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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4245 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 9 of 24 18 November 2014 at 2:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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A lot of people face a similar problem not being in a country where a native language is spoken. There are many
ethnic groups in my part of the world. Some parents from other backgrounds have chosen to talk to their children at home in their native language while they would speak English outside the home. The kids grow up bilingual "supposedly". The larger the social network, the more chance a person would have for using a language that isn't the official language of your country such as Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese or Korean. In my area there is the Alliance Français for me to not only improve my language skills but also to network with people who speak the language. My friend in the US who is studying German is part of the local Deutsche Klub. If you can find similar network in your area you have more exposure to a language. Even a church group that holds services in a particular language on Sundays you learn to pray and sing songs as a way to improve your language skills. Other than that in Canada we recognize French as an official language so you can activate the caption feature on your TV for all the local French stations. Reading a newspaper is kind of passively absorbing info but when you are listening to a person speak and reading the same text on the screen it reinforces the language. Otherwise, a lot of movies on DVD have captions. Even American ones you can get versions with French or Spanish dubbed with the appropriate captions. I don't get exposure to Chinese everyday but I do watch a lot of online videos with Chinese captions on top of listening to the radio and watching TV programs. It gets rather boring if you think of yourself as learning from phrase books and going to class. You need to build some sort of social network or daya-to-day routine where you have a chance to use a language that is outside the classroom. In any given day you go to work, shopping, entertain yourself once in a while. Are you confident enough to get a job that would allow you to use a language like French more frequently? Do you have local stores where French is spoken? I was in Hong Kong a month ago. I was reading several local Chinese newspapers on top of the English edition of the "S. China Morning Post". I was visiting relatives. Before dinner I would go downstairs to use the gym at their apartment and pick up a few newspaper headlines on the way. Like you would be reading an English newspaper before dinner, you would do the same with a Chinese newspaper. You are not forcing yourself to read because you are learning a new language but as a regular routine to keep up with the latest headlines. Now I'm back in Canada I still pick up news articles from Hong Kong online almost every day. Edited by shk00design on 19 November 2014 at 7:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3714 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes Speaks: French | Message 10 of 24 18 November 2014 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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No unfortunately its pretty much all Spanish and German as the second language where I am at. I may have mentioned my uncomfortableness around other people, its due to the fact that I never know how to walk up to someone and start talking without appearing rude. Most of the time people grumble at me or what not. It always seems to be the wrong timing or wrong thing to start off with, whatever I do. On forums its a little worse as I have an awful time coming up with the words to express in English (my native language) what I want to ask, that can be understood by all. It can be frustrating to have posts deleted or in one case I was banned from a forum because of a simple misunderstanding. Maybe that's why I study languages, to hopefully find someplace one day where I can fit in?
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3900 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 11 of 24 18 November 2014 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I am going to be brutally honest, Tyrion101. When you speak about your language learning process and your level it reads, in my eyes, like someone who has never studied a language but who is trying to make it seem like he has. You're fuzzy. When asked about specifics you give more fuzz. You post about new issues frequently without seemingly ever resolving them or magically resolving them by figuring out your problem all by yourself, usually something fairly unrelated or relatively improbable.
Even so, I am going to assume that you are truly and honestly lost, rather than trying to fit in and get attention without doing any work. Therefore, one more time:
Okay... What can you read and how much of it do you understand? A pre-school children's book? A graded reader? A graphic novel? A children's book? A young adult book? An adult novel? A newspaper article? An average blog article? A magazine article? Articles, but only on familiar topics? Personal letters? Business correspondence? Do you understand roughly what's going on? Do you simply miss a few words?
I'll once again recommend anything presented by Stéphane Bern, then. It's hard to find a native French-speaker who speaks naturally, yet so slowly and with such excellent enunciation. Some of his programmes are available on DVD, such as Secrets d'Histoire, which you can find on Amazon.fr for under 25€ per season (roughly 15 hours of French). I realise not everyone can go out and spend a lot of money (hey, I could make almost twice as much most months and just barely cross the local poverty line), but legal access generally costs something. If you use a service like Netflix you I understand that you already have access to plenty of French TV. "The Returned", for example, I'm told is available on Netflix USA.
I'm afraid that this is just what being a learner is like. Knowing something in a low-stress situation where you have all the time in the world and all the conditions that help you jog your memory (studying with the same method, in the same place, etc.) doesn't mean that you know how to call up that information in a different situation. It stinks, and it gets to you sometimes, but that's just the way it is, whether you're learning French or biology.
Okay, great. Do you sometimes have trouble with things like the weather report? If so, that would allow us to gauge your passive level somewhat. Is there anything a bit more difficult than the weather report that you can follow along and can you understand pretty much everything of these types of programming or do you pick up the general gist?
Maybe. Of course if you really are looking for somewhere to fit in, like you say, then you'll fail miserably by going for passive skills only. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5008 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 24 18 November 2014 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Unfortunately, these sorts of bad attitudes from native speakers towards people learning their language are quite common, and they don't even go away once you reach a more advanced level. I don't really understand it, as I have no problems using English with people even if they don't speak it perfectly, but different situations for different languages and all that. It's something that I've had and continue to have a lot of problems with, as anyone who has read my log will know.
