Aug 03 2008
Closing in
I can tell school is soon approaching. I’ve already seen my bill online for the coming semester, so that’s a big sign right there. I’ve been lucky enough to miss the back-to-school ads (the benefit of not watching TV or listening to the radio), but the new books are starting to show up in the bookstore.
This semester is FREN-F 119 Beginning French III and ENG-L 506 Intro Methods of Criticism/Research, which is supposed to be a class on literary criticism. So, lots of reading and writing for the semester. The past few semesters, my classes each met once a week. This semester, one of them is meeting twice a week. IIRC, one is a Monday-Wednesday class while the other is a Thursday class, but I can’t remember which is which. This semester is worth 8 credit hours.
I’ve been slacking off with the French. While I’ve watched a few French films over the past few months, I’m still pretty reliant on subtitles. However, with the new iPod, I can listen to podcasts and watch video podcasts.
I’ve still been thinking about possible subjects for a thesis. I like the idea of using corpus linguistics to help out, since it seems to be a very valuable tool/skill/method. It’s unfortunate this campus doesn’t seem to offer a class on the subject. The idea of formulaic language skill intrigues me, but I’ve also been thinking of shibboleths, and since this is an election year, the use of language by political candidates during the primary and general election season. I should talk with some professors about this.
For an irreverent look at grad student life, check out PhD comics.
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2 Responses to “Closing in”
A good way to learn a language twice over is to watch the film in original version *with* the same language subtitles. Most DVDs offer that nowadays, and it helps focus your brain into the right language gear, as well as allows you to catch much more of the dialogue to start with.
I’ll have to try that – listening to the audio with the subtitles in the same language. I know in French there are a lot of terms that sound alike, to me anyway.