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Developing a strategy for learning French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Tomtas Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3676 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Studies: French | Message 1 of 9 24 April 2014 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a scholarship to study at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 2016. I'm very excited about it but my
French is extremely basic. As of September I'm starting intensive French classes at my current university and, although my tutor assures me I'll be competent in two years of such classes but I'm not entirely convinced. Therefore, between now and September I want to give myself a head-start by studying as much French as I can. In the past I've dabbled with Rosetta Stone but it's mind-numbingly slow and allows me to be too passive I think. I've just finished Benny Lewis's "Fluent in Three Months" and it makes a lot of sense but I'm still struggling to think of an exact plan of action. Although speaking and listening is my primary objective, I also want to be able to read and write reasonably well. So, I'm thinking about doing something like this: - Read a chapter of "Le Petit Price" every day, using Ilya Frank's reading method. - Listen to a disc of Michel Thomas every day. Found this at the library and like the conversational style he uses. - Do 1-2 lessons of Assimil every day. - Learn 20 new phrases per day related to a mini-challenge (e.g. have a ten minute conversation with someone) - Get a tutor of Italki, then using free language parters once I can converse independently I have a few questions about Italki to anybody who has used it. How often should a beginner have a lesson? I was thinking of having 2-3 hours per week with a "professional tutor" but I've seen some people who suggest having four hours with a tutor per day! I think that would probably bankrupt me! A "community tutor" would be cheaper but they don't seem to be suitable for a beginner. Anyway, I don't know if my plan is good enough for optimal learning. I'll continue browsing through these forums and look at what other people have done but some advice would be really appreciated! Thanks, Tom 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5045 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 9 24 April 2014 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi,
Here are some recommendations, you can try as you please, all these options are free. - You may want to "goldlist" the top 5000 words (since you have two years to do it) and you can get free word frequency lists here: http://invokeit.wordpress.com/frequency-word-lists/. If you don't know what goldlisting is just do a quick search on YouTube. (Or you could use Anki and flashcards) - Try to find some movies, TV shows, etc. You'll want to listen as much as possible. Read this forum post: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=26634 - Try to find some books, comics, newspapers, etc. Read them. Look-up words you don't know. Read more books in French, repeat, repeat, repeat. - Go to https://librivox.org/ download some Jules Verne audio books in French & English and download the French text (also provided on the site). Read the french while listening to the English audiobook, then go back and read the french text while listening to the French audio book. Repeat, then find another book and do the same. - Go here (FSI) and download the Foreign Service Institute French basic course. Complete it. - Go to http://sharedtalk.com/ setup an account, text and skype chat with native speakers. - Find French people to talk to. You're in the UK, so it is fairly easy. Especially if you are near London. - Talk to yourself in French everyday. Make up conversations with imaginary people and describe what your doing, thinking, etc. Hope that helps. Edited by rdearman on 24 April 2014 at 3:44pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4718 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 9 24 April 2014 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It looks to me like you're on the right track. Michel Thomas is a good start, and Assimil is excellent. FSI, mentioned by rdearman, is awesome in my opinion. But it works best without overusing the textbook. Just work through the audio while going for a walk, and occasionally check the text for clarity. FSI is very comprehensive, and the main course has over 80 hours of audio, 90% in French alone.
I would also suggest regular listening of some sort. Rfi's Journal en francais facile is quite popular, as you can download the mp3s, and they also have transcripts (though not completely accurate!). Another news option is watching 7 jours sur la planete, which is great for a learner as they have fairly accurate French subtitles. If you have Sky TV, find TV5 Monde, and watch something everyday. Also, start watching French TV & films, and listening to French music. These will help you get used to colloquial French, and ensure you're not taken by surprise by the way real French people speak. Edited by Jeffers on 24 April 2014 at 9:18pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5341 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 9 24 April 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One danger of these Advice Center threads is that we'll give you links to 40 excellent resources, and nobody can actually use that many. :-) Benny Lewis ran a survey a while back and found weak evidence that owning a whole stack of language courses was correlated with slightly lower success rates.
