French

[afrozenflower]

I've been learning French in school ever since I was 13, but now after 4 years, I still don't feel like I know enough. I don't know if it is because I'm lazy and a slow learner (which I don't think I am, since I love learning languages and it is basically everything that I study) or is it because the education sucks.

Maybe I'm just restless because I am used to be pretty good at languages. But then again, Arabic is my first language and I've been learning English since I was in Kindergarten. I've been reading and writing in both languages for years now. So it is frustrating for me that I am not that good in another languages as I am in Arabic and English.

Regardless, I have been slowly trying to study more than what is required for me at school. I'm fairly good at grammar but my vocabulary isn't impressive. And naturally, since I have been learning French only from school, my pronunciations is awful. (It is getting better now, but you don't want to know how I pronounced French words when I was 14 *shudders*.)

I guess my tongue is just used to talking in three accents and that's it. (I keep switching between American and British English, but lately I have just been using BE. Mostly because I'm most comfortable with it.) But I'm slowly getting used to the accent. I've been using Duolingo mainly for that, so there is some sort of improvement at least.

So anyway, aside from Duolingo, I have been pushing myself to study French more. It would certainly help me in school, but I also would love to be as good in French as I am in English, or at least close.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to do more to help me. Do you have any tips for learning new languages? Any books I should be reading?

Comments

[glinda]

I'd suggest consuming as much culture around the language that you're learning. There's nothing like using a language to improve your use of it, but since talking to native speakers can be nerve-racking or impractical (depending where you live). But its relatively easy to access culture cheaply or for free, the internet makes this much easier now than it was when I was a teenager (when I used to have to travel to the nearest big city to see a foreign-language film or raid the import section of the big record and book shops) with various on demand/streaming services and whole swathes of free stuff. I studied French and German at school but haven't studied them since then, and the main reason that I can still get by without a phrase book if I visit a country where those languages are spoken is that I've maintained by memory of the language with culture. Even with subtitles, if you have some knowledge of the language then a film can help reinforce your knowledge. Popular music and current movies also help give you a feel for how the language is used in everyday life, the slang and contractions that you just can't learn in a classroom. The advantage of french is that its spoken so many places so there's a huge variety of options, you can have your favourite genres in music or movies. I read a variety of comics in Gaidhlig (which I'm learning at the moment) and that's a really fun way to improve your vocabulary (the pictures carry me over the places my vocabulary let me down) and the French have made comics an artform in its own right. Good luck!

[afrozenflower]

I think I need to do that more often. The main reason why my English gets better is because I read/watch stuff in that language and have a couple of foreign friends whom I practice it with. Lately, I have been studying French like something that I need to be good at for my education, not a language I need to use and practise daily.

Thank you! :)

[shanaqui]

Have you tried doing the immersion stuff on Duolingo? It can be pretty hard, but you can usually just pick out the bits you can do. I keep surprising myself with how much I know.

Et peut-etre, vouz pouvais pratiquer avec moi? J'ai besoin de beaucoup de pratique, particulièrement l'écriture et la conversation.

[shanaqui]

...I have no idea what 'pouvais' should be there. 'Pourriez'? I miss formal lessons, sometimes!

[afrozenflower]

I think it is "Pouvez"? French verbs can be such a pain in the ass sometimes.

[shanaqui]

Pouvez is definitely the present tense, but I was going for a conditional. Which was probably over-ambitious, I haven't revised conditionals yet, heh.

[afrozenflower]

Ohhh. (How did I miss this?) I haven't studied the conditionals in a long time too.

[afrozenflower]

I actually just heard about the immersion stuff just now x) It is cause I mainly use Duolingo from my phone. I will give it a shot. :)

i'm going to reply in English since it is 2 AM here and I'm 110% sure that whatever I would write would be wrong.
That would great! I'm busy these days because of my finals, but afterwards I would love to practice with you. :)

[navaan]

I've forgotten all the French I learned in school. I was in Paris a few times last year and it was so hard to scratch together even one sentence. ;P It's a beautiful language, but I didn't use it much for anything.

I'm using Duolingo for languages, too! It's a neat way to study and helps with keeping the language in use, too.

I don't have any tips for learning French especially. But it always helped me to listen to audio books and consume media in the language I'm trying to learn.

[afrozenflowerr.livejournal.com]

Duolingo is really good. And it really helps with pronunciation, since I don't know anyone who speaks French in real life and so I can't practise it with anyone. What languages are you learning?

