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Maintaining Language Proficiency | ||
Tags: Maintaining Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Georgi87 Triglot Groupie Israel Joined 6311 days ago 43 posts - 44 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 6 25 August 2007 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello, all! I've been lurking on these forums for some time, and have learned quite a lot from other people's posts. Now, though, I have a problem I'm finding it difficult to cope with on my own, and was hoping somebody with more experience in studying languages could give me some much-needed advice.
Back in school, I did about 6 years of French (Pretty average - most of my study time, I must admit, was spent inefficiently). This was my 4th language, and by the time I entered university I knew it fairly well. Since then, 2 years have passed, and I've started losing it; I still have a feel for the language, and I can read in it reasonably quickly, but my writing, speaking and listening have all suffered. This is especially notable in speaking and listening, which were underdeveloped to begin with. My 3rd language is Hebrew - I never studied it in school, but I did live in Israel for a few years and can understand it, as well as read it and speak it (to a lesser degree). I also did a year of Chinese in university, though half-heartedly, as the way it was being taught made classes a huge waste of time. Presently, I'm studying Japanese, quite seriously; I've done my University's Japanese 1 programme in a month, and hope to to the Japanese 2 programme before the end of September so I can join Japanese 3 when I get back to Uni . Though I've come to realise I prefer studying on my own, doing Japanese for credit would mean that I can invest more time into studying the language without worrying about slipping grades. Phew! I hope I haven't bored anyone to death yet. Anyway, my big question is, what's the best way to maintain proficiency in a language? I'm not worried about Hebrew, as I've learned what I know as a child and have a "feel" for the language; I think I can go back to studying it anytime. Chinese, too, is not an issue as I am going to China after graduation to immerse myself and study Chinese very intensively. My main worry is maintaining my knowledge of french while spending as little time as possible on it, as I want to focus on Japanese right now. What are some good methods that you guys have found, for someone of my level? Cheers George 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6701 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes  4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 6 25 August 2007 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I think reading, listening to the radio, or watching television in your target language are good ways to maintain proficiency. That's what my dad does and his native French isn't disappearing.
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| awake Senior Member United States Joined 6646 days ago 406 posts - 438 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Spanish | Message 3 of 6 25 August 2007 at 10:29am | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to maintain your french, you need to find ways to use it.
Make an effort to find ways to use it. Instead of reading about international news in your local newspaper, Find some French newspapers online (or dead tree versions that you can subscribe to). Find French Movies that you can watch. Do you like to watch movies? Buy some DVD's of french cinema. Do you have any hobbies other than language learning? Find some french podcasts devoted to your hobby. Find ways to painlessly work french into your daily life. Places where you would normally use your native language(s) but could substitute french for. Another excellent technique is shadowing French Audio books. If you do a search on this forum for shadowing you'll see a lot of posts about how to do it. Basically, you get a French Audio book, It's written counterpart, and (if you need it) a translation into your native language. Pick a section, say a chapter. Read it as you listen to the audio book. (if necessary, use the translation to help you with comprehension). Repeat until you can read/listen to the entire chapter with full comprehension. Then read along out loud with the audio book, trying to match the voice (accent, rhythm, prosody, etc) of the speaker. Finally, There are a lot of resources for learning other languages using french as the base language. If you want to study Japanese, Find some resources for learning Japanese that are in French. Assimil's Le Japonais sans peine would be a good place to start. That way you could practice your Japanese and French simultaneously. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Georgi87 Triglot Groupie Israel Joined 6311 days ago 43 posts - 44 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 6 01 September 2007 at 11:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I was absolutely sure I'd replied to this thread after the replies! Anyway, thank you guys, I started reading The Three Musketeers in french, and it's helped me quite a lot already :)
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| adoggie Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6543 days ago 160 posts - 159 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 5 of 6 09 September 2007 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your Hebrew is like my Japanese - I used to live in Japan as a child. Even if, assuming the worst, you do forget a language, if you've learned it before, everything will come back much more quickly than if you've never spent any time learning it.
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| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5145 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 6 of 6 01 October 2016 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
I know that feel. I used to study Arabic when I was a child and when I started over, I tend to think, "Hey, I used to know this word!". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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