Parlez vous…what? (WR)
Foreign Languages have always been a challenge for me. When I was in high school French was the only course that I received a failing grade in. In fact, I only passed the French regents exam with a 68% (passing was 65%). I should have been better at languages. My parents both came from Germany, though they didn’t bother to teach me any German, which might have helped. My father lived in France for 5 years from 1933-1938, so was fluent in French. I believe my older sisters also studied French. That didn’t help me at all. I guess I just wasn’t motivated to learn either French or German. In college as an Engineering major and later Education major, there was no language requirement, so I escaped having to try and learn a new language or reinforce an old one.
In my 30’s, my school district gave me permission to take undergraduate American Sign Language classes at a local community college. I ended up taking 20 credits of ASL and still only know the basics, which I did use in my teaching but still am incapable of holding my own conversation with someone who speaks it. My biggest problem is not coming up with signs or spelling, it was understanding a conversation when someone was signing at me. It went too fast. I read fingerspelled words by their letters and not as words.
In 2013, I discovered my brother (read my A to Z Blog on “B” http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=430). He and his wife only speak French. So now I’m back to the drawing board. I need to learn French again. I should be motivated, which I am. I’ve tried a lot of different programs: the Pimsleur method, the Michel Thomas method (which I really liked), other library audio CDs on Learning French and an online course which is free at https://www.duolingo.com (which I have completed for French and am reviewing every day since I started in 2013). Even still they only say I’m 53% proficient. There are two other courses online that I’ve tried: https://www.yabla.com/ and http://www.fluentu.com/. Both require a lot of listening and remembering. Those both cost subscription fees. There are a number of podcasts that I’ve tried to listen to also like http://onethinginafrenchday.podbean.com/. But still my lack comprehension of a spoken or signed foreign (to me) language continues. My ability to read French and less so to write it however has improved.
When I speak to my brother and sister-in-law and try to formulate sentences it is like the spinning wheel you see when you watch a video online that says “buffering”. I will start to say something and then pause as my mind buffers the next sentence. When listening, I look like a deer in headlights.
What I need is more conversational opportunities with other people that speak the language and can tolerate my slowness. I continue to search out these venues.
Research believes that learning another language is a way to keep your mind active, improve memory and increase the number of neurons in your brain. For that reason and to improve my communication with my brother, I will continue to work on the learning of French. I look forward to comments from anyone else willing to share more ideas to help me accomplish this. The challenge continues.
Harvey, I have similar struggles. My immigrant Italian family for whom speaking English was the goal and the southern culture in which differences were not encouraged, led my brother and I to give up trying. The opportunity to converse as an adult has been limited unless I enrolled in classes. The solution for me was our trips to Italy with my cousins. After two weeks, I knew I had to be immersed in the sounds to learn. Like music, I had to hear it.
The best in your quest ?
Both my kids are in the “learn a language in school” zone and struggling. I’m going to check out some of your learning site links and see if they can help my kids. Thanks for the tips. Good luck with your French and the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.
Robin from Write On Sisters
I have tried really hard to learn a few languages. I have a friend who knows 3-4 languages, and she loves learning about the origins of words, etc. I feel like for some people learning languages is just super natural to them. It makes sense to them. For me it is one of the biggest challenges I have faced. But you are right it stretches the brain! At least I think it does. Great post!
Although I learned French for two years (decades ago), I am not at all fluent though I’d love to be bilingual. I found this program helpful when I did it a while back.
https://radiolingua.com/coffeebreakfrench/
Alternatively you might see if there is an adult education class near you or a branch of Alliance Francaise. Also see if there are video clips in French you can download.
Bon Chance!
@cassmob from
Family History Across The Seas
My sister studied ASL when she was in school. While I never understood it, I loved watching her speak it. We used to go to see plays at the local deaf theater and I thought it was interesting to see how they dramatized their signing to fit in with the mood of the scene. Good luck with your French studies.