Our French community

[Sizen]

In response to a question earlier this morning, rdearman brought up an interesting point about what is required for a potential French-only sub-forum to exist and thrive.

Although I would love to see a French-only sub-forum at some point, I think our dear admin is correct. While we do have a large number of French learners, some of whom are very competent in the language, and even a handful of native speakers, we are, on the whole, much less active than the Spanish and maybe even the Portuguese learners on the forum.

From what I can gather, most of our advanced French learners are currently either one of two things: 1. too busy with other matters or 2. focusing on other languages. On top of that, I get the feeling that many of these advanced learners are not as buddy-buddy with each other as some of our Spanish learners are (which is not to say they hate each other ). I just don't know if this is a symptom of our lack of a designated area to chat freely or the cause. Maybe the French community just has such diverging personalities that they don't really get along super well.

As for our beginner/intermediate learners, I see them in passing now and then, but many of them are new users who might not be very familiar with the community, infrequent posters, or, once again, studying other languages at the same time. (None of which is a crime. I'm a very infrequent poster, myself.)

I've never really felt that the French community of HTLAL was particularly strong, especially considering my experiences with Japanese language learning communities in the past, but I wonder why that is when we have the people to make it happen. Am I fretting over nothing or should this be a wake-up call for us French learners? I know I'm starting to feel a little silly with my under 40 posts now.

I have to thank tomgosse, though, for his efforts to create and maintain a French group here on the forum. Without him, I have a feeling we'd be much less active on the whole.

Anyway, I'm not a frequent poster, so maybe my view of things is skewed, but does anybody else share my feelings about the situation? Should we be doing something to improve our community? Besides a French sub-forum (which is unlikely at the moment), do you think there are things that could be done to make for an environment that's more conducive to open discussions in and about French?

[tangleweeds]

The first idea off the top of my head is that someone could launch a weekly "Cette Semaine en Français" (This Week in French) thread in the Multilingual Forum. That could encompass anything from beginners writing a few lines about their pets or weekend adventure, to more experienced speakers discussing (suitably non-inflammatory) current events, science discoveries, cultural events, et cetera.

[tomgosse]

The first idea off the top of my head is that someone could launch a weekly "Cette Semaine en Français" (This Week in French) thread in the Multilingual Forum. That could encompass anything from beginners writing a few lines about their pets or weekend adventure, to more experienced speakers discussing (suitably non-inflammatory) current events, science discoveries, cultural events, et cetera.

You know, I was just about to write the same thing. I guess great minds think a like.

[Expugnator]

Things have changed from the old HTLAL in that many senior members remained and their language skills got better in the meantime. All those HTLAL years I did follow the French subforum topics that I found interesting, but I didn't feel like writing on a regular basis. Now I feel more confident doing so and I bet many of the regular members -which are the ones who migrated to this forum as well- will be willing to write regularly in French now.

[Sizen]

I love the idea of a thread without a set topic that would act as a sort of hub for the French community in lieu of an actual sub-forum. However, I think it might have the same problem as a sub-forum: it would need active contributors, "curators", who would go out of their way to spark conversations rather than just waiting for the right moment to join in on already existing conversations. And seeing as we don't have a lot of French threads popping up consistently, this may mean we don't currently have the kind of contributors needed to keep it alive. There's no reason not to try it out though, so the sooner such a thread is created, the sooner we'll know whether or not my worries are founded.

Anyways, an idea I had today while studying the Spanish sub-forum was to create a thread similar to their "Preséntate" thread, a place where people could give us a quick rundown about themselves in French. It wouldn't necessarily have to mention people's language backstories either, since we usually see that in their logs anyway.

I feel like based on the performance of a couple of threads like these, we would have a good idea whether or not we could even dream of one day having a French-only sub-forum.

[rdearman]

After a discussion with the moderators, we've agreed that there is a lot of interest in a French sub-forum but a question about it's sustainability in the longer term. Therefore we've come up with a method for evaluation of future dedicated sub-forums proposals.

• We need least three senior members to volunteer and commit to participating in the new sub-forum on a regular basis to keep it alive. One of these should be ideally C1 level in the language, and all should have at least 100+ posts on either this forum or the old HTLAL forum. These people are volunteering to become the "curators" of the sub-forum.
• Each curator to create at least one thread in the existing multilingual lounge, and encourage discussion and participation of others.
• Moderators and potential curators will monitor those threads to see if they remain lively for a while, or if they die out. If the threads show good participation with a large number of participants, then we'll consider giving the language it's own sub-forum.

We believe this method would help not just the members who'd like to see a French forum, but have a process for any group to establish a dedicated sub-forum.

Let me take this opportunity to better define the position of the curators. I'd like everyone to see curators as the fun Cruise Director types who make people laugh, have fun, organize activities. Since the moderators will have to deal with infractions of the rules, and all members still have to follow the overall rules of the main forum, So curators don't need to moderate, they need to encourage participation. The downside is that you're committing to posting on a very regular basis, probably on a daily basis.

If you're willing to make the commitment to being a curator for a French sub-forum, then make a thread in the multilingual room, and PM me as a volunteer.

