Learning French in Japan

[katsu]

A Youtube link that I stumbled on earlier today in case any French learners are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgJJS9bO-MKcpyMWoo-ugHQ

It's a set of short videos based on Les Cahiers d'Esther, a series of comics by Riad Sattouf, a cartoonist most famous for his memoir L'Arabe du futur. The videos are each only two or three minutes long, but there are 50 episodes in all. They're all true stories of the author's 10-year-old daughter's school life, making this a kind of modern-day Le Petit Nicolas. And because they're narrated by a 10-year-old, the French is pretty easy despite the lack of any subtitles.

Here's the first episode:

[katsu]

I haven't been writing this log long enough to do a year-end recap, so instead I thought I'd write out some goals for the next year.

French
Currently the only language I'm actively studying. My comprehension is slowly but steadily improving, so on that front I just plan to keep on doing what I'm doing. I hope that by the end of 2020, I'll be able to watch most French movies/TV without any subtitles.

My other goal is output. I visited a friend who lives in France last summer, and I'll probably have the opportunity to visit again next summer. By then I hope to be able to (a) navigate shopping/dining out in French without major difficulty, and (b) make basic small talk with people. These are pretty modest goals, but one obstacle that stands in the way is interference from Japanese--whenever I don't know a word, or even when I do know the word but it takes me a second to access it, Japanese pops out. I sometimes end up spewing out these bizarre hybrids of French and Japanese which are incomprehensible to French speakers. You'd think I'd have more interference from English, since the languages are more similar, but I guess my brain has a single two-way "English"/"Non-English" switch in it. I know the only way to overcome this is lots of practice speaking French with native speakers, so I'm probably going to have to look for a tutor/language partner at some point this coming year.

Japanese
I'm fluent in Japanese, and haven't actually "studied" the language in years. I use it both at home and at work (much more than I use English), so I don't have to do anything special to keep it up. However, I do have one major Achille's heel: writing the characters. I learned how to write all the Joyo characters about 20 years ago, but the memories are mostly gone, since I do all of my writing on keyboards nowadays. This is problematic, since I'm a teacher, and not knowing the characters means I can't write on the board (although not that problematic, since I use powerpoint for most of my classes). But at least two or three times a year I run into some embarrassing situation where I need to write something by hand, and I need to pull out my phone and look up each character. And even if I do that, my handwriting looks like that of a 6-year-old. I'm going to try to find a suitable Anki deck and devote 10-15 minutes a day to this.

Latin
I have a long history with Latin, going back about 20 years. I'm fascinated by Roman history and culture, and so every year or two I get fired up, break out my grammar books and start working through Lingua Latina. After a month or two, the enthusiasm dies out, I move on to a new obsession, and I gradually forget everything I've learned. My last such attempt was two years ago, during which I almost made it to the end of the first volume of Lingua Latina as well as most of Jones and Sidwell's Reading Latin. I'd like to try again this year, but I'm thinking that I've been through various introductory textbooks so many times that I don't need to go through the whole memorizing paradigms phase yet again. Instead, I'd like to just plunge into extensive reading, using facing-page translations or interlinear texts to work my way through some real original Roman works. I did this with French and Harry Potter: I'd read the first paragraph in English, then the same paragraph in French, alternating throughout the whole book. By the time I got the fourth volume or so, I could mostly read the French without reference to the English. I don't see why the same thing wouldn't work in Latin. If anyone has any recommendations for (relatively) easy texts to start with, I'd be grateful.

Ancient Greek
The Iliad is one of my all-time favorite works of literature, and being able to one day read it in the original has long been a "bucket list" item. However, there aren't that many resources for Homeric Greek, so I think the best way to approach this goal is by way of Attic Greek. I picked up a copy of the Italian Athenaze a few years ago, but didn't get very far. This is a long-term goal that I may or may not get to in 2020.

Italian
Italy is probably at the top of my list of places I want to visit, so at some point I'd like to get at least to a basic tourist-level in the language. However, I'm worried about it interfering with French, so I'll probably wait until I'm stronger in that language before starting Italian. I doubt I'll get to this in 2020, but maybe 2021?

[katsu]

More French movies/TV:

Camille redouble A sweet movie about a middle-aged woman who conks her head and wakes up back in high school, giving her a chance to re-do her life. The French is relatively easy. (DVD)

Edmond The story of the creation and first performance of Cyrano de Bergerac, pretty transparently modeled on Shakespeare in Love. Pleasant enough, but not great. (DVD)

L'Auberge espagnole, Les Poupées Russes, Casse-tête Chinois Trilogy about a young man (Romain Duris) which follows his life from his 20s to his 40s. I liked this a lot, especially the first movie which really captures the feeling of being young and in a foreign country. The French dialogue is not too hard, although the main character's narration would have been tough without subtitles. Also note that there are several other languages (mainly English and Spanish) spoken throughout. Saw on DVD, but one of the movies (I think the second one?) has only English subtitles. The others also have French captions.
The same director has another good movie, simple called Paris, with Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche as siblings.

