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Learning French - For Real, This Time! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ragnar1230 Newbie United States studygreek.wordpress Joined 4274 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 19 13 October 2014 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So, I'm really going to learn French this time. I mean it. For real.
I mean, I started French in high school, but that was just because I was out the day they signed up for classes, and when I got back, the Spanish class was filled. (I took Spanish in college, but it didn't really stick, mostly because I didn't believe the "you have to study every day" mantra.) For my Masters in English, I had to have a reading knowledge of a foreign language, and French is perceived as more "literary" than Spanish, so I went with French. I took a summer class focused on learning grammar and translating using a dictionary, and I did okay. Ten years later, I got married. My wife speaks basic French (did several years of elementary school in Tunisia and spent four years in Morocco out of college). Before we got married, I went to Morocco with her to meet her friends. I had all sorts of great cross-cultural experiences there, but the key one was the feeling of helplessness in not knowing the language. My wife would like to travel and explore various francophone countries, and I want to be able to accompany her without feeling completely lost and helpless. Now, in my doctoral program, I need a reading knowledge in a foreign language. They want me to have German, but I successfully convinced them French would be best for me. One of my professors told a funny story about how he had done research at the Bibliotheque nationale, and, since he only had a reading knowledge of French, he had to pretend to be a deaf/mute for a week. I thought, "Seriously? Speaking French can't be that hard. Why not put a little more effort into it, and learn to speak it as well?" So, I'm starting French for real. My short-term goal is to pass a reading knowledge of theological French, which will be at the end of summer 2015; my long-term goal is to learn French well enough to teach in French and maybe someday teach a summer school course at a small school in France that my school has a relationship with. (My wife would love to spend a summer in France!) I've held off starting a Language Log, simply because I keep starting and stopping. I began my most recent foray by borrowing a bunch of French In Action materials from a colleague, but that didn't work well, because the material wasn't divided into daily sets of activities, and preparing lesson plans for myself was entirely too much work. Later, I checked Pimsleur French out of a local library and tried that instead. It was better than FIA, in that it had clear half-hour lessons, but there were other difficulties: 1) I was studying it after work when I came home, and I was so tired by then I couldn't focus well. 2) The gaps they left for giving a response in French were just a little too short, and I would get halfway through my response before the audio would interrupt me and tell me the right answer. The psychological effect of having one's attempt repeatedly interrupted with the "right answer" is devastating, even if I "know" the CD is not "being rude." For a while, I tried pausing it manually, but the general consensus online was that that was "cheating." 3) Review took too long. My son was born last year, and every so often I would miss a day or two, or even a week. I needed to review the previous lessons, but each lesson was a half-hour long, and I was never sure how far back I needed to go before I "caught up." I eventually just gave up. With the start of a new school year this fall, I've started using Assimil's New French with Ease. I'm getting up an hour earlier in the mornings, heading to the office, and doing the lesson while I'm still fresh. If I miss one (or several) days, the 2-minute audio clips mean I can review a week's worth of lessons in 15 minutes to get caught up quickly. I haven't needed to do this yet, though. Today I started the Active Wave, marking 50 consecutive days of independent French study. I'll update this blog with thoughts about language learning, progress reports, and with any questions I have TL;DR I'm starting French - this time, for real! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tornus Diglot GroupieRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4933 days ago 82 posts - 113 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Swedish, Danish | Message 2 of 19 14 October 2014 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Good luck with it. It sounds like you have a real reason to learn the language, so I have no doubt you can do it. And you should able to use native materials soon.
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| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5026 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 3 of 19 14 October 2014 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Congratulations on starting again and on your 50 day winning streak!
