Some questions about learning French

[RubiksKid]

(You can skip the first two paragraphs.)

Hello everybody. I’m considering learning French sometime within the next two years and I’ve got a few questions if anybody has some time. First, though, I think a little background information might be helpful. I’m currently a junior chemical engineering student, but I’ve found that I really enjoy learning languages. I’ve become reasonably proficient at Spanish and I recently started learning Japanese through self study. I’ve been going to school full-time, but as of next semester I’m probably just going to be part-time that way I can allot more time for other things I enjoy.

Anyway, I’d like to start learning French once I’ve developed a strong language core in Japanese. For Spanish I used Rosetta Stone along with a dictionary, some books, and several online resources. I also ended up taking a college class (4th-semester Spanish). I’m currently doing something similar with Japanese, and I’m thinking about doing the same thing when I start learning French. If possible, I would like to take a class, but taking classes that don’t count toward my degree while taking engineering classes and working is pretty rough, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that.

All right, well that was a little longer than I expected. Here are my questions:

From the little research I’ve done, it seems like there’s a huge difference between written and spoken French. I would ultimately like to become proficient at both. I’m assuming that the spoken form is basically a simplification of the written form. Is this correct? Also, considering this, would it be best to focus on written French to acquire a strong foundation and then focus on spoken French?

Which form of the language do college courses typically teach? Only written? Both?

Does anybody know which form Rosetta Stone teaches? I’ve been using it for pronunciation guidance and vocabulary practice.

Any general tips for somebody looking to learn French?

Thanks in advance!

[Voytek]

I'm considering starting learning French too and I found something that could help you in your journey:
http://www.fluentu.com/french/blog/french-animated-movies/?lang=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjIs_tO1Qc4

Unfortunately, I couldn't find French subtitles for it but the suggested method seems to be quite reasonable and enjoyable.

But you could start with this to get the feel of the languaget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRzUVbmS5aI&list=PLxSeV-tWCo49EUaAwLkN_4tynlymQyQHd

As an English native speaker and knowing Spanish well you should understand much from it right off the bat.

[tastyonions]

There is no more difference between written and spoken French than between written and spoken English. That said, definitely learn to pronounce the written language right before getting into extensive reading. There are things that will trip you up otherwise like silent letters, ellisions, and liaisons.

Once you know the rules, French pronunciation is highly predictable from spelling. But the inverse is not necessarily the case.

[blaurebell]

As others already said before, you should acquire the sound system before you start reading, otherwise it will be very hard to match spoken language to written language. Although the spelling seems a bit mad, it's actually regular, so you don't have to listen to each new word to know how it's pronounced. To learn the sound system, I did Gabriel Wyner's pronunciation trainer first, followed by a few lessons of FSI French Pronunciation and then shadowed half of Assimil French. I combined Assimil with Duolingo and pretty early on started reading with a dictionary. Between Spanish and English there is about 70% of vocabulary overlap with French and the grammar is also very similar to Spanish, so it's pretty easy to pick up if you know both languages. For me it was Pronunciation training + Assimil + Duolingo + intensive reading with a software called Learning with Texts. After 5000 pages read with LWT I listened to an audiobook of one of the books I read, then moved on to Buffy dubbed in French. After about 2 seasons - one with French subtitles, one without, I could understand about 95% of the series. After the whole 7 seasons I understood 98% of it with the rest being only low frequency vocabulary. 5000 pages and the first 2 seasons of Buffy in combination with Pronunciation + Duolingo + Assimil preparation took me about 500h and it was the fastest I ever picked up a language with really good precision in comprehension - I can now listen to audiobooks, radio documentaries, podcasts, read academic books, novels, comics, watch series and movies, and I also understand what French tourists say on the street. I can say things in French too, but I lack fluency, so at some point I will have to make an effort to activate it properly.

[Voytek]

As an English native speaker and knowing Spanish well you should understand much from it right off the bat.

While that may be the case for things like the news, it definitely won't be for spoken French in normal casual conversations. There are not as clear word boundaries in spoken French as in Spanish. I can actually hear each individual word in Spanish but not in French even though i've never studied Spanish.

In that case I can recommend to you the first stage of the L-R method and French in Action.

[blaurebell]

If you can understand 98% and can do pretty much anything as far as receptive language is concerned, how comes you're only saying you're B2 passive ? Sounds like you'd be at a C1 to me !

Ah, I haven't updated that in a while. I also still struggle a bit with slang in some series, simply because I've been focussing too much on high brow content. Not quite there yet! For anything but low-brow speak I'd say I'm pretty much at C1 passive though.

[PeterMollenburg]

Everyone likes different things and therefore will be attracted to learning a new language via varied methods, strategies, avenues etc.

Still a language is multifactorial and requires skills (if you want to be proficient all round) in writing, speaking, reading and listening.

What you choose to develop these skills is a very person thing, but I recommend you take a look at this write up by fellow forum member iguanamon, it contains a lot of wisdom worth considering with regards to language learning.

http://www.language-learners.org/2016/02/07/the-multi-track-approach-to-language-learning-guest-post-by-iguanamon/

Being a little obsessed with French myself, my advice echos those before me as well- the sound system.

I would be very very diligent early on in the piece to develop a good understanding of French pronunciation (and imo, definitely before you do any extensive reading) and be diligent in applying what you learn in terms of how to produce these sounds - ie any French you come across in your learning, do your utmost to sound it all out loud as close to native sounding as possible (recordings are important here).