I think I need to that more. I will start with movies (with subtitles of course) and songs. Then, maybe books. (I will probably wait for a while before that last one though.)

[navaan]

At the moment I'm using Duolingo more for keeping in practice than for learning new things. Mostly for Italian. I grew up bi-lingually, but I'm not actually speaking it much outside of meeting family a few times a year and never learned to write it properly so that's something I'm working on. At work I use English and Japanese every day and I feel by now I'm more fluent in both of them then I'm in Italian and that's a bit sad.

Last year's job stint at a French firm also made me realize that I really want to at least attempt to learn French "again", but an Eastern European language would probably be more important for my job... So, I'm thinking about picking up something new. :D

I think I need to that more. I will start with movies (with subtitles of course) and songs. Then, maybe books. (I will probably wait for a while before that last one though.)

*nods* I've spoken about that with a colleague who is trying to get better at English recently. For some reason I remember that when I was learning English in school I attempted to read books first, before attempting movies, bit it could be that back then I didn't have access to subtitled films as easily as I have today, because today I'd also recommend subtitled movies as the first option. I found it very helpful for English and Japanese to after a while watch movies with Japanese/English subtitles so that I could read along the things that I didn't catch right away, too. Improved my listening comprehension (and in the case of Japanese my character reading ability) tremendously.

[afrozenflowerr.livejournal.com]

Japanese seems very popular. It certainly is here too. I once asked my friend why she wanted to learn it, she told me because she wanted to watch Anime without subtitles. XD
But in all seriousness, she really loves the language.

Yes. Movies/TV shows really help in understanding the slang and how everyone in those countries talk.

[navaan]

Yeah, manga and anime fans are quite frequently among the Japanese students. I studied Japanese at uni and taught the language for three years to a more mixed crowd of students, though. In the end all reasons to learn a language and find out more about different cultures are good reasons. :D

[starswan.livejournal.com]

I have studied a few languages and I studied French starting in the 8th grade. I remember it being a pain in the rear. The grammar is distinctly unfun at times and having to agree in gender and number with everything?! What??

I think that languages that have case systems (without a psychotic slew of pronouns) are less of a headache.
Perhaps French is just tricky for you. I picked up Japanese a lot more quickly and had studied it for half as long.

Some modern fiction is good for practice (not quite as scary as Proust or Balzac). I thin Amazon has that sort of thing. I like to listen to immersive audio things. I don't know if that works for you, but it conveys the structure to me really well, hearing it, like wandering around listening to it throughout the day. Even if I do not get it all, just being surrounded by it.

French is tough.

(frozen) (no subject)

[afrozenflowerr.livejournal.com]

I like the grammar, it is the verbs that are making me tear my hair out. Group III verbs are hard to memorise, and when you manage to do that, you find out that some of the verbs are an entire different thing in the past or future tenses. *sighs*

I think why it is taking so slow because for a long time, I just studied what I had in school, which wasn't a lot. Now, I'm trying to push myself more.

I think I will do that. It is what helped me when I was a kid and still learning French. (Thank you, Disney and ridiculous TV shows..)
I was thinking of reading something in French but I think I will wait a while, at least until I feel like I'm better.

(frozen) (no subject)

[starswan.livejournal.com]

One day, during my junior year, we asked Madame to put on Téléfrancais, this old show produced in Canada in the 80s that we were originally shown in the 8th grade in French 1 and which accompanied our ancient textbooks featuring "Guy" and "Michel" who wore bell bottoms and really big hair, and she blew a gasket.

It is a bit kiddy, but it had a talking pineapple, damn it! XD

I still remember the first conversation from my old textbook:

Michel: Bonjour, Guy.
Guy: Bonjour, Michel. Ca va?
Michel: Oui, ca va. Et toi?
Guy: Pas mal.

I hope it gets a little easier. :)
The subjunctive always kind of bothered me.

(frozen) (no subject)

[afrozenflowerr.livejournal.com]

A talking pineapple! XD Now that will be interesting to see.

[navaan]

Haha, another person who learned Japanese. ;) *high five*

[starswan.livejournal.com]

Yeaaahhh! It's such a gorgeous language! It has such elegance and flow. I like all of the accentuating difficult to translate bits like "n" and "tte" and "nyo" and "wa" versus "ga". They are pretty and add color and subtlety . Plus the "zero pronoun". How brilliant is that!