I'm afraid there's not much you can do other than just accept it, not take it personally or as a criticism of your level, and gradually grow a thicker skin. I and several other members can attest that the French can be particularly bad... but not all of them! And it's less about your level and more about their attitude. There are people out there who are happy to help you and to speak to you in their language even if you're a beginner, while others simply won't give you the time of day if your speaking is anything less than perfect. I agree with the others about the benefit of listening and reading to help with putting together sentences. I've also found self-talk exercises to be a useful way to practise speaking if you can't find conversation opportunities or want to "warm up" a bit before speaking to real people. Here's the classic post on self-talk. And perhaps a more controversial point, since some believe that speaking with other learners does more harm than good, but I developed a lot of my French conversational ability by going to meetups. They're not ideal, but in my opinion they're better than nothing, and you sometimes even find helpful native speakers there. Or if you can afford it and value your time, a tutor is probably a better option than the time and frustration of trying to find language exchanges. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4810 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 13 of 24 18 November 2014 at 10:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I totally understand the trouble, I've been stressed by attitudes of natives in the
past, and I think your personal frustration comes from several roots: 1.French speakers are among the more difficult ones in general. It's just the way it is, I am not the only one on the forums to have had much more trouble speaking with the French natives than with the Spanish and German ones despite my French being far superior to my other languages and their English. This is not meant as an attack on the French, even though it is annoying, it is just something one needs to consider when learning the language. 2.You were probably not ready to speak. Sure, some learners love to dive into speaking from day 1 but it is not just for everyone. It requires lots of confidence and other character traits that will make it for natives worthwhile to spend time with you even in the early stages of learning and not to dare to switch languages. Benny the Irish polyglot is obviously awesome at this, I am not. That's why I prepare myself before diving among the sharks. 3.Do not use the google translator for such purposes. Ever. You want a dictionary? Get a real dictionary. Online ones are faster and there are many of good quality. Never let a machine translate a sentence for you to send without huge corrections. 4.DOn't believe the myth that passive and active skills are separate and the active things are the only way to practice the active skills. Nope. It is all connected. Sure, there will be time you just need to take the leap of faith as there will be no more progress without practice, but passive skills make a large base for you to draw from when speaking. So, I belive you can either give up or get prepared before speaking. How: 1.Work on a strong grammar base. You will be forgiven lots of mistakes but making too many of the basic ones will make it a pain for other people to communicate with you. Get your basic verb tenses right, the prepositions and so on. Things that matter for the basic getting the message across. Contrary to popular belief, you won't be beheaded for a wrong gender or article. 2.Work on your vocabulary to lessen the amount of searching-in-dictionary pauses. 3.Lots of input, especially listening. My whole language learning world turned upside down when I started watching tv series extensively. Really. Number one reason for natives switching is the foreigner obviously not understanding much. And surprisingly, those large amounts of listening worked for my active speaking skill as well. I was able to adapt much faster and my speaking was more natural because I was able to think in the language. Really, how could you not find any movies or tv series? THere are plenty! Either buy from eshops or download or whatever! This would have been an issue ten or twenty years ago, not today. 4.As I wrote in point 3, you need to learn to think in the language. When you don't know the word, get around it, don't waste time and focus on searching an English equivalent. Both listening and reading will help you with this endeavour. 5.Get more confident. That is easily said but more difficult to do. What I found to help: Work on the listening skills so that you don't get obviously lost in conversation. Make sure your reactions accurately show whether you need a hint or translation, because you didn't understand, or you are just looking for a word or taking a bit time for sentence construction. Work on your nonverbal skills, they can save you when your speaking is less confident. 6.Get used to making mistakes, don't expect perfection from yourself right in the beginning. As an intermediate, you can make mistakes, use basic constructions and vocabulary and the sky won't crumble on your head for it. A mistake is an opportunity to learn and cover a gap in your knowledge and skills, not a tragedy. 7.Perhaps take a break from your speaking attempts to prevent burnout. Learning a language is fun but only if you are not stressed about every single opportunity to use it. Edited by Cavesa on 18 November 2014 at 10:57am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3848 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 14 of 24 18 November 2014 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Hi, you have two problems.
1) your skills 2) your confidence The first one is the easiest to fix. Just study. If you have problem with oral comprehension just do lot of LR. The second one is your real issue I guess. a) because you take it personal if the conversation doesn't go very well. What is not under your control should not be a problem of yours, and what is under your control you just have to work more. b) because to learn faster you need to embrace failure and not being afraid of. you say a bullshit? instead of being ashamed of this just laugh with your conversation partner. I think it is important for you to work on your being uneasy with other people. I was used to be shy, I solved put myself in the condition of meeting very often completely new people. Check if you have meetup groups in your city or one next to you (or internations, or similar stuff). This is your life, it is more important than learning French. When you're comfortable with other people you can always decide to spend your evening by yourself reading a good book but being with other people will be also an enjoyable experience. Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5333 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 24 18 November 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Thank you to everyone who has responded to Tyrion101. Just a couple of quick thoughts.
- It's totally possible that Tyrion101 can understand lots of things one day, and then feel like a hopeless idiot the next. This is pretty much the story of my life—even today, I have days where my wife says something really simple to me and I just don't understand it, and days where I can discuss fairly complicated things in detail without making any particular effort. One of the key "emotional skills" of language learning is somehow managing to live with this variation without becoming massively frustrated or discouraged. - Please try to avoid "dog piling" on other posters, especially in the Advice Center, which is supposed to be a safe space for beginner questions (among other things). It's perfectly OK to say "Maybe you're over-estimating your skills" or "This would be a lot easier if I had a good idea of your level." But please try not to be the third or fourth poster who says something like that in a single thread—once or twice is enough to get the point across, and any more starts to feel a bit like a dog pile. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4334 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 16 of 24 18 November 2014 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Good advice. It's not every day that I get learn a new word in English. Interestingly, I only seem to need one repetition to learn new English words, and 100s for German. ;( 1 person has voted this message useful |
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