The great push to C2 (Extra French Edition)

[Jim]

I'm still constantly trying to insert French words into English sentences, with different phrases taking over at different times - currently I keep trying to have things "s'averer" as something else, for instance.

I do this! It really annoys my wife, but fortunately I've managed to avoid actually speaking French accidentally at work.

Separately, because I've actually quite missed writing in English, I've been thinking of developing a series of posts going into greater detail on this whole AFATT method specifically for French learners, dos and donts, mistakes I made, what I found the most useful, things like that. Would this be of interest to anybody? Let me know

Yes, I would definitely be interested to hear more. Whilst a full AFATT isn't possibly for me, I'm always trying to find ways to further integrate French into my daily life.

[whatiftheblog]

I'm still constantly trying to insert French words into English sentences, with different phrases taking over at different times - currently I keep trying to have things "s'averer" as something else, for instance.

I do this! It really annoys my wife, but fortunately I've managed to avoid actually speaking French accidentally at work.

I, on the other hand, have not. "Don't you mean rally" is now a running joke in my group of friends after this presidential campaign, where I was excitedly sharing all the details and kept saying "in his meeting- ahem, in his rally..."

Separately, because I've actually quite missed writing in English, I've been thinking of developing a series of posts going into greater detail on this whole AFATT method specifically for French learners, dos and donts, mistakes I made, what I found the most useful, things like that. Would this be of interest to anybody? Let me know

Yes, I would definitely be interested to hear more. Whilst a full AFATT isn't possibly for me, I'm always trying to find ways to further integrate French into my daily life.

(Crap, looks like I accidentally deleted this piece while editing my previous post in a haze last night, somehow missing your response!)

So for those low on time, what I've found very helpful is identifying gaps throughout the day that can be stuffed with bite-size pieces of French. Your commute is one of the most obvious ones, and any exercise piece of your day (if applicable), as well as the shower / getting ready morning routine - that's between 20-60 minutes a day where you don't have much else going on (unless you have kiddos running around, of course). I ended up wasting $20 on a crappy shower speaker before having to upgrade shortly thereafter to a $49 model, so go for a mid-range one from the beginning.

In this sense, it's good to form habits - for example, I got a pair of big over-ear bluetooth headphones (that I 100% did not have to spend $200 on btw, but what's done is done) and now do all my chores to French, including vacuuming. I've gotten to the point where, when preparing for chores, I take out my headphones first, then the vacuum, then the supplies etc. Set up your phone strategically so that it can maintain a good bluetooth connection with your headset (or put it in your pocket if you have a big space) and go at it. It's not only helpful for French, it also makes the chores themselves much more pleasant. I cleaned my entire range with vigor while listening to a 45-minute podcast

Any activity that you do by yourself or in a quiet space (and doesn't involve much thinking in English) can be supplemented by French. I hem my pants by hand (it's a weird habit, I know), so French is always on for that, of course, as well as wrapping presents, packing boxes, etc. If you work in your garage / garden, that might be a good period of time to add French. Since there's SO much free material out there on literally every topic, it can also be quite educational/engaging.

Cooking is another good option, and adding to this by using recipes in French (for any type of cuisine). Any DIY instructions, same. If you read specific kinds of blogs, like travel or lifestyle, add in/replace with French equivalents. I think the AJATT guy was 100% on the money in highlighting that it's the little everyday life things that make a native speaker native - they learn their native language by just living in it.

Hope this was helpful!

(Also, just, wow - I'm beating world records for the number of parentheses one can use per post. And pointing this out in... parentheses. )

[Ani]

(Being a math person, I like parenthesis. They add clarity)

I never thought of over the ear blue tooth headphones. That's brilliant. I sacrifice a lot of listening time to the fact that my house is *really* loud, and there are so many times when adding the noise of my blue tooth speaker just makes for too much total noise.

I'm super happy for you and inspired by your efforts. I spent a couple hours the other day researching graduate/phd programs in France despite what a ridiculous impossibility that is for me

[whatiftheblog]

(Being a math person, I like parenthesis. They add clarity)

I never thought of over the ear blue tooth headphones. That's brilliant. I sacrifice a lot of listening time to the fact that my house is *really* loud, and there are so many times when adding the noise of my blue tooth speaker just makes for too much total noise.

