I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

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BrontyTheDino
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I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby BrontyTheDino » Tue Feb 08, 2022 4:55 pm

Intro
Hi all - because of work, I will be moving to Brussels in about a month. I speak zero French. This may be a problem.
In all seriousness, my day-to-day work will be in English. But I'd like to take advantage of the opportunity to learn French and actually immerse myself rather than stay in an English bubble.

(Also - re:language, I understand Belgium has 3 official languages - French, Flemish, and German. My coworkers are Francophones, so given my limited time I'm prioritizing French over the other 2 languages.

Relevant Background
  • I have lived my whole life in the same region of the United States - language will not be the only culture shock I'm expecting
  • I've learned Spanish (via school + self-study) to an advanced level
  • I've learned Hindi (one of my heritage languages) to an intermediate level (as a COVID goal)
  • I'm very interested in linguistics - took a few classes in college and occasionally read academic papers / books on various topics
  • I speak no French (didn't even know the word for "good bye" before I started learning)
  • I will be there for 6 months

Goals
  • Before I go - survival French (basic phrases, can ask for directions, etc.)
  • By the end - can converse and socialize normally
  • Literature and formal language are not priorities - I love reading, but given my limited time I'd rather prioritize colloquial speech over literary/formal language

Prospective Plan / Resources
Due to the similarity between Spanish and French, the plan is to ladder from Spanish (i.e. learn via Spanish).
  1. Reading up on French phonology (IPA, understanding liaison, etc.)
  2. Fluent Forever list of common nouns / adjectives
  3. Learning top 50 verbs + standard conjugations (infinitive, present indicative, perfect/participle)
  4. Brulingua (a Brussels-based French learning resource - language is a bit formal, but I wanted my first resource to be Belgian)
  5. Assimil El Nuevo Francés sin Esfuerzo
  6. Francés para Dummies
  7. Lonely Planet Travel Guides (Belgium, France)
  8. Regular immersion once I arrive (TBD)

Current Progress
I've read up on Standard French phonology and differences with Belgian French. I'm currently going through the Fluent Forever list + top 50 verbs.

I'm able to pick out basic words in songs/videos (stuff like "mon ami" or "dans le métro").

Thanks for reading, and I'd appreciate any comments. I'll update as I go through everything.
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Le Baron
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby Le Baron » Fri Feb 11, 2022 8:11 pm

The other two languages will not be a concern in Brussels, especially German which is nowhere there. Practically everyone is Francophone in Brussels.

You might not need to memorise even 50 verbs. If you are fluent in Spanish some of the basic structure of French will not be a shock to you. The pronunciation and listening to/reproducing it perhaps more so.

Focusing on informal speaking is probably a decent idea. Six months will fly by.
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby Axon » Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:06 pm

With English and Spanish, you will pick up a basic passive reading ability in French with lightning speed. Don't discount the huge influence French has had on English and the excellent resources available to learn French from English.

Based on my experience traveling to and living in countries where I spoke the local language to varying levels, I'd say the biggest challenge for you is going to be using this month to get used to French to a point where day-to-day usage of the language in Belgium isn't quite as alienating or mentally taxing as it would have been with no study.

I would strongly recommend focusing on the following:
- Core vocabulary that differs from English and Spanish (you're already doing this)
- A formal grammar-based resource that gives you a sense of the rules for constructing sentences and figuring out what you're seeing (you're already doing this with Francés para Dummies)
- Natural audio with captions in French. If you search for "Easy French" on YouTube, you'll see lots of videos that fit this description perfectly, both on an Easy French and an Easy Languages channel, as well as other channels of course. If I were you, I would leave these videos playing on loop until you can't stand them. In the past, I've actually downloaded Easy Languages videos as listening material and and cut out the opening music because I couldn't bear to hear it another time. Audio with captions, no matter where you get it, is really important because of the disconnect you'll experience between the ease of reading and the difficulty of listening. Use this as well as Assimil.

Also, you will need to practice output. That may come from repeating your lessons/videos out loud, but it should really come from actual conversation practice. Try to book some online one-on-one classes and run through some scenarios with the tutor such as restaurants, grocery stores, and public transport.

Finally, machine translation is probably better with English-French than for any other language pair. You can use DeepL and Google Translate at the same time to help you understand things, and you can even make lists of phrases you'd like to say and use DeepL to translate them from English to French to practice with your tutor.
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby StrawBoats » Tue Feb 15, 2022 5:57 pm

(Quick disclaimer - I am OP. I am having trouble with my old account (that I had just created T.T), but @mods I hope it is ok for me to continue posting with this new account)

@Le Baron - glad to know the focus on French will be useful. I agree the grammar similarities are very apparent. At least for basic sentences, it seems prepositions, verbs, etc. work very similarly. A few things which I've noticed differ are some uses of "de" (e.g., "Je viex de l'eau" vs "Yo quiero agua"), and the pronouns "en" and "y".

