I was trapped at home because the weather is really uncertain these days, but I could tell that it’s raining almost every afternoon. I couldn’t go browsing because the ISP’s bandwith has reached its limit.Then i spent my holidays by playing mini games I got from Ririn. BY the time i get bored, I started to reopen my book stacks and found “Learn Yourself French (Belajar Mandiri Bahasa Prancis)” book by Catrine Carpenter which I bought in 2003. Until then, I just have finished the 1st chapter, hehe.
The book tells most about daily conversation which is very likely to happen when you visit France. Really little grammar on it but at least you’ll know many expressions like “bonsoir”, “Tres bien, merci”, or how to say “I want to buy bla bla bla” in French. For me, that’s not enough. I want to go deeper in learning French just like when you learn English.
I couldn’t go to a french course because it’s pretty expensive here at CCF for me and I can’t match my schedule with the course. So, why not learn it by myself? How, is a good question.
I thought, learning it from a book like TOEFL (but for French, I don’t know what kind of international test of French here) test guide complete with the CD to listen and the grammars preview would help. I looked for it in any knowable book stores in Bandung like Gramedia and Palasari. But none have it. Most books are about conversation, it’s even hard to find full-about-french-grammar book.
Then I remembered that now is the IT DAYS! It should not be hard to learn from tutorial cd’s. I went to a dvd shop and found lots of tutorial cd, but it’s all about english, mandarin, sports, and yeah (a bit surprised) sex.
Got nothing?
Of course not. I went back to campus a lil while to deal with registration, which appeared to be useless coz i came at the break time. Then I rememberd that in front of campus (just call the place Dasau, hehe) there are a few traders who sell non legal software cd/dvds (games, application, tutorials, anything except movies) for only Rp. 10000/cd or Rp. 30.000/dvd. Buy more and pay less, you can find anything in here and it’s always updated with the latest version of software and even antiviruses updates.
Well, I knpw it’s prohibited to buy those cd’s but i can’t help to look at the tutorial cds. There i found it, not tutorial which i chose but an english-french translator (Personal Translator 2008) which is claimed that it could process the text to audio output besides translating. I bought it, hehe.
If i have the software that can teach me how to pronounce the words, then I just have to buy a book explaining the grammar. There, at Togamas, i found the book “Schaum Outlines: French Grammar” (Indonesian Edition). Contains the grammar’s preview and lots of exercises, i think it’s the best french grammar book i’ve met. Bought it for only 81000 since the book store gave 15% discount.
At home, i tried the PT software. Well, it’s beyond my expectation. I love this software! It’s a translator so you can type anything from word to paragraph (s) and it translate well in two ways. As claimed before, it can speak! hehe, I mean, both the source and translated text could be pronounciated very well. For me, it’s like having a french tutor in your laptop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and so on as long as you have the power to switch the laptop on.
I write down every exercises in the grammar book on the PT, then i understand the meaning and also how to pronounce them. That’s how I learn French in these days, for me it’s quite effective.
Wanna try?
Same topic in Indonesian available at here
Si Meongijo 