Anyway, we have a wiki article titled How to Start Learning a Language which describes a number of popular "roadmaps" for learning a language. Pick one of these that seems agreeable, and you won't go too far wrong. Personally, I like to keep things simple: - An Assimil course, because I've had good luck with them twice now. - A short reference grammar that covers the basics, such as Essential French Grammar. The last thing I want early on is a giant, comprehensive doorstop. - Some interesting native materials, as soon as I can start deciphering them. It's hard to describe exactly how this helps, but it does—sheer exposure to more-or-less comprehensible materials builds a "language database" in my head. Here's my list of lots of cool stuff in French. I read 10,000 pages for the Super Challenge, and I watched a dozen or two seasons of television in French, and it made an huge difference.
A tutor is great when you want to start talking. After reading Benny's blog and his book, I get the impression that he uses tutors almost as a form of motivation: He figures out what he wants to be able to say, he crams like mad, and then he says it to a tutor. If that sounds like it would really motivate you, try it. If your goal is to be able speak as humanly possible, it wouldn't hurt to spend a lot of time with a tutor. But if that just sounds agonizing, well, you have other choices. The most I ever used a tutor with 3 hours per week, and that's when I was doing intensive test preparation.
Your plan looks fine, though if you try to do all that every day, it may take up lots of time. But really, I personally find it's best not to worry about "optimal learning." A slightly inefficient method that you keep using is far better than an "optimal" method that you're going to bail on after a week. People successfully learn languages in all sorts of strange ways, provided they actually keep studying. 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5071 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 9 24 April 2014 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Welcome to the forum, Tomtas! I agree with emk and Jeffers. I advocate a multi-track approach. What I don't advise is overwhelming one's self with resources starting out. The key is to pick just one or two good courses (or one course and a good grammar) and stick with them, expose yourself to native material as soon as possible because real world speech and "course-world" speech can be quite different. The exposure to native material doesn't have to be massive, in the pre-intermediate (beginning) stage. It's enough at this point to do as Jeffers says and use le journal en français facile for that plus a few films with subtitles or music.
I worked with a tutor when I was learning Portuguese, still do. Like emk, three hours a week was the most I did. My advice is to use a tutor not to "teach" you the language from scratch but to work on pronunciation, grammar and speaking- basically to consolidate what you are learning on your own. A tutor will probably be more useful for you once you get about halfway through whatever course(s) you're using, though ymmv. If you use one method in the morning, one in the evening and something else (audio, music, flashcards) for those "hidden" moments throughout the day, you'll find that one will reinforce the other and you'll benefit from synergy. If you work with French consistently and persistently almost every day (best every day), by the time 2016 rolls around in a little over a year and a half, you sure could reach a high intermediate level. Being consistent and persistent, I can't emphasize that enough! Also, start a learning log. That way you can get near real-time help along the way. Edited by iguanamon on 24 April 2014 at 11:18pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4474 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 9 25 April 2014 at 3:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Once you can hold a basic conversation I would recommend giving Verbling video groups a try. There are usually at least a few French chats per day. The upside is that no planning is necessary: you can simply join a group, or start one yourself, and start having conversations right away. The downside for a beginner is that the minimum comfortable level in the French rooms is often around lower intermediate, since probably about 50 to 75% of the people in them already speak it fairly fluently and are there mainly to keep their skills "fresh" or simply to socialize. Edited by tastyonions on 25 April 2014 at 3:47am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5537 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 7 of 9 25 April 2014 at 10:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd recommend you start slow and use Assimil course first. Concentrate on that, do some listening of French radio in between. Oh, and since you have Michel Thomas use that. Finishing it won't take long. You can do that together with Assimil. Those things will keep you busy for some time.
That's just my personal view, but I think it's better to go more hard core into serious studying after you've gained some basics. So Michel Thomas, Assimil, plus music, podcasts in French so that your brain is immersed in native pronunciation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tomtas Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3676 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Studies: French | Message 8 of 9 25 April 2014 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow thanks, what a great response! I've checked out some of the resources and I'll definitely try a few. Grammar is
starting to get a bit of a headache but I'm sure I'll get there in the end. Thanks again! :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
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