Quai d'Orsay Great political satire, although even with French subtitles I could barely follow some of the conversations. (DVD)

Tout ce qui brille Two young friends in their 20s who have grown up in the banlieue but are trying to pass themselves off as rich in order to hang out with the cool kids. Liked it a lot, but the French is very fast and loaded with verlan. The two writers of this movie (Géraldine Nakache and Hervé Mimran) have a new one coming out this year. (DVD)

Nous Trois ou Rien The comedian/rapper Kheiron wrote and directed this movie based on his own father's life in Iran and later immigration to France. Loved this, although it's a bit weird at first to be watching a story set in Iran but full of familiar French actors speaking French. (DVD)

Toute première Fois A fairly formulaic romantic comedy, with the twist that the main character is a gay man who has possibly fallen in love with a woman. Fine, but I only saw it a few days ago and I can barely remember it. (DVD)

Au Revoir là-Haut Good but not great adaptation of the novel. Worth watching for the visuals--production design, cinematography--alone. The French is not too hard. (DVD)

Mytho Series about a woman who tells a lie which spirals out of control. Very good, with a great central performance by Marina Hands. I wish that it hadn't ended with a cliffhanger, but I guess that's practically required of TV shows these days. (Netflix)

Le Bazar de la Charité Set in the 1890s in the aftermath of a famous deadly fire. I've only seen the first few episodes, and have kind of lost interest in the story. I'll probably finish it at some point, if only to enjoy the recreation of nineteenth century Paris. (Netflix)

I've also just finished season 3 of The Good Wife, which I'm watching with the French dub. I can't tell if it's made any difference in my listening yet, but I suppose it's too soon to tell. One interesting thing I've noticed--I occasionally turn on the French subtitles when I can't figure out what's going on, and in the subtitles the coworkers on the show tutoyer each other, while in the dub they all use vous with each other. I wonder if this is just to make the subtitles shorter (since tu is shorter than vous), or if there's some other reason for the difference. I suppose it must be hard translating "you" into French, since you always need to choose one of the pronouns in French, and there are probably cases where it's not obvious which is more appropriate.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’m blown away by the size and breadth of your DVD pile. Very impressive! What is your strategy? Order a few things every month? Mega order all at once? How do you find new things to buy? (And most importantly, but you totally don’t have to answer, but it would change my life: how do you convince your spouse you need all these DVDs?)

[gsbod]

L'Auberge espagnole, Les Poupées Russes, Casse-tête Chinois Trilogy about a young man (Romain Duris) which follows his life from his 20s to his 40s. I liked this a lot, especially the first movie which really captures the feeling of being young and in a foreign country. The French dialogue is not too hard, although the main character's narration would have been tough without subtitles. Also note that there are several other languages (mainly English and Spanish) spoken throughout. Saw on DVD, but one of the movies (I think the second one?) has only English subtitles. The others also have French captions.
The same director has another good movie, simple called Paris, with Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche as siblings.

If you haven't already seen it, I'd also recommend Un air de famille by the same director.

[katsu]

I’m blown away by the size and breadth of your DVD pile. Very impressive! What is your strategy? Order a few things every month? Mega order all at once? How do you find new things to buy? (And most importantly, but you totally don’t have to answer, but it would change my life: how do you convince your spouse you need all these DVDs?)

I get most of my DVDs on Amazon.fr, and order a pile of stuff every month or two (the titles in the above post represent a few months worth of purchases). I spend a lot of time prowling around the website for deals and special prices--I got several of the DVDs mentioned above in a pre-Christmas "5 DVDs for 30 euros" sale. In Japan, where a single DVD can go for the equivalent of 30 or 40 euros, this almost feels like I'm getting them for free, even when you factor in postage. Prices fluctuate a lot on Amazon, so if you set up price watches for thing you want, you can occasionally get lucky--I snagged a Cédric Klapisch boxset with 8 of the director's films for 10 euros. My current white whale is the blu-ray of all 7 seasons of the crime show Engrenages, which was originally priced at 40 euros when it was first released. I was too slow to put it in my panier, and the price shot up to 70. Still waiting for it to come back down...