Two things which I keep forgetting is not to use the personal a from Spanish (e.g. it's "J'ai vu l'homme", not "J'ai vu à l'homme") and that "pas" is the main negative word (not "ne").

@Axon
Thank you! I've definitely noticed that a lot of words are readily understandable (either English or Spanish) - at least in written form. And those are excellent suggestions - I've been mostly sticking to audio from courses, but I'll check out those resources.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So far I've added most of the Fluent Forever list and the common verbs list (focusing on the present tense, infinitive, and participle). Going is a bit slow due to work picking up this week, but I've tried to have a few short conversations in French. Written French has been ok (within the bounds of what I can say), but Spoken French is much harder - as everyone has noted. Definitely an area of practice.

I've started listening to French music (including rap) which has been nice to get used to how the sounds string together. Combinations like "j't'veux" or "tu l'faire" are fun to try and mimic as well.

Next steps are to continue working my way through the list, and incorporate more conversations/audio into my routine.
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby Iversen » Tue Feb 15, 2022 8:55 pm

Poor you... whatever name you end up with.

In your place I would concentrate on learning some politeness phrases and words for institutions, foods, shop types etc. etc. (you'll need them!) and then use a standard textbook with audio (NOT expensive things like the heavily marketed Rosetta) to get a basic foundation in the language. One month may not be enough to reach the level where you can live as a Francophone being so try to establish an all-round survival kit instead, and then continue your studies when you have arrived instead of relying entirely on osmosis from the surroundings.

PS: the forum has some technical problems for the moment, but one thing that still (mostly) functions is the "remember me" thing during login.
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby StrawBoats » Sat Apr 23, 2022 10:37 am

Hi all - it's been a while! But figured I should update on how things are going.

Unfortunately, adding the Fluent Forever words + common verbs is taking a lot longer than expected. I naively assumed it was a 2-3 day activity, instead... here I am 1.5 months in and still not fully done. Moving and settling in has taken a lot of my time up as well.

Speaking of which

Update: I moved! I'm finally here, though with unfortunately less French abilities than I would have hoped. But using French regularly + setting up several language exchanges has helped me realize a few things:

(1) Listening comprehension is extremely important (as was pointed out above). I can typically say basic sentences (especially as I'm learning common words), and the grammar is similar enough to Spanish that what I say is understandable. The problem is whatever they say back (even if I know all of the words) is just a garbled mess.

Accordingly, I've started incorporating more audio into my routine. For now that means using Pimsleur while I commute (I'm almost done with Unit 1), but once I feel I can understand easy podcasts / audio, I plan to switch over to that.

(2) Word lists are surprisingly helpful. I was actually very skeptical of this (since I've had bad experience with word lists in the past). But most of the words I've memorized through the Fluent Forever wordlist have shown up multiple times in my daily life.

So, even if it's a bit boring, memorizing the word list is actually paying good dividends with my vocabulary.

(3) You need a high level of grammar to even have a simple conversation. This might be obvious, but (for comparison) when I learned Spanish I had years of classes and a solid grammatical foundation before I "went into the wild" and spoke to natives.

It really hammers home that advanced vs simple grammar is kind of a made up thing. Languages have grammar, period. Natives don't care if the imperfect is taught later in your course than the simple future, because in their head they just know whatever you said was wrong.

My takeaway here is sprinting through my courses earlier, rather than spreading them out over time, will be more effective, as I'll at least have been exposed to all the grammar forms.

If I didn't know Spanish grammar, I would probably have been extremely confused from my conversations with natives right now.
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StrawBoats
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby StrawBoats » Tue May 10, 2022 10:10 am

Hi all - a few updates (and milestones) below:

1. Progress on materials:
  • I'm almost finished "learning" the Fluent Forever list! (Learning in quotes as this means adding it to my Anki deck - the actual memorization will happen over time). A few more words to go, but the light at the end of the tunnel is great.
  • I've completed Pimsleur French Unit 1, and am working through Unit 2
  • I'm working my way through the common verbs and simple conjugations for each (present indicative, imperfect, infinitive, passé composé) - I'm finding the pronunciation is fairly easy, but the spelling is a bit trickier

2. Milestones:
  • I had a ~30 min conversation and a ~60 minute conversation in French! Granted, there's a lot of fumbling, and I missed maybe 1/2-1/3 of what I heard, but progress is progress none-the-less.
  • I'm starting to understand the lyrics of French pop songs (when reading - not listening). I can pick out maybe ~30% of the lyrics and fully understand them (as in - I could say these back in a normal conversation)
  • Supposedly my accent is "quite good". This is very vague (for an American? for someone who's just started learning?) but at least I'm on the right path.
  • Yesterday I skimmed a practice DELF A2 test and it feels very doable (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), as a pulse check.

