French language learning

[BlizzardBabe]

I'd like to do the same for Spanish. I've been trying to teach myself for a couple of years, but I'd like something more structured. I was thinking of Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur since those are used by the US State Department. Any experience w/either? Is one or the other preferable?

 

[Jilly]

I've been without my laptop and not wanting to type out anything lengthy, but the office computer will do.

We learn French in school from grade 7 on. So I had 7 years of it. Plus my parents put me in an after school program for 1 or 2 years at grade 5 or 6. Problem was we really didn't do conversational french. We learned the verb forms etc.

Then I moved to the eastern end of the Ontario, which is 1/2 French and bordering Quebec. So like northern Vermont. Road signs are in both languages etc. You start learning a lot more. In 1987 I took a ski trip to France. Before I went there was a night school class available. So I decided to take it to brush up. Basically all I got out of it, but the numbers, but those are important.

At this point in my life, I need to be hearing French a lot to start thinking in the language. Otherwise I hear the French, my brain, translates it to English. I formulate my answer in English, translate it to French. By then the conversation has moved on.

That is the issue with any language. You need to think in the language. Practice!!

As for accents...I think my Scot background helps there. But the Quebecois accent is horrible. Parisian French is sing-song like.

 

[Trailside Trixie]

I'd like to do the same for Spanish. I've been trying to teach myself for a couple of years, but I'd like something more structured. I was thinking of Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur since those are used by the US State Department. Any experience w/either? Is one or the other preferable?

I've been using dualingo for spanish. I took it in high school and a year of college. I had a ton of spanish friends when I lived in California. One of them got married in ensenada and not much english was spoken there so had to habla mucho espanol.

I understand a lot and remember a ton but I would like to improve.

Dualingo has been awesome.

 

[geargrrl]

I've been using dualingo for spanish. I took it in high school and a year of college. I had a ton of spanish friends when I lived in California. One of them got married in ensenada and not much english was spoken there so had to habla mucho espanol.

I understand a lot and remember a ton but I would like to improve.

Dualingo has been awesome.

have you been able to utilize it in real world situations? My experience with it, adding it onto all the French I had 50 years ago, was not great. I knew just enough to know what I wasn't getting for grammar. That's why I went with a tutor: I am reading, reading aloud, listening, writing, and speaking ( or trying to lol)

 

[altagirl]

For me, I enjoy using Duolingo and I've paid for Rosetta Stone but find it kