Learning French
I realized, when preparing to make this entry, that I hadn't mentioned this anywhere except in an OT post at guy_kyle...and I can't even find that quick mention. *laughs*
So a quick bit of background: I decided back in April that was I tired of thinking things like, "Gee, I wish I spoke more than one language" or "Man, living in Canada, it would totally expand my future job options if I could speak French". I decided to do something about it.
I checked out classes, but they were not only super expensive, I only found one program that was more than once a week, and it was twice a week. Frankly, I'd like to learn more rapidly than that, and I don't think I'd retain too much at that kind of interval, even if I could get motivated enough to practice in between. So then I checked out computer based language programs. I looked at Rosetta Stone (definitely not compatible with my learning style) and the Immersion series and a couple of others and decided to go with Fluenz. Yes, it is 10x more expensive than some of the programs. But given how well I'm responding to it, I have no regrets at all.
I have completed 19 out of 30 sessions in Level 1. There are 30 sessions in each level and 5 levels, so I'm basically at 19/150. I'm not quite where I wanted to be by now--it's been six weeks--but that's because I had a two weeks of total fail in all things I normally do. I'm back on track now, completing 1 lesson per day.
It was super easy at first, largely because I retained something from high school French. (I took it all the way through grade 12.) Then I started to slow down, even though the words were still familiar, because of the structures. I'm picking up speed again, though. I am pretty glad I know so many of the words so I can concentrate on the structures, for now.
I'm kind of surprised at how much I'm enjoying it, actually. I didn't think much about French in high school, except to grumble at homework and be frustrated by having to memorize the genders of words. (The program I'm using said, "It's totally arbitrary. Just think of the gender as a part of the spelling." Why did no one ever put it like that before?!? Suddenly I no longer find it frustrating or distracting.)
This time through I'm really looking forward to each session, and the way they structure the exercises really helps me see how to use the words and structures in multiple ways. That's one problem I had with high school French; the context in which we learned things was so fixed that while I was pretty good at repeating what we'd learned, I couldn't rearrange it to say something else. There's a workout in the Fluenz sessions that lets me test myself on that, and I'm doing pretty well.
It'll be awhile before I think I'll know enough to ask friends and family for conversational practice, but I feel like I'll actually get there. :-D
[This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth (http://crimsonquills.dreamwidth.org/707345.html). Please comment there using OpenID or anonymous commenting. (
comments at DreamWidth.)]
So a quick bit of background: I decided back in April that was I tired of thinking things like, "Gee, I wish I spoke more than one language" or "Man, living in Canada, it would totally expand my future job options if I could speak French". I decided to do something about it.
I checked out classes, but they were not only super expensive, I only found one program that was more than once a week, and it was twice a week. Frankly, I'd like to learn more rapidly than that, and I don't think I'd retain too much at that kind of interval, even if I could get motivated enough to practice in between. So then I checked out computer based language programs. I looked at Rosetta Stone (definitely not compatible with my learning style) and the Immersion series and a couple of others and decided to go with Fluenz. Yes, it is 10x more expensive than some of the programs. But given how well I'm responding to it, I have no regrets at all.
I have completed 19 out of 30 sessions in Level 1. There are 30 sessions in each level and 5 levels, so I'm basically at 19/150. I'm not quite where I wanted to be by now--it's been six weeks--but that's because I had a two weeks of total fail in all things I normally do. I'm back on track now, completing 1 lesson per day.
It was super easy at first, largely because I retained something from high school French. (I took it all the way through grade 12.) Then I started to slow down, even though the words were still familiar, because of the structures. I'm picking up speed again, though. I am pretty glad I know so many of the words so I can concentrate on the structures, for now.
I'm kind of surprised at how much I'm enjoying it, actually. I didn't think much about French in high school, except to grumble at homework and be frustrated by having to memorize the genders of words. (The program I'm using said, "It's totally arbitrary. Just think of the gender as a part of the spelling." Why did no one ever put it like that before?!? Suddenly I no longer find it frustrating or distracting.)
This time through I'm really looking forward to each session, and the way they structure the exercises really helps me see how to use the words and structures in multiple ways. That's one problem I had with high school French; the context in which we learned things was so fixed that while I was pretty good at repeating what we'd learned, I couldn't rearrange it to say something else. There's a workout in the Fluenz sessions that lets me test myself on that, and I'm doing pretty well.
It'll be awhile before I think I'll know enough to ask friends and family for conversational practice, but I feel like I'll actually get there. :-D
[This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth (http://crimsonquills.dreamwidth.org/707345.html). Please comment there using OpenID or anonymous commenting. (
comments at DreamWidth.)]