(1) you know enough English, obviously, for it to be of help when studying French. English has borrowed so much over the centuries, that you ALREADY passively know SEVERAL THOUSAND of the common French words
(2) But you do not know that you know them. You'll need to find this out. The worst possible way to learn French is by spending, say, 80% of your time on grammar, and the remaining 20% on 'reading books and watching movies '. There are deep reasons for that.
(2a) First, the biggest part of leaning a language is _not_ its grammar, it's vocabulary. (2b) Second, this vocabulary must be absorbed with collocations and contexts, and NEVER as "word-translation" pairs. (2c) Third, words in a language and not equal. The first 3000 cover up to 80-85% of any general text, form most collocations and idioms and have most senses, and basically "glue together" the rest of the language.
THEREFORE you have to get yourself acquainted with this core, after a cursory look at grammar, sufficient just to understand the word order, and what changes in that language to glue separate words together in a sentence (verbs, which have tenses, adjectives bcs there are 2 genders in French etc.)
(3) How can you acquire those frequent words IN ALL OR MOST of their senses?
(3a) The worst, slowest method is the traditional book reading. You see, memorizing happens when some item gets recycled sufficiently often. But even the frequent words from the language core may come once per 10 or 20 pages in a general text, and then in some random sense (out of 4, 6, 8 or sometimes even 50 or 70 for the really common words like "get" or "go" in English). Therefore to get it from the books you'd have to read literally thousands and thousands of pages.
(3b) This problem of natural texts can be overcome if one finds a special text in the target language, which on the one hand provides examples from real life, but on the other of _all_ senses, and for all frequent words in some systematic way.
Such texts exist - they are French-French dictionaries written specifically for foreign learners of French.
1. You read enough French grammar (in English) to understand their word order, and basic features of the language (gender, tense forms etc)
2. you read just enough of a basic textbook to begin to understand how it all looks and sounds. Supposedly, after this stage you'll know a few hundred most common words in 1 or 2 most common senses
3. You take a good French-French dictionary for foreign learners (such as "Dictionnaire du Française" by Josette Rey-Debove) and start reading its entries for most frequent words of French. This is your main course, the moment when the real learning happens
While deciphering those definitions and reading example phrases, you (a) realize that many of them are known to you in English (b) you recycle the core (because all the definitions are written with the simplest words, as well as examples) (c) you learn _all_ senses of the target words (d) you see them used in many grammatical forms and structures (e) and with their natural collocations
4. To help your memory, you make a TTS (text-to-speech) program read these entries to you using a high-quality French voice. You listen to this recording several times (when doing your laundry or dishes, when driving some place etc). This will allow you to recognize words, written or spoken, although not yet use them actively.
5. After a month or two of this, you start reading books in French and see how the elements you've learned are used in real texts, where everything is unsystematic and mixed together. If you have used the TTS programs, you already know how it all sounds. But you can always read books with audio too (there are plenty of them on the Internet etc). I did.
6. SO FAR your learning has not been active - one has to see the right uses and understand the meanings before trying to use this all new knowledge actively. That's the only way a human brain works. So the next, third stage is ACTIVATION of the material you've learned so far.
You start talking to yourself, remembering and retelling the stories you've read, etc. At this stage you can also take some intermediate/advanced level textbook and do all their "active" exercises. (The textbooks at this stage are already "below" your level, you can read them easily and fluently, understand their recordings and videos etc. etc. etc., although producing language on that level may involve hesitation and require some checking).
Again, you activate only now, only after you already know how to read and understand the core French spoken to you.
This is finally the stage when you go back to the grammar books to aid you in expressing what you need to express in the activation exercises - i.e. you do not read them cover to cover, you use them as a reference to make sure the phrases you create are all right.
At this stage you also begin to watch French TV (available on the Net from many sites that stream it) and movies and stuff.
SO AGAIN HERE IS YOUR PROGRESSION:
-- passive understanding first, activation later -- systematically acquaint yourself with the core vocabulary -- support this with TTS sound, and replay it 4-5 times to commit to memory -- this will enable you to read books, watch TV, etc. -- and at this stage activate your knowledge
P.S. And remember that at each stage in your progression you get a useful, functional (although partial) set of skills - i.e. do not think you "have not learned it yet" and that "you do not know" the language if you can "only" read or understand but not speak or write. Nope, each skill has a lot of practical value in itself.
P.P.S. "Stupeur et Tremblements" (un roman d’Amélie Nothomb, publié en 1999) Use the French original plus audiobook in French alongside an English translation. Quite easy, well-known in the English-speaking world, and funny
(1) you know enough English, obviously, for it to be of help when studying French. English has borrowed so much over the centuries, that you ALREADY passively know SEVERAL THOUSAND of the common French words
(2) But you do not know that you know them. You'll need to find this out.