3. Next Steps:
  • I'll continue my earlier plan of finishing the word lists + a basic grammar course. At my current pace I expect this to take several weeks.
  • After that, I might want to drill listening + speaking explicitly. I've found an FSI pronunciation course that looks promising. But I'll re-evaluate after I finish the grammar course.

ADMIN EDIT: To get the post to have bullet points, you have to use the [*] like you did, but also the [list] has to be wrapped around them. You can just edit this post to see where I added the list keywords.

OP EDIT: Thank you admin, I see what you mean.
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LanguageLearner0007
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Tue May 10, 2022 2:19 pm

Oh la la... I feel like I, for once, can provide some useful advice.

1. You will be there for 6 months. This is not remotely enough to learn French, not even close. This will be a nice "international experience" for you but to expect that you can converse/socialize normally after 6 months is wildly unrealistic, unless you're really special.

2. In this amount of time, you cannot do any structural learning, I would focus on getting a private tutor on Italki (quite cheap) and ask them to walk you through the basics in French. Do not read books, interact with a person who is willing to interact with you in French.

Now, with regards to your goals:

1) Before I go - survival French (basic phrases, can ask for directions, etc.)

I'd argue this is unnecessary. Due to the presence of international organizations, you'd survive, and possible thrive with English alone. It's not like France or French-speaking Switzerland, much easier.

2) By the end - can converse and socialize normally.

I can honestly say this is impossible in such a short timeframe. If you do this, you have an extraordinary ability with languages.

I'd focus on a more realistic goal, i.e. knowing some common phrases and basic sentence constructions.

3) Prioritize colloquial speech over literary/formal language

Talk to someone who has the patience for your low level of French. This would be either a tutor or a friend.



Let us know how it goes and I'm also happy to respond to any questions, if needed.
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StrawBoats
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby StrawBoats » Wed May 11, 2022 10:42 am

Hi! Thanks for the comment. And you're right - I'm not shooting for full fluency here. My goal is more the ability to "operate independently" i.e. make small talk, handle day-to-day affairs, communicate without needing to resort to English. A friend of mine (who also speaks English and Spanish) told me it took him ~1 year to become fully fluent in French, and I have only 1/2 of that time.

I've been regularly meeting with 2 French speakers for conversational exchanges. I like the push for a tutor - I was planning to postpone until I had a better base (as, I'd rather a tutor tell me "you need to use the imperfect here" as opposed to "the word for after is "après") but I should swallow my hubris and just be clearer with a tutor about my goals.

I'd argue this is unnecessary. Due to the presence of international organizations, you'd survive, and possible thrive with English alone. It's not like France or French-speaking Switzerland, much easier.


Many people told me this and surprisingly it has not been the case. Surprisingly often, I am in a situation where I need to do something and English is not an option (e.g., a shop keeper doesn't speak English and my card is declined, my landlord sent a repairman to fix the lights, my cab driver needs to discuss the rate, a path is closed and I need to figure out an alternate route). Most people do speak English, but Spanish (and Hindi!) have saved me a surprising number of times.

Maybe my experience is atypical but I can't imagine living here comfortably without speaking French.
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Re: I speak no French and am moving to a French-speaking region in a month

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 11, 2022 1:11 pm

It's a bit late now, but you probably should have followed one solid path back in February. That Pimsleur 1 ought to have been done by March to have been hovering around Pimsleur 3-4 today. You have Spanish under your belt already (among others) so I assume you already have a view of the sort of path this takes?

I realise there is always a jump (sometimes a big one) between learning and then being dropped into the actual speaking arena, which is why 'survival French' was necessary to help solve the immediate day-to-day issues.

I agree that the 'get by in English' approach is not always possible. Even in a very English-friendly country like here in the Netherlands you can't live normally day-to-day without Dutch. Living in a place, as you know, is very far from being a tourist. The locksmith, shopkeeper, person on the end of a helpline is not as willing to shift to another language to do their daily work.
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