Advice for English speaker, struggling to learn French.

[Ani]

Welcome!

I agree with the recommendations for proper courses over Duolingo.

I'm not sure anyone had asked yet how close to finished the OP is with Duolingo? If it's almost done, it might be best to finish it to see the more advanced grammar than ditch it and start at 0, having to wait maybe several months again before encountering even the future tense let alone the subjunctive and passive voice. At 30 minutes a day for a year there can't be that much left, can there? I don't know I never made it through

[Xmmm]

Considering using News in Slow French. It's a great way to transition from courses to native content. It will make the jump into French TV less jarring.

[rdearman]

You may want to browse through the French resources and see if you find anything interesting. Just keep going you'll get there. You could check out FSI as well.


https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 19&t=2914/

[PeterMollenburg]

I agree with Ani, in that Assimil has a big fan base, but it’s not for everyone. I agree with Mohave that Pimsleur is also good. I also agree with garyb that it’s not for everyone and is rather slow, which can work in your favour.

Given that Pimsleur is slow, if you feel your pronunciation requires a lot of attention (it’s not great... yet... or you have some flaws or you want to sound as close to native as possible), I feel Pimsleur (in part because it is slow) is excellent for using in the car (do you commute to work?) in which you can repeat everything as closely as possible to the original French and work on your pronunciaiton.

I have completed a plethora of French courses, perhaps more than anyone else here and while that may give me some credibility, I am still an individual with personal preferences (i.e. I’m biased like anyone else). That said, I love Assimil, it’s more heavy duty than many other courses aimed at English speakers (Teach Yourself, Hugo, Colloquial) yet it’s not as big as French in Action, which while excellent can be overwhelming for some. Furthermore, with French you have the added bonus that should you complete Assimil New French with Ease (it might be just called “French” now), there’s Assimil Using French, the advanced course. These courses give a sense of progress since the lessons are short, and introduce grammar in bite sizes that won’t overwhelm those who detest grammar study. The audio is high quality as well and an excellent source of shadowing (closely mimmicking the audio).

With the not so serious resources you have used so far, you remind me a little of myself and you’re perhaps in for a little bit of a shock - there’s a LOT more to learn, much more than you think, and perhaps using native content right now isn’t quite the right time, perhaps after an Assimil course is completed, for example. Just my opinion.

All in all, the key point, as iguanamon points out, is remaining consistent, so ultimately choose the resources that you feel are right for you, those which keep you involved with the language (interested). Daily study is much better than here and there. You will almost feel yourself progress.

[Ani]

Have you quit learning German or are you trying to juggle both?

[elsmandino]

Thank you all so very much for all this - I wish I had popped on here, years ago, as this is all brilliant advice.

As Ani correctly points out, in the last post, I was learning German and I am still better at it than I am at French (but still, by my admission, anywhere near remotely competent at it).

For the time-being, I have dropped it to concentrate on French only.

By way of background as to why I want to learn French - my wife's mother was French (she passed away over 15 years ago) and now we have a three-year-old son, I really want all three of us to learn.

My wife is English and so is her father, so whilst she can understand a bit of basic spoken French, she really is not much better than me in terms of speaking or writing - massively wasted opportunity, I know.

By trying to learn with her (and try to get my son involved), I was hoping it might make things easier than learning German on my own.

Anyway - back to the suggested learning methods.

I have to say that PeterMollenburg's advice really resonated with me.

My current regime is a bit all over the place and without a very structured way of progressing, I do not think I am going to improve (or at least not at an acceptable rate).

I agree that despite my efforts to date, I just have not learnt enough French and without that, I have no hope of trying to read a newspaper or listen to the news - at the moment, spoken French just sounds like French-sounding noise with the odd word that I recognise every now and then.

I think that I need to purchase the beginner's course of Assimil and just do that - and I mean really stick with it, until I am completely comfortable with it. After that (in addition to starting the advanced Assimil course), I should then try to have another go at the news or a TV programme.

What do you think?

[PeterMollenburg]

Great plan! When you start, don’t stop until you reach your objective(s). Study every day and you’re sure to succeed!

[Xmmm]

I agree that despite my efforts to date, I just have not learnt enough French and without that, I have no hope of trying to read a newspaper or listen to the news - at the moment, spoken French just sounds like French-sounding noise with the odd word that I recognise every now and then.

News in Slow French is in slow French. There's a transcript. You can look up words. You can listen to every article a hundred times if you want. Are you sure it's beyond your abilities?

When I started News in Slow Italian I had to listen several times to each article. By about the 40th article I was skipping the slow version of the recording and only listening to the faster, almost natural version. By about the 100th article I was done because it was too easy for me.

I think that I need to purchase the beginner's course of Assimil and just do that - and I mean really stick with it, until I am completely comfortable with it. After that (in addition to starting the advanced Assimil course), I should then try to have another go at the news or a TV programme.

My mother has done introductory French courses for more than 40 years. Last I heard she was halfway through FIA. That's okay, when she finishes she'll go back to the beginning and do it again 20 times. She has probably spent 4000 hours on French.

I ask her "why don't you watch some French TV?" She answers "Oh, they speak much too quickly for me. I can't understand them."

[jeff_lindqvist]

When I started News in Slow Italian I had to listen several times to each article. By about the 40th article I was skipping the slow version of the recording and only listening to the faster, almost natural version. By about the 100th article I was done because it was too easy for me.

Same here - during my Italian craze three months ago, I listened to the first 200 introductions (the free content). My listening comprehension improved a lot.

[PeterMollenburg]

My mother has done introductory French courses for more than 40 years. Last I heard she was halfway through FIA. That's okay, when she finishes she'll go back to the beginning and do it again 20 times. She has probably spent 4000 hours on French.

I have done over 5000 hours and while I do use native content, this from Xmmm serves as a solid warning, elsmandino, and something a very experienced and wise language learner by the name of iguanamon has tried to warn me of on many occasions throughout my French journey: do not get stuck in course land, it’s an alluring trap for some of us (I’m one of the worst).

In fact, this serves as a good reminder to myself as well (I am still enamoured with many courses).

Take home message: there’s a lot of good advice here, elsmandino, native content should not be ignored if you want to succeed in reaching an advanced level of French.

Still, in the beginning native content is not essential, imo, and even inefficient, but drive through those courses and always challenge yourself to raise the bar of difficulty, that native content will be essential at some point, as courses will become insufficient and inefficient for progress beyond a certain point and should then become only one component of your overall learning ‘package’.

It’s worth mentioning that, once native content becomes a mainstay in your French learning, that you can still improve from courses (don’t get stuck in beginner’s courses), as there are some high quality advanced courses out there worthy of some focused intensive study time too.

Iguanamon’s multitrack approach is defintely worth the time it takes to read it over:
http://www.language-learners.org/2016/02/07/the-multi-track-approach-to-language-learning-guest-post-by-iguanamon/

As is this essay on the importance of extensive reading:
http://www.robwaring.org/er/what_and_why/er_is_vital.htm

In conclusion, you are in for a steep learning curve with Assimil, given your learning materials thus far, so I would recommend keeping native content aside for now, but aim to progress quickly (don’t rush over the language though, good pronunciation deserves focused attention, particularly in the beginning). But definitely introduce native content as you continue to adapt to more challenging content. I’m not suggesting you hop right into reading Lord of the Rings once your courses are done either. Beginning with a few easy readers for example, might be a good idea, but moving on to more challenging material soon after would be wise, so that at some point books like Lord of the Rings will be suitably challenging and, eventually, very enjoyable and appropriate.