I'm super happy for you and inspired by your efforts. I spent a couple hours the other day researching graduate/phd programs in France despite what a ridiculous impossibility that is for me

Thanks so much, Ani! Ah, see, that's a circumstance I hadn't even considered since my home is so quiet, minus the plaintive meowing for third helpings of tuna. But yes, they are excellent for when you need to space out and get your French on! Here I'd recommend going for either a simple pair or the full Bose $350 monstrosity, which I personally wasn't prepared to spend. I got the $200 beats, and while they're fine, they neither completely cancel out noise (just muffle it) nor fit super comfortably (might just be a me thing, though), so basically, I could've gotten a more comfortable pair with the same amount of noise cancellation at a fraction of the cost. Still, this is the most first-world problem ever, so I'll live

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

[whatiftheblog]

Well, I've successfully written (in French) my way into an apartment rental for the first 8 months of my stay via airbnb, so that's nice. Still waiting for my official letter to start the visa process, but I've already received a dossier to fill out, a calendar, instructions, the whole getup. I secretly hope there's swag or a school shop or something.

I've also started thinking more precisely about what direction I'd like to take this in, what sort of topic I'd like to cover for my thesis (I have some ideas involving Paris 2024!), and how I'll be structuring my time day-by-day. I will still be freelancing in English 10-20 hours / week, since the apartment ended up going seriously over budget, but the rest of my time will be fully lived in French. To supplement this, I've lined up a few FUN MOOCs in French:

1. Le tourisme culturel aujourd'hui : quels enjeux ? (le tourisme c'est l'un des secteurs qui m'intéressent le plus)
2. Socle en Mathématiques (bah pourquoi pas ?)
3. Introduction aux méthodes d'évaluation d'impact des politiques publiques (ça fait des années que je n'ai pas révisé cela, c'est pour une thèse éventuelle)
4. La physique : vive[z] l'expérience ! (j'ai toujours cru que je suis nulle en physique, mais en fait ce n'est peut-être pas tout à fait le cas, et en tout cas ce sera utile)
5. Apprendre le marketing autrement : la méthode du produit fil rouge 1 (j'aime ces petits trucs sur les opérations commerciales)
6. Biodiversité et changements globaux (j'essaye de rattraper les études environnementales que je n'avais jamais fait auparavant)
7. Ressources naturelles et développement des territoires en Afrique (je suis toujours attirée par tout ce qui relève du développement car je travaille dans l'espace sécuritaire pour soutenir le développement, mais pas dans la région africaine, donc cela aussi c'est du rattrapage)
8. Des rivières et des hommes : hydrologie, hydraulique et géomorphologie (voilà, donc je ne sais pas vraiment ce que ça veut dire, mais j'ai déjà eu la chance de travailler sur quelques projets maritimes et l'eau m'intéresse beaucoup, ça peut être utile, je n'en sais rien !)
9. Création d'entreprises innovantes: de l'idée à la start-up (je regarde ce genre de videos de temps en temps parce que je suis intéressée par la thématique, mais aussi parce que j'aime la façon dont ils parlent de la gestion des projets)
10. Échanges et proximité : la première loi de la géographie (toujours sur les questions territoriales / environnementales)

If anyone wants to join me, let me know! I'm not going after a certificate or anything, just out of intellectual curiosity

[arthaey]

If anyone wants to join me, let me know! I'm not going after a certificate or anything, just out of intellectual curiosity

Do you have links to these online classes? I'm curious, but my French may not be up to it yet.

[whatiftheblog]

If anyone wants to join me, let me know! I'm not going after a certificate or anything, just out of intellectual curiosity

Do you have links to these online classes? I'm curious, but my French may not be up to it yet.

Sure thing - they're at http://fun-mooc.fr. You can sign up for however many you want before they start or while they're running, and you'll be able to access the archived course materials (lectures etc) through your account even after the course is over. However, you can't sign up for a course that's already over, so I'd recommend just signing up for whatever looks interesting to have access to those materials whenever you're ready, even if you're not sure you'll be able to go through them immediately.

