Heyylooo Blogger World! I have been thoroughly busy and moreover exhausted from school work. Recently I have been sucked back into the world of French Language and I realized that there are millions of people trying to learn the language! I have had 6 years of French via school classes and I still brush up on it now from time to time. I am in no way fluent, but a step up from being a total amateur. Here are a few tips I have that you can use whether you have French classes or not. To be quite frank, French is one of the more easier languages compared to many other popular languages. It shares alot of cognates or common words with English. That is something to be hopeful about, but French also has a tedious amount of conjugations and tenses to memorize.
1》 The biggest first piece of advice I have is that you learn the "sight words" first!! Sight words are the small transition words we use in language like, "the, their, me, us, I, when, where, and, with, more, less, because, he, she...and so on." There are so many, learn the basic ones used in everyday language. I cannot stress this enough!! What frustrated me was that my teachers in high school would teach us the vocabulary for nearly everything else. But when it came to writing sentences, we were then scrambling through dictionaries to find the small connecting words that build a sentence. You can learn how to say everything else very easily. Places, animals, body parts, tasks, activities, etc, are all easy vocabulary categories to learn. But without basic fundamental words you will be left crippled.
2》 Learn all the basic tenses but begin with the present tense first! Look it up online, the sources are vast. But memorize the conjugations for present tense first, then past tense, and then future tense. Past tense is by far the easiest and future is the hardest. After these 3 tenses are solid, then much later on in your journey learn other tenses like negation, imperatives, and conditional. But only after the basic 3 flow for you and are basic nature to you. If you jump ahead and try to memorize everything, you will struggle to remember conjugations when actually speaking verbally!
3》Start by practicing sentence formation and write small paragraphs. Slowly you will climb up. But slowly do not rush. If you rush you will forget everything as fast at you learned it. French is basically all conjugations and learning sentence formation. The actual vocabulary is easy as ever! The grammar is the only hurdle you have to jump over. After this point, I will introduce other tips to help fluency grow.
4》 Listen to French music. This tip really gets your foot through the door. To be fluent you need to be as submerged into it as possible. This way you will learn alot more about French pop culture. Just search up Top hit French Songs on youtube for any year you prefer and now you have thousands of results to sift through. When listening try actively make out as many words as possible! You can even download an app called Radio France and listen to their live radio. You can listen to the news or music. I recommend Indila, Stromae, Zaho, and Kendji Girac for beginners.
5》 Watch French tv. Tv5Monde and France 24 are popular news channels with apps as well. Watching the French news will help you submerge into the culture more. I would typically suggest you watch some French movies or dramas but to be quite I honest I struggle finding any that I like. But you can always watch the classic movies which are pretty good. These are the types of movies French students watch in class. I wouls recommend "Les Choristes, Petite Nicolas, Tristan Et Isolde, and Marie Antionette."
6》Read! Read all the fine labels on packages, they tend to be in French. Read those excerpts first and gain an understanding. Then read the English excerpt to see if you were correct. This helps you read something French everyday. Other than that you can read children's books in French or condensed plays. I recommend you keep a French English dictionary handy and peruse through it. I also recommend a book called "Les Bon Mots" which teaches common idioms and phrases in French. Read French books on common words and small self help guides. It will all compile eventually.
7》Learn about the trademark places other than the Eiffel tower. Places like the Louvre, the Seine, or L'arc de Triomphe. Broaden your historical and architectural sense past the Eiffel Tower. Read up on some French History, particularly about Louis the 14th and The Palace Of Versailles. It may not be helping your language skills directly, but it definitely submerges you into the culture. It is better to sound knowledgeable learning a nee language than to sound like a nonsensical idiot who probably learned French because of the glamour and façade around it.
8》Another advice I have is to turn on French subtitles on everything you watch, that way your brain is subconsciously seeing the French words and you are hearing the meanings behind them and forming connections, only enhancing your vocabulary. Maybe when you understand a bit more then watch the same movies you like but in French dub. These are some golden ways to become fluent fast!
9》Another tip is to listen to French podcasts or audios of any kind to bed. That way when you fall asleep your subconscious mind internalizes the language more ad you are slowly growing your aptitude in it without realizing! Some of the best French Teaching tools and products in the world use this audio method. It is a true fact that to be fluent your mind has to internalize the information. Its even a true a fact that there was once a lady who loved to watch Spanish Operas so much so that her mind was fluent in Spanish without her knowing. When she had a surgery and woke up from it, her brain had somehow been tampered with and she was speaking rapid Spanish. That is just a little psychological tid bit for you.
10》The last tip I have for you is that when you go outside or drive around, read the signs, store signs, all the words around you and mentally try repeating them in French in your mind. If you do this often your brain will simultaneously think of the French equivalent of a word when you look at it. Trust me this happened to me. Once I was going down the road and saw a Stop sign, but in my mind I said Arrete! Which is French for stop. That is how you know a language is sinking in.
Don't stress it. Don't sweat it. If you are hard on yourself you are more likely to quit! Another bonus piece of advice I have is to start a French Journal where you write about your day in a short paragraph all in French! Bust out the French-English dictionary and do it often. It will train your mind to apply French words to everyday situations. This is something that I have started recently and it is relaxing as well as giving you creative incentive. Well, this post has ran long enough...I will now end with a cliche Au Revoir!
-ISBAH xoxo
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