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French - moving beyond "beginner" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Houseboatdream Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5583 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: French | Message 1 of 9 05 September 2009 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, this is my first post here although I have been lurking for a while. This is such an inspirational forum! I hope that you can give me some advice on what to do next.
I have been working consistently at French for about six months now. I did french at school (30 years ago!!, holidayed there many times over the years but never got beyond basic phrasebook/ school french. In the last six months I feel that I have made quite a lot of progress, I understand a lot of grammar, most of verb tenses/moods (why did we never move beyond the present tense at school?), my vocabulary is growing but I still would not feel confident having a conversation beyond basic shopping/ directions. My ambition is to be fluent, not sure how realistic this is. I was in france recently and managed quite well with shopping, booking dog vets appointment (on phone), campsites etc - all in french. The trouble was, I would usually understand what was being said or work out the answer about 5 minutes after the interaction had finished! This is what I have done so far: Michel Thomas - all courses: foundation, advanced, vocab builder, language builder Teach Yourself French - book and CD, all 25 units Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar & French Verb Tenses (still need to do a bit more on subjunctive in the latter book) BBC on-line course "Ma France" - all 24 units Read (with dictionary) La MOnde (a few times when in france recently) read PD James La Salle de Meurte read Harry Potter 3rd book Homemade flashcards Currently I am reading Marcel Pagnol: La Chateau de ma Mere - going well, have to look up about 3 or 4 words per page I am also trying to do one lesson unit a day in "Upgrade your French" by Margaret Jubb; this is a student A level revision course; some of it is a bit difficult but I usually get 25 out of the daily questions correct. I try to learn minimum of 7 new words a day, usually 21 - using home made flashcard system. I try listening to some of the reportages on Le Mensuel part of BBC; these are quite difficult, but I am getting the gist. Any suggestions? At the moment I am time rich but can't really buy anything. My library is quite good. There are quite a few biligual texts. Today I have borrowed a sherlock holmes bilingue book. They have got Pimsleur level 1 (of the complete course. I did borrow the first part, lessons 1 -14 but it was so slow and basic it drove me mad. I also want to start learning dutch but not sure when to start this. thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6019 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 9 05 September 2009 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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You've had your head in the books long enough. Start using the language more -- there's free TV and radio on the internet, and there's plenty of online newspapers to read too. Get yourself a language exchange partner either locally or again on the internet (voice chat is far better than text chat).
The thing is that you now know quite a lot of the rules, and the only way to make them work faster is to use them. Loading yourself with more data, more rules, more wordlists is just going to slow you down. Speed up what you've got and then you can think about rolling more into it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5582 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 9 06 September 2009 at 3:29am | IP Logged | ||
Speaking specifically to your case, you're wasting your time in books. It's time to transition past that. You want to learn to speak the language? Then speak it! Join a discussion group, or language exchange. Skype people. Whatever it takes to actually talk to people. Those skills you can't learn in a book or CD (and yes, Pimsleur is way, way below your level. don't waste your time there).
All you need is practice to make this process automatic. Perhaps FSI can help you here, or shadowing the assimil course, or shadowing the advanced FrechPod.com lessons. Edited by maaku on 06 September 2009 at 3:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 7054 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 9 06 September 2009 at 5:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Watching the news is helpful - newsreaders speak distinctly and slowly enough that they are reasonably easy to understand. The most helpful thing is conversation with other french speakers. If you have a Habs jersey you can surely find them! I think if you can find an Alliance Française close to you, they may be able to help you find conversation groups. Although Pimsleur doesn't teach a lot of vocabulary, it does teach some things that are helpful, and are likely to come up in conversation.
Good luck with your studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Houseboatdream Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5583 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: French | Message 5 of 9 06 September 2009 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks very much for your replies.
You're right, it is time to start talking to people. Part of that is a confidence thing I think, I want to say things grammatically correct and by the time I've worked it out, its too late! I'm going to research some french conversation classes in the area and give that a go. Also, when I'm in funds again I was thinking of getting the assimil advanced course. Hopefully that will be soon. thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5580 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 9 07 September 2009 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with some of the others - no more "learning" materials, including assimil.
The conversation class is a great idea. Hanging out on skype and doing language exchange with people as often as I can is one of my favorite tricks. Try to do it every night, even if it's only for 15 or 20 minutes. It's free, and there are many sites for finding partners. It sounds like you still have listening issues too. Listening is the hardest skill to master IMO. You may have to break the no more learning material rule and try French in Action. These videos can be downloaded for free. I bought a set for $25 of ebay, just to avoid the hassle of download, if that's even an option for you. The videos are superb for improving listening skill. Just watch a 30 min episode every night. There are 52 episodes. Finish them, then start all over, and you will be amazed by your improvement. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 7054 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 9 16 September 2009 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
I think it's worth getting the book too - make sure the edition matches the version you're watching. The book also contains other interesting tidbits, and an explanation of much of the vocabulary. This is a very good course IMHO. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bkwrmi Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5532 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, German, Sign Language Studies: French, Spanish | Message 8 of 9 11 October 2009 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say now is probably the time to take advantage of all the free resources online. As other posters have
mentioned, there are television programs, newspapers and magazines available for free online. There are also message boards, youtube, etc, and all of them are good opportunities to practice. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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