The worst possible way to learn French is by spending, say, 80% of your time on grammar, and the remaining 20% on 'reading books and watching movies '. There are deep reasons for that.
(2a) First, the biggest part of leaning a language is _not_ its grammar, it's vocabulary.
(2b) Second, this vocabulary must be absorbed with collocations and contexts, and NEVER as "word-translation" pairs.
(2c) Third, words in a language and not equal. The first 3000 cover up to 80-85% of any general text, form most collocations and idioms and have most senses, and basically "glue together" the rest of the language.
THEREFORE you have to get yourself acquainted with this core, after a cursory look at grammar, sufficient just to understand the word order, and what changes in that language to glue separate words together in a sentence (verbs, which have tenses, adjectives bcs there are 2 genders in French etc.)
(3) How can you acquire those frequent words IN ALL OR MOST of their senses?
(3a) The worst, slowest method is the traditional book reading. You see, memorizing happens when some item gets recycled sufficiently often. But even the frequent words from the language core may come once per 10 or 20 pages in a general text, and then in some random sense (out of 4, 6, 8 or sometimes even 50 or 70 for the really common words like "get" or "go" in English).
Therefore to get it from the books you'd have to read literally thousands and thousands of pages.
(3b) This problem of natural texts can be overcome if one finds a special text in the target language, which on the one hand provides examples from real life, but on the other of _all_ senses, and for all frequent words in some systematic way.
Such texts exist - they are French-French dictionaries written specifically for foreign learners of French.
Reply
1. You read enough French grammar (in English) to understand their word order, and basic features of the language (gender, tense forms etc)
2. you read just enough of a basic textbook to begin to understand how it all looks and sounds. Supposedly, after this stage you'll know a few hundred most common words in 1 or 2 most common senses
3. You take a good French-French dictionary for foreign learners (such as "Dictionnaire du Française" by Josette Rey-Debove) and start reading its entries for most frequent words of French.
This is your main course, the moment when the real learning happens
While deciphering those definitions and reading example phrases, you
(a) realize that many of them are known to you in English
(b) you recycle the core (because all the definitions are written with the simplest words, as well as examples)
(c) you learn _all_ senses of the target words
(d) you see them used in many grammatical forms and structures
(e) and with their natural collocations
4. To help your memory, you make a TTS (text-to-speech) program read these entries to you using a high-quality French voice. You listen to this recording several times (when doing your laundry or dishes, when driving some place etc).
This will allow you to recognize words, written or spoken, although not yet use them actively.
5. After a month or two of this, you start reading books in French and see how the elements you've learned are used in real texts, where everything is unsystematic and mixed together.
If you have used the TTS programs, you already know how it all sounds. But you can always read books with audio too (there are plenty of them on the Internet etc). I did.
6. SO FAR your learning has not been active - one has to see the right uses and understand the meanings before trying to use this all new knowledge actively. That's the only way a human brain works. So the next, third stage is ACTIVATION of the material you've learned so far.
You start talking to yourself, remembering and retelling the stories you've read, etc.
At this stage you can also take some intermediate/advanced level textbook and do all their "active" exercises. (The textbooks at this stage are already "below" your level, you can read them easily and fluently, understand their recordings and videos etc. etc. etc., although producing language on that level may involve hesitation and require some checking).
Again, you activate only now, only after you already know how to read and understand the core French spoken to you.
This is finally the stage when you go back to the grammar books to aid you in expressing what you need to express in the activation exercises - i.e. you do not read them cover to cover, you use them as a reference to make sure the phrases you create are all right.
At this stage you also begin to watch French TV (available on the Net from many sites that stream it) and movies and stuff.
SO AGAIN HERE IS YOUR PROGRESSION:
-- passive understanding first, activation later
-- systematically acquaint yourself with the core vocabulary
-- support this with TTS sound, and replay it 4-5 times to commit to memory
-- this will enable you to read books, watch TV, etc.
-- and at this stage activate your knowledge
P.S. And remember that at each stage in your progression you get a useful, functional (although partial) set of skills - i.e. do not think you "have not learned it yet" and that "you do not know" the language if you can "only" read or understand but not speak or write.
Nope, each skill has a lot of practical value in itself.
Reply
"Stupeur et Tremblements" (un roman d’Amélie Nothomb, publié en 1999)
Use the French original plus audiobook in French alongside an English translation.
Quite easy, well-known in the English-speaking world, and funny
Reply
Reply
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