[emk]

Although I would love to see a French-only sub-forum at some point, I think our dear admin is correct. While we do have a large number of French learners, some of whom are very competent in the language, and even a handful of native speakers, we are, on the whole, much less active than the Spanish and maybe even the Portuguese learners on the forum.

My personal impression is that we have a lot of people who speak French, perhaps as many as we've ever had, ranging from absolute beginners to a good number of fairly advanced students and native speakers. Tomgosse has done a great job organizing a French team, and I'd guess it's currently one of the most active teams on the forum, even with TAC starting back up.

From what I can gather, most of our advanced French learners are currently either one of two things: 1. too busy with other matters or 2. focusing on other languages. On top of that, I get the feeling that many of these advanced learners are not as buddy-buddy with each other as some of our Spanish learners are (which is not to say they hate each other ).

No, as far as I know, we get along quite well. Tastyonions and I chat on Skype every now and then, and I hung out in Montréal with sctroyenne later this year, for example. I'd be happy to call many of the more advanced French students personal friends.

The main reasons that I don't write much in French here are that (1) I have limited time for French study right now, and I've decided to prioritize basically everything else over writing, (2) I speak French almost every day of my life, and (3) when I do write in French, I mostly do it with family or native speakers. Similarly, the only French Meetup I go to these days is mostly C1/C2/native: French instructors, people who have lived and worked in Paris for 10 years, bilingual immigrants from Québec who don't want to let their French get too rusty, and so on. Given my limited time for French study, it makes sense to focus on really pushing my skills to their limit.

But if there were some really interesting French discussions going on here, of course I'd be tempted to drop in occasionally.

Anyway, I'm not a frequent poster, so maybe my view of things is skewed, but does anybody else share my feelings about the situation? Should we be doing something to improve our community? Besides a French sub-forum (which is unlikely at the moment), do you think there are things that could be done to make for an environment that's more conducive to open discussions in and about French?

If anybody wants to feel "plugged in" to the French community on HTLAL, I recommend going to the first post in new Fench team log, clicking through to each of the individual logs, and subscribing to a bunch of them. You can subscribe by clicking on the wrench icon at the top-left of the first post. You can also subscribe to the team thread and to any French-language threads in the multilingual subforum. Once you subscribe, you'll receive notifications for new posts.

As for a French language subforum, see rdearman's post above. Mostly, we're just trying to avoid having a lot of language-specific subforums that turn into ghost towns. We made an exception for Spanish because several people stepped up and committed to keeping the subforum alive with regular discussions, and because we wanted to see whether that would help keep things alive.

As rdearman says, basically the best way to proceed is to use the Multilingual Room and show us that there's a core of people who want to post regularly in French.

[tomgosse]

After a discussion with the moderators, we've agreed that there is a lot of interest in a French sub-forum but a question about it's sustainability in the longer term. Therefore we've come up with a method for evaluation of future dedicated sub-forums proposals.

• We need least three senior members to volunteer and commit to participating in the new sub-forum on a regular basis to keep it alive. One of these should be ideally C1 level in the language, and all should have at least 100+ posts on either this forum or the old HTLAL forum. These people are volunteering to become the "curators" of the sub-forum.
• Each curator to create at least one thread in the existing multilingual lounge, and encourage discussion and participation of others.
• Moderators and potential curators will monitor those threads to see if they remain lively for a while, or if they die out. If the threads show good participation with a large number of participants, then we'll consider giving the language it's own sub-forum.

We believe this method would help not just the members who'd like to see a French forum, but have a process for any group to establish a dedicated sub-forum.

Let me take this opportunity to better define the position of the curators. I'd like everyone to see curators as the fun Cruise Director types who make people laugh, have fun, organize activities. Since the moderators will have to deal with infractions of the rules, and all members still have to follow the overall rules of the main forum, So curators don't need to moderate, they need to encourage participation. The downside is that you're committing to posting on a very regular basis, probably on a daily basis.

If you're willing to make the commitment to being a curator for a French sub-forum, then make a thread in the multilingual room, and PM me as a volunteer.

As you were posting this, I started a thread named Cette Semaine en Français in the Mulitlanguage Room. As a level A1 speaker of French I don't qualify as a "cruise director."

[Expugnator]

It may sound like an egg x chicken proposition, but I'd feel much more compelled to writing in French if there was a place where I'd know my post would be accommodated among other French titles. The way it is at the Multilingual Room now there are already a dozen of French threads all scattered among other languages, and that makes it much more difficult for a potential contributor to know what's going on. Either we have a subforum or we stick to one post per language.

Besides, this phpBb version allows for sub-subforums as is the case at the Travel & Culture one. It will make the Board index much less polluted if we keep the language subforum as sub-subforums instead.

[tomgosse]

The first idea off the top of my head is that someone could launch a weekly "Cette Semaine en Français" (This Week in French) thread in the Multilingual Forum. That could encompass anything from beginners writing a few lines about their pets or weekend adventure, to more experienced speakers discussing (suitably non-inflammatory) current events, science discoveries, cultural events, et cetera.

I started a thread in theMultilingual Room, and I stole your name! Of the thread that is, not you.