There are many good quality resources for developing sound French pronunciation skills. Some are free, including the one by FSI, which blaurebell mentioned (i haven't used it myself, but generally speaking FSI is highly regarded, often dry, but still good quality). French in Action is a heavy, very big course, but it also has components sprinkled throughout focusing on different sounds of French. If you worked through this course, you could make it a point to focus intensively on each new sound that the course discusses when it arises in the course, doing so in an intensive manner- noting mouth position, tongue position, teeth position, lips etc - and imitate it as best as possible. From then on after focusing on each sound as you come across them, you should be on the look out for these sounds all the time and aiming to reproduce what you've learned and saying them exactly (physically and phonetically) as the French do.

Always keep your mind flexible to improving your pronunciation as you continue on your learning journey as chances are you'll be a little off with your sounds in the beginning and you must keep an open mind about that so that you can correct these things the moment you discover them. After one month of having learned a sound, you realise from another source that your tone was a little high, or low, or something else. Correct it and change it as soon as you are certain you were off a little.

Don't try to learn all the sounds/phonemes at once. You'll confuse yourself. Pick the trickiest one first maybe- work on it till you've perfected it, then while remaining diligent with that sound, pick the next problematic one, and so on.

Once you've got all the sounds down and have confidence in being able to reproduce all the sounds in French accurately- read if you want to, as much as you like, and do it out loud!

[Cavesa]

(You can skip the first two paragraphs.)

Hello everybody. I’m considering learning French sometime within the next two years and I’ve got a few questions if anybody has some time. First, though, I think a little background information might be helpful. I’m currently a junior chemical engineering student, but I’ve found that I really enjoy learning languages. I’ve become reasonably proficient at Spanish and I recently started learning Japanese through self study. I’ve been going to school full-time, but as of next semester I’m probably just going to be part-time that way I can allot more time for other things I enjoy.

Welcome! It's normal you enjoy languages while studying something totally different, I am like that too. There are learners from various professional backgrounds on this forum.

From the little research I’ve done, it seems like there’s a huge difference between written and spoken French. I would ultimately like to become proficient at both. I’m assuming that the spoken form is basically a simplification of the written form. Is this correct? Also, considering this, would it be best to focus on written French to acquire a strong foundation and then focus on spoken French?

If you mean it is seemingly written differently than read, than I can assure you the pronuciation rules are very regular and not that numerous. It is much more regular than English.

If you mean the difference between standard and colloquial French, than yes, there are differences. Just like there are such differences in English, Spanish, or any other language. But it is nothing to be extremely scared of. It is not necessarily simplification, but you have time to learn it, there is no reason to worry. You'll be very likely learning standard first, later acquire colloquial passively, and you'll learn it actively later, if you need to and have an opportunity.

Which form of the language do college courses typically teach? Only written? Both?

College courses are not the ideal way to learn, in my opinion. They surely teach standard, but the results are not too stellar.
Coursebooks teach standard, and it is the best way to start.

Any general tips for somebody looking to learn French?

There are so many!
Use only good quality resources.
Don't skip grammar. It looks like there is too much, compared to Spanish, at first. But after a certain point, you are just connecting the already known pieces, if you've learnt them properly.
Learn the pronunciation well.
Have fun!!!!!

[tomgosse]

Here's the good news, and the bad news. The good news is that English and French share a lot of the same vocabulary. The bad news is that English and French share a lot of the same vocabulary. Someone once said that English is just French mispronounced. Because we share so many words (cognates and faux cognates) the danger for the student is to pronounce French as if it is English. The vice versa is for a French speaker to pronounce English words as if they were French. So, my main tip for you is learn the correct way to pronounce French. Then start learning grammar and vocabulary, all the while still practicing your pronunciation.

Here is my short list of resources to learn French. These suggestions are for the absolute beginners or faux débutant (false beginner - a person who had some exposure to French but needs to start at the beginning again).

Free online lessons

• Duolingo An excellent and free course for French and other languages. Make sure that you read the tips for each lesson.
• Memrise Another free course for learning vocabulary. Make sure that you use the ones that are authored by Memrise. Some of the other courses are not too good. You can create your own course if you want to.

Pronunciation

• Pimsleur French. Ninety half hour lessons on speaking French. These are audio files. They are quite expensive to buy, but in the United States they are available to borrow from public libraries. The files are mp3's.
• French Pronunciation. From the Language Resource Center at the University of Michigan. These videos focus on the hardest sounds for an English speaker to pronounce.

Grammar

• French Demystified An excellent book for the first time learner of French.
• Easy French Step by Step Written for the beginner to get you up to an A1 level in French.
• The Ultimate French Review and Practice For the slightly more advanced beginner who has had some French language instruction.
• The Ultimate French Verb Review and Practice Another book for the slightly advanced.
• Essential French Grammar This is the grammar that you want to bring with you every where. Small and compact it covers all the essentials. It is a great reference book to have with you.

Dictionaries

• Larousse Concise French-English/English-French Dictionary The best English - French and French - English paperback dictionary around. A little on the hefty side for a paperback.
• Larousse de poche 2016 Dictionnaire du francais An all French language paperback dictionary. You should start using this as soon as possible. French - English dictionaries only tell what the French word translates as. This dictionary tells you what the French word is.

YouTube

• Learn French With Vincent Some of the best free French lessons you will find on YouTube.
• Frencheezee Another great series on French grammar. The author, Cindy, has stopped using this channel and uses this one:
• Learn French With Frencheezee - Cindy's new channel!

[RubiksKid]

Thank you all so much for your replies. They’ve been tremendously helpful. So it sounds like starting with the sound system is essential. I’ll be sure to do that. And as somebody mentioned earlier, once you learn the rules, pronunciation becomes predictable, so that’s encouraging. Even if the rules seem really arbitrary, it’s good to know that I’ll be able to pronounce new words sometime in the future once I’ve reached a certain level of proficiency.