Learning French in Japan
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 7:05 am
Hi everyone. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Some quick background: In the past I've been through several cycles of studying French intensively for a few months, and then losing interest for several more months (or years). My current goal is to try to end this "feast or famine" pattern by getting to a point where I can simply watch French media/read French books without too much trouble, so that I can simply make using the language part of my everyday life, rather than something that I have to "study". I can currently follow most TV shows *if* they have French subtitles, but turn off the subtitles, and my comprehension drops to almost nothing. Within the next year or so, I hope to get to a level where I can at least get the gist of TV/movies without any subtitles.
I'd eventually like to use this log to talk about movies/TV/books that I've discovered, but in this first post I'll mention some of the materials I've used to get to this point. The resource I've used most is Pimsleur--over the years I've gone through levels 1-5 several times each. I last finished level 5 a couple of months ago, and began looking for the next thing to listen to during my commute. I first tried various types of passive listening, like podcasts, but my mind tends to wander and I end up not listening to anything. I finally hit on the FSI drills, which, as deadly boring as they can be, force me to actually pay attention. I'm currently on chapter 10, and I find the repetition really works in helping me remember tricky bits of grammar like the order of pre-verbal pronouns. My only major complaint--FSI's obsession with using inversion to form questions, which is as far as I can tell is the least-used way to make questions in current French.
Another resource I like is the "Grammaire en dialogues" series of books. I started with the niveau débutant, and am now half-way through the niveau intermédiaire. Each chapter in these books focuses on a single grammar point, and consists of three pages: one with a dialogue (occasionally more than one) illustrating the grammar, one with an explanation (in French), and a final page of exercises. The best point of the books is the CDs with the dialogues read by voice actors. This is some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in language learning materials. I find that having even a bit of emotion in the line readings increases its effectiveness by a huge amount. Also, hearing grammar and vocab being used in actual, understandable settings rather than as disconnected, contextless sentences makes the grammar and vocab itself far more memorable. My favorite so far is the writer being interviewed in one of the dialogues in the niveau débutant. Although he's explaining to the interviewer that "Je suis un homme normal," the actor's line readings are dripping with such hilarious arrogance that several of the phrases he uses are burned into my memory. My only complaint is that the exercises for each dialogue are so few. I'd love to have an hour's worth of FSI-style drills for each chapter, read by the same voice actors. Mais il ne faut pas rêver...
I'd eventually like to use this log to talk about movies/TV/books that I've discovered, but in this first post I'll mention some of the materials I've used to get to this point. The resource I've used most is Pimsleur--over the years I've gone through levels 1-5 several times each. I last finished level 5 a couple of months ago, and began looking for the next thing to listen to during my commute. I first tried various types of passive listening, like podcasts, but my mind tends to wander and I end up not listening to anything. I finally hit on the FSI drills, which, as deadly boring as they can be, force me to actually pay attention. I'm currently on chapter 10, and I find the repetition really works in helping me remember tricky bits of grammar like the order of pre-verbal pronouns. My only major complaint--FSI's obsession with using inversion to form questions, which is as far as I can tell is the least-used way to make questions in current French.
Another resource I like is the "Grammaire en dialogues" series of books. I started with the niveau débutant, and am now half-way through the niveau intermédiaire. Each chapter in these books focuses on a single grammar point, and consists of three pages: one with a dialogue (occasionally more than one) illustrating the grammar, one with an explanation (in French), and a final page of exercises. The best point of the books is the CDs with the dialogues read by voice actors. This is some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in language learning materials. I find that having even a bit of emotion in the line readings increases its effectiveness by a huge amount. Also, hearing grammar and vocab being used in actual, understandable settings rather than as disconnected, contextless sentences makes the grammar and vocab itself far more memorable. My favorite so far is the writer being interviewed in one of the dialogues in the niveau débutant. Although he's explaining to the interviewer that "Je suis un homme normal," the actor's line readings are dripping with such hilarious arrogance that several of the phrases he uses are burned into my memory. My only complaint is that the exercises for each dialogue are so few. I'd love to have an hour's worth of FSI-style drills for each chapter, read by the same voice actors. Mais il ne faut pas rêver...