wish I'd kept up French. I did it for all of primary school (and can't remember a thing) and now i wish I'd done it through high school. I really want to know it... but i can't be bothered putting in the effort to learn it

lazy I know
Whatever I suck at stuff that is like 'well you have this rule for most things... but there's exceptions that don't make any logical sense and are there just to confuse you'
 

jaimebien

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My friend does introductory French and I looked over his course book. I agree with what you said, there are too many rules without clear or sufficient examples of them in use practically. It's quite the same in the advanced course too. They give you rules that make you wish they had set up some algorithm or flow chart in order to navigate them. Also, they don't have enough writing exercises to help you keep up with the grammar you've learnt.
 

sandersen

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I'm doing Advanced French but I'm not really enjoying it. I did think of dropping it but then I realised despite how much I disliked it at first, I would regret not continuing French (having spent more than 4 years on it). Hope you like your new unit!
I did 1631&2 last year, now 3621 and it is a little better - as in we don't have to read three books, but the tute sizes are so massive (about 30!), plus they go for 2 hours! I am still not sure whether I want to keep on doing it - I planned for it to be my arts major, but I'm not so sure anymore. This semester is supposed to be the decider. I also thought I would regret dropping French, and it's true it is a way to keep it up, but at the price of me hating it, Im wondering if it's worth it.
 

spiderpig333

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Agree I do Spanish it's fun and all but yes too fast (and i did German for 4 years and english is my 2nd language so I have experience) I really hate the web ct exercises they are totally different to what we learn they are soo hard ...
 

Scorch

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I did Italian and am doing it in my 3rd year now and I actually found it moved at a great pace for the introductory year and highly recommend it, to be honest.
 

witide

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Introductory French is moving at a perfect pace for me. Italian is alright, although a bit slow for my liking. Last year Greek just went so tediously slow, but I enjoyed the casual aspect of our classes. However it is a far more challenging language, yet still they certainly could have pushed us a lot further.
 

UncoKane

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Introductory French is moving at a perfect pace for me. Italian is alright, although a bit slow for my liking. Last year Greek just went so tediously slow, but I enjoyed the casual aspect of our classes. However it is a far more challenging language, yet still they certainly could have pushed us a lot further.
I did ITLN1611 last year. I thought it went reeeeally slow - especially if I compare it to FRNC1611 which I'm doing this year.

In Italian we only did one tense the entire first semester semester (present) and in second semester we did two types of past tense and the imperative mood and other minor crap. In French it's week 6 and we've already done all that, except the imperfect, which is apparently next week anyway.

French is like twice as fast as Italian.

Glad I did Italian first though, all the basic grammar concepts are like 90% the same, so I don't mind the speed.
 

witide

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I did ITLN1611 last year. I thought it went reeeeally slow - especially if I compare it to FRNC1611 which I'm doing this year.

In Italian we only did one tense the entire first semester semester (present) and in second semester we did two types of past tense and the imperative mood and other minor crap. In French it's week 6 and we've already done all that, except the imperfect, which is apparently next week anyway.

French is like twice as fast as Italian.

Glad I did Italian first though, all the basic grammar concepts are like 90% the same, so I don't mind the speed.
Are you in Jacqueline's tutorial?

My case is similar how I did Greek last year, although it's a far more complex language and seemed more like a grammar class at times. We got through the present, two types of past, two types of imperative, two types of future, and the subjunctive. But we didn't get into much detail because most verbs are frustratingly irregular.

A lot of first year language students seem to be struggling with French. I was speaking to my Italian tutor today, and I told her I thought they should do a short pre-semester course based 100% on grammar. I can't believe there are people who still can't understand the concept of inflexion. I really do think French has nailed the course structure spot on though, at least for students like us.
 

UncoKane

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Are you in Jacqueline's tutorial?

My case is similar how I did Greek last year, although it's a far more complex language and seemed more like a grammar class at times. We got through the present, two types of past, two types of imperative, two types of future, and the subjunctive. But we didn't get into much detail because most verbs are frustratingly irregular.

A lot of first year language students seem to be struggling with French. I was speaking to my Italian tutor today, and I told her I thought they should do a short pre-semester course based 100% on grammar. I can't believe there are people who still can't understand the concept of inflexion. I really do think French has nailed the course structure spot on though, at least for students like us.
Nah, I'm in Vick's tute.

And yeah, I reckon the pacing for French is perfect for me.

It's kinda annoying how we're a week behind in lectures because people ask such stupid questions. Like two weeks ago:

Girl: Why is it LA rue and not LE rue?
Lecturer: ... Because it's feminine.
Girl: Ohhhh...

I can't believe people still don't understand gender yet.

And this Monday we did passé composé and we even did exercises on it, showing how it's different for each person, since the auxiliary is just conjugated in the present tense then we get:

Girl: Does it change for each person?
Lecturer: Huh?
Girl: Like, you know how the present tense is different for each person...
Lecturer: Uhhh, yeah?
Girl: Does the passé composé change for each person.
Lecturer: Yeah, the auxiliary changes... it's just the present tense.
Girl: Yeah, but does the other verb change?
Lecturer: No, that stays the same and just the auxiliary changes.
Girl: Ohhhh...

While I'm sitting there thinking "No wonder we're a friggen week behind".
 

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