learning to talk

[pauraque_bk]

So, in my 2014 wrap-up post I mentioned that I had resolved to get better at French. I think it's going fairly well, though learning a language is one of those things where the more you know, the more you grow to understand the depth of your ignorance.

French has been a lifelong struggle for me. My mom's parents were immigrants from France, and she was fully bilingual. I learned some French from her talking to me as a kid, but she had estranged herself from the entire rest of her family before I was born, so there were no monolingual relatives around (which is the circumstance under which kids tend to retain heritage languages).

When they started offering languages in school, I picked French over Spanish without hesitation, even though Spanish would obviously have been far more useful in California. I wanted to learn my mom's language. I didn't give it much thought at the time (what can I say, I was twelve) but in hindsight I think I was really hurting for family connections. This was around the same time my mom was pushing away my dad's family as well, for stupid reasons that aren't relevant enough to go into here, and it gave me an isolating feeling of being cut off from my roots.

Anyway, French class. Since I had a slight head start, was highly motivated, and loved the teacher, I did great. Unfortunately, when I moved up to high school, the teacher there was an absolute asshole, so my two years in middle school were the only formal instruction I ever got.

Every once in a while I've tried to pick it up again, but I've never been consistent enough about it, and have felt discouraged with just how little you can say and understand at an "intermediate" level. Which of course has left me stuck at that level. The biggest barrier for me is vocabulary; I think my mistake has been that I tried to learn mostly by reading, but I wasn't stopping to look up words when I could figure them out by context. But being able to get the gist isn't fluency, especially not when it comes to being able to actually talk or write rather than just read.

Fortunately, the internet is full of free tools for this sort of thing. I finished the French Duolingo course pretty quickly and easily, and I still use it to practice a bit. But what I think is starting to make much more of a difference is building up my vocabulary using Anki, a program to make your own flashcards. It keeps track of which cards you get wrong and repeats them more often until you start getting them right, while easy ones get repeated at much longer intervals so you don't forget. (Duolingo's review function doesn't seem to remember which lessons I struggle with, but just gives them at random.) Now instead of skimming over words I don't know, I write them down to add later, and I actually learn them. It's so exciting to be reading a book or playing a game (I switch my games to French for practice) and come across one of the words I put into Anki from another source and realize that YES, I KNOW THAT ONE!!!

So I hope this is going to be the time when I really learn it and don't give up. It feels like it is.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment wherever you're comfortable.

Comments

[torino10154]

It's amazing what a bad teacher can do. :/

I do think these days it's easier to find ways to practice a language. Do you have any TV or radio you can watch/listen to? When I first started teaching myself Italian I listened to short wave radio (this was the mid-90's), read newspapers as well as the textbook learning. But you can read, watch things on YouTube, order foreign language books and films. We have things like Charlotte's Web in Italian.

I've struggled with French myself after a rough time of it in middle school, opting to take Russian in HS, then Spanish in college even though my mother taught French for a while before I was born.

My husband's been very slowly teaching himself, though he recently got the Rosetta Stone for French. Because his native tongue is Italian, and he's already taken/learned Spanish, French is I think easier for him. My son's just decided he wants to take it next year (IMO because he's obsessed with the Tour de France but hey, whatever works).

That's a bit tl;dr all about me. LOL Sorry!

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I have no gift whatsoever for languages. I am always so in awe of multi-lingual people. It is just something I cannot do. I've had to take language courses in college and was so pathetic in them I barely squeaked by. I think it's a great way to bond culturally with your family background.

[rastavan.livejournal.com]

Huh, I found myself nodding along when you described the transition into HS and dealing with the aforementioned teacher. I had an amazing instructor during 7th and 8th grade that I still remember vividly because she was really excellent. Unfortunately, I had a similar experience in HS which turned me away from pursuing French further. You sound really firm about finally learning it thoroughly so I think you'll pull through. Good luck!

[tamlane.livejournal.com]

learning a language is one of those things where the more you know, the more you grow to understand the depth of your ignorance.

YES. So well said. I've been reading/studying Italian on and off for over 15 years, and I swear I feel like I get dumber at it every year. I know that's not true, but as you say, it is so hard to break out of that intermediate level. My vocab is decent, but I wonder sometimes if I'll ever master the usage of all those verbs conjugations.

Reading has been my primary form of exposure as well, and I suffer for it when I try to communicate orally. You have to add the listening, and you have to construct your own sentences in the language to begin to really get a grasp of it. My Spanish teacher in high school made us keep a daily journal... because it works. Google is a huge help there. I'll type in a sentence or phrase the way I think it would be constructed, and the correct construction usually (eventually) comes up. Best you can do when you don't have someone to correct you.

I've not heard of Duolingo, so thanks for that rec! I'm sure you already know about it, but Word Reference is also an invaluable tool for learners.

Best of luck with your studies!

[logospilgrim.livejournal.com]

Je suis sûre que tu vas finir par maîtriser le Français, mon coeur :-)

Je suppose que j'ai eu de la chance; j'ai appris l'Anglais très jeune, toute seule, et peut-être qu'avec mon sang Irlandais, la partie était gagnée d'avance ;-) J'ai beaucoup de facilité avec les langues en général. Je suis parfaitement bilingue et en fait, j'adore la langue Anglaise. Je me sens plus à l'aise lorsque je parle Anglais. C'est une manière de me détacher de mon passé, de mon enfance...

Cela dit, n'abandonne pas!

[alchemine.livejournal.com]

learning a language is one of those things where the more you know, the more you grow to understand the depth of your ignorance

Isn't that the truth! I've made so much progress since I took up French again two years ago, but I can see how incredibly far I still have to go, and it depresses me.

I was just saying to someone recently that one of my biggest problems is that when I hear spoken French, I know all the individual words, but I can't process them fast enough to make sense of what the speaker is actually saying. It sounds like "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" with an occasional coherent sentence or phrase thrown in. I'm not sure how to get past that.

[melodyssister]

I admire your perseverance, but it sounds like you have found what works for you. And once you know grammar, vocabulary is what moves you from "intermediate" to "advanced" as far as speech is concerned.

Learning to speak a language, for me, is much much harder than learning to read it. I think it may be connected to how musical you are: I can't carry a tune at all, and while I have learned to read - at varying levels of ability, of course - in six languages, I only speak two fluently: my mother tongue English, and Hebrew, in which I was immersed from the age of nine, when my family moved from South Africa to Israel.

Here via Teddy's flist ... May I friend you? Your "A Treatise on the Blood of the Nightjar" is magnificent.

[cloelockless2.livejournal.com]

I wanted to write a thoughtful comment in French and I can't find the French for thoughtful...

Je voudrais me remettre à l'allemand mais je n'en ai plus besoin dans ma carrière et du coup je ne trouve pas le temps et l'énergie...
La traduction, ça fait beaucoup progresser :) ça nous force à chercher les mots dans le dictionnaire !

(Commentaire qui sert à rien :D )