If your wife speaks French, have you been speaking to her in French? I know it might be awkward, but seems like you could spend a pleasant 30 minutes chatting with her each day to help activate your reading French into speaking French.I think you also have the advantage you can watch French films with your wife. Also I wouldn't wait to start using native materials, there is a wealth of them around, and it helps to get an "ear" for the language by listening. Personally I've found while I can read French well because of all the silent letters and other pronunciation differences it is very useful to listen to a lot of French. Good luck and hope to read a lot more of your log. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6372 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 19 14 October 2014 at 11:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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Great job! There's a reason why Assimil is considered the gold standard around here.
It's a great program. However, I personally think the method they suggest is a bit fuzzy. What's your routine for working through a lesson? I've got a few suggestions for getting more out of Assimil, but these are mostly a bit work-intensive, so don't overload yourself. * Shadow the dialogs. I find it great for getting them into my head and improving my listening. There are lots of texts on what this means, but basically you listen in headphones and speak with a small delay. So you don't wait for them to finish, but speak with a half-second delay at the same time as listening. Just ask for links if you don't know how to do it. * Input the vocabulary into an SRS system like Anki. I find it great to have the foreign word on the front and the English on the back, along with an example sentence. * Keep a playlist of your finished lessons and listen to iit on shuffle througout the day. I really recommend this one and it's not as work-intensive. Listen on the bus, in the car, when walking, when doing the dishes, etc. With language learning, overlearning is not a bad idea. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 3797 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 19 14 October 2014 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Bienvenue et bonne chance! I started with Assimil to learn French, and really felt like I made great progress
with the course - while also enjoying the process. Assimil really has a way of sneaking up on you! As rdrearman noted above, I also encourage you to use native materials early. One of my favorites is to use music. Here is a thread on different French Pop Music http://how-to-learn-any- language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37274&PN=1&TPN=3 or one of my favorite French Music Collections is Cafe de Paris: 50 Grand Success Français. Pick a song that you like, and then google the name of the song with "Paroles" for lyrics. Singing along with the song is an easy way to practice your accent, vocabulary, etc. Many of us also listen to RFI Français en Facile. Although it's really not easy, and many of the reporters use Rocket-fast French, it's only a 10 minute podcast that you can listen to while you drive walk, etc. I started listening when I probably only understood one or two words. But you will be surprised how quickly you are able to start picking out words, then phrases, sentences, etc. The point is be consistent with your French. Even if you aren't able to do a full Assimil lesson that day, do something in French. Assimil is not strong on grammar explanations. I found I wanted a little more explanation. emk recommended the book Essential French Grammar by Seymour Resnick. You can buy it used for ~$2, and can probably read the whole thing in about 2 hours. The explanations really did help me out when I found myself wanting a little more info. BTW, if you haven't read emk's log, I highly encourage you to (along with many others). I love seeing how people got to the levels they are, the resources they used, and it is great motivation! Edited by Mohave on 14 October 2014 at 1:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5322 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 19 14 October 2014 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Given that you're already on lesson 50 of Assimil, you should probably be able to read French theology even before the end of summer 2015. Assimil should get you most of the way to actually reading. After that, all you need is a interesting book of theology and maybe a pop-up dictionary, plus a willingness to just wade through and skip over the hard parts. In general, English speakers should have a pretty easy time reading "intellectual" French materials about their favorite subjects, thanks to all the cognates and the familiar ideas. I've also heard a lot of good things about French for Reading. You might enjoy reading jayjayvp's log—he really enjoyed military history, and he made the jump into actual reading very early on.