[whatiftheblog]

Hey folks! I thought I'd stop by to give you some source updates, in case anyone's looking for more interesting native French media:

1. I've replaced a large portion of my French news consumption with podcasts due to the superior quality of the latter, and I can't say enough good things about these recent episodes of Affaires Sensibles in particular. The last few have been just spectacular, and I guess they're coming out with new ones daily now? Really very good. Du grain à moudre has also been solid these past few weeks, as well as Génération XX. I remember there being a discussion on pleasant French voices recently, and the host of Génération XX has one of the prettiest, I find. I'd love for Transfert to come out with more episodes, too.

2. I've been trying to read more books, as I've mentioned, and Mitterrand's Lettres à Anne has been outstanding for this. I'd had a few false starts with it, but now I'm fully committed, and it's really amazing. It almost reads like fiction, there's also poetry, postcards, lots of fascinating political tidbits, art history references, tons of charming descriptions of Paris, it's all great. I average 1-2 unknown words per 15-20 pages, which is pretty good for flowery romantic prose - they're usually descriptions of various things in nature (acanthe, for example) or something I can get from context (pare-brise). I think it's helping me get better at writing, too, since formal emails to my school take far less time now. I console myself with the idea that the French Ambassador to the U.S., who is brilliant and hilarious, still mixes up definite and indefinite articles in English on Twitter, so it's okay if I accidentally sneak in a du instead of a de once in a while.

3. Season 3 of Le Bureau des Légendes is on Amazon in the US through a Sundance Now subscription. I find the acting sometimes mediocre, especially in secondary roles, and some of the storylines this season really stretch the limits of my imagination (though the real version of the work they do is far less flashy, so some dramatic effect is needed), but I've kept coming back to it - it's not bad.

4. Turns out that when you get into a school where you're one of, I dunno, 5 foreigners, probably, everyone goes on vacation for a month (#Europe #jealous) and leaves you without the proper paperwork to complete your visa application. Oops; my fault though, should've asked for it the day of. Waiting for everyone to return so that I can finally file, since it's the only logistical thing left on my plate for this move aside from getting my cat's paperwork. And packing. And straightening out international finances. Gargh.

[whatiftheblog]

So something magical happened this past week, and I didn't even realize it had happened until I thought of it just now: I went through my whole visa application process in French without even realizing it. As in, I just automatically switched to French at the gate of the embassy compound, did the whole thing in French, and didn't even think of it. No missing words, no anxiety. *fistpump*

On the visa thing, for those to whom this may apply in the near future: take particular care to read all of their requirements and instructions, including the number of copies needed per item, passport requirements, official letter items and so on. Russians are raised in the belief that they must always have 17,000 documents + variations thereof within reach at all times, so I was prepared for the nitty-gritty details, and I had extra/blank copies of everything just in case. All of my American compatriots, however, struggled with the correct items and got put through the wringer. Save yourself the hassle! Also, if you fall under the purview of the consulate in DC, you're lucky because they're exceptionally nice and exceedingly patient. A most pleasant experience.

Now, back to pure language things - these past two weeks have been relatively light on my French consumption since I had family staying with me, so I have a ton of material to catch up on. I need to start introducing more vlogs into the mix, since I want to be able to breeze through the arrival/move the same way I did with the embassy. I've been listening to a lot of high-falutin' intellectual analysis lately, and that won't help much when I forget the word for "mop". I'll let you know how it goes... only a few more weeks!

[DaveBee]

1. One of my colleagues, a big surly dude, recently discovered meditation and suggested I try it. Seeing as there have been more and more blocks of time recently where I'm pacing the apartment trying to rearrange my enormous to-do list in my head, I decided to give it a go, even though I was super skeptical because I'm not at all the "crunchy granola" spiritual type. Any English-language meditation apps would mess with my francophone cocoon; fortunately, I found a nice French one: Namatata! I did the first session and it was actually perfectly pleasant, plus in French. I think I'll keep going and see what happens.

I've recently discovered Trois Minutes à Méditer, a radio programme, also available as a book+CD (I just listen to the free stuff!)