Regarding how I choose what to buy, I started out knowing very little about French film. Maybe my single favorite thing about learning the language so far is the fact that it's introduced me to a whole range of actors and filmmakers that I didn't know about before. I began by googling things like "best French films" or "good French movies for learners", and getting what seemed to be recommend by a lot of people. Looking back at my Amazon history, my first purchase was the two OSS 117 movies as well as Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. After that, I gradually developed a list of actors and directors I like, and I also read reviews on sites like senscritique.com.

As for the spouse issue, we've agreed on a (modest) budget that I can spend each month, and I've stuck to it. I've been a DVD addict aficionado since way before I started learning French, so she's used to it.

[katsu]

If you haven't already seen it, I'd also recommend Un air de famille by the same director.

Thanks for the recommendation! I actually have this DVD, part of a boxset of Cédric Klapisch films, but haven't seen it yet. I'll move it to the top of the to-watch pile.

[gsbod]

Thanks for the recommendation! I actually have this DVD, part of a boxset of Cédric Klapisch films, but haven't seen it yet. I'll move it to the top of the to-watch pile.

I actually have a Cédric Klapisch boxset due to be delivered to me this morning! I can't wait to get stuck in.

[katsu]

An update on my progress:

French
I'm halfway through season 5 of The Good Wife, and I can definitely tell that my listening has improved, after a total of 92 hours of unsubtitled French. When I started, there were entire scenes that I couldn't follow, whereas now I can at least get the gist of everything. Still a long way to go before I can understand everything, though.

I'm also still plugging away at FSI drills. I'm on unit 15 now (not as impressive at is sounds, since I started with unit 7). Although these drills have been described by another forum user as a "hellish slog", I actually enjoy doing them. They're a good way of going from "I technically know this grammar point, but have to think about it consciously" to "this just feels correct". The best thing about them is the time pressure put on you to supply a response. This is something you typically don't get in a class--most teachers will ask you something, and then wait patiently for you to assemble your answer in your head before you say it. The FSI drills don't have that kind of patience--they want your response right now, and if you can't get it out in time, tough luck, on to the next question. I usually repeat each tape until I can answer everything in the time given, which can take 6 or 7 times for some of the harder topics.

Because the drills are so dry, I try to imagine some context in which I'm having the conversation--for example, if the drill requires me to convert sentences from one verb tense to another, I'll pretend that I'm correcting an incompetent employee, getting more and more mad with each mistake. I find that adding context like this, and imagining a concrete situation as I do the drills, makes it feel more like I'm actually using the language.

I'm also reading the French translation of Madeline Miller's Circe, which I picked up in France last summer. The French is a bit too difficult for me, so I got the English version and am reading them in parallel--a page or so of the English, then the same part in French. Every time I try reading real French literature I give up after 10-20 pages, so for now I'm going to stick with this parallel texts technique.

Ancient Greek
Against my better judgment, I've started Ancient Greek, with the ultimate goal of being able to read Homer in the original. I'm starting with Assimil in order to get a feel for the pronunciation. I find the reconstructed pitch accent on Assimil pretty hit-or-miss (and some of the speakers sound ridiculously artificial), but at least it gives me a model to imitate. After a week or two of this, I plan to start with the Italian Athenaze. I'm tempted to also get the JACT Reading Greek, since I liked the Latin version, but before I shell out the money for that I'm going to wait and make sure this interest in Greek is more than a passing phase.

[lusan]

As for dubbed content, I've tried a few episodes of different things, but without subtitles my comprehension is so low that I can't follow the story and quickly lose interest. Right now I'm torn between soldiering on with subtitled content, hoping that my audio comprehension eventually improves enough to do without them, or forcing myself to do without subtitles now, putting myself in a "sink or swim" situation. I suppose a compromise would be to watch something with subtitles once, then watch the same thing again without. I guess I'll have to experiment with each of these methods and see what seems to work.

A secret: one year and 3 months ago, I picked up French. Eight months later I began watching Buffy and I understood rien. I almost gave up but I decided to stick to it but -WITHOUT SUBTITLES. I just sat in front of the screen 45 min every single day until the very end of the 7 seasons. What I got? I began by understanding nothing, and ended by forgetting that I was watching French films. I think that I went from 0 to 80 %. By the way, I do not watch the series as entertainment but to learn the language. You know, un devoir. So compelling material or not, this is not, for me, the issue. Drop the subtitles... allow the brain to figure things out.... I do not mean to stop learning vocabulary, grammar, etc but at the intermediary level listening is done, I believe, as going to the gym... because it is good... sound: the real access to the language.... and yes, I hate the gym!

Give yourself 200-300 hours of film watching... and je pense que vous serez très content.