OK, I don't know anything about Pimsleur, but I'm quite certain that it's always better to "cheat" than to give up entirely. :-) Sure, stick with Assimil for now, since it seems to be working great for you. But if you ever feel like you're "doing it wrong", just muddle through as best you can, making whatever compromises you need. Your brain is perfectly capable of learning a language, at least if you can convince it that learning French will be less work that not knowing it. (Brains are lazy, and they tend to take the path of least resistance at any age.) Courses are just a handy way to get over the initial hump, so you can actually start using the language for real. Small children don't need courses to get started; they have parents who repeat the same things 5,000 times until they get over that first hump. So basically, don't worry about using a course incorrectly. Worry about staying in contact with interesting bits of French, puzzling things out and putting things together semi-coherently. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4234 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 7 of 19 15 October 2014 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Acquiring a new language is all about exposure. It is important to set goals for yourself. However, I don't like the
idea of turning learning into an academic exercise. There are certain thins I would build into a routine such as reading the newspaper, listening to the radio, etc. Everyday I'd spend time listening to a radio broadcast in Chinese. Throughout the week I would be watching movies and TV programs in Chinese with subtitles. Every once in a while I'd pick up new words & phrases. I was in Hong Kong recently for a 2-week visit. You pick up a few local newspapers and pick up a few new words & phrases along the way. First, you start with the English edition of the S. China Morning Post, and then you start browsing through the Chinese papers including The Sun, Apple Daily, Singtao, Ming Pao, etc. You build up a routine for watching specific programs on TV, listening to the radio etc. and not think about it the time for learning. In the beginning you rely on phrase books like when when you talk about the weather: il fait chaud, il fait froid, il pleut, etc. And you learn to tell time: il est un heure, il est midi, il est minuit, etc. like you would be learning in a class or using a language program. After a while, you start picking up radio & TV programs, read news articles online and pick up words and phrases in more real-life situations. Edited by shk00design on 15 October 2014 at 2:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ragnar1230 Newbie United States studygreek.wordpress Joined 4274 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 8 of 19 20 October 2014 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This last week I started the "Active Wave," so I thought I had best start activating my speaking, as well. I took several opportunities to speak a few lines to my wife throughout the week (she laughed delightedly and encouraged me with my attempts), and once to speak to our French professor when I met him in the break room. He, of course, wanted to immediately ramp it up to a whole conversation, and lost me quickly. I'm not sure it was because he used difficult vocabulary; it may be "performance pressure" that, if I just relaxed, I'd have no trouble understanding. I know fear of "getting it wrong" is a huge obstacle, and if I just accept making mistakes, I'll learn a lot faster. It's a lot easier said than done, though!
As part of the Active Wave, I'm re-listening to the early lessons, and I'm amazed at how slow they speak! I guess I never noticed the speed gradually increasing. I know outside reading/listening will speed my learning process, but at this point, I just don't have the time. I am a full-time college professor (of English), a father of an 18-month-old, a husband, and a doctoral student. I've got 1000 pages of books to read and 50 pages of papers to write by Dec 5, and I just can't devote more time per day to French. But I'm not in a hurry. My immediate goal is to read theology by the end of next summer, and lay the foundations for more long-term French learning as my doctoral load lightens. I am reading Anne Topping's Beginner's French Reader (horribly overpriced, compared to Blaine Ray's books, but I didn't know about those books when I bought this one) a little before I go to bed, but that's only every second or third night. I listen to each lesson before I let myself look at the text, to encourage myself to work on guessing words in context. This week I was delighted to discover I understood the main sense of Lesson #54 before looking at the text! The dialogue is based on the short story "Appointment in Samarra" by Somerset Maugham, which I happen to teach to my lit students. (Yes, I know that story is based on even earlier tales. The point here is the similarity to something I already knew.) Before I start each lesson, I have been reviewing the audio of the previous three lessons. This week, I decided to change things up and use the Pimsleur "Memory Schedule." This is the foundation of modern spaced repetition systems, and is used in the Pimsleur language learning program. The schedule is easily available online, but I looked up his article "A Memory Schedule" in the Modern Language Journal for clarity. Part of the review schedule is "1 day, 5 days, 25 days," but what the actual article makes clear (that wasn't clear to me from the Wikipedia summary) is that these are not the numbers of the days, but the amount of interval time from the previous exposure. So, I started reviewing the previous lesson (i.e., current lesson-1), current lesson-6 and current lesson-31. It's working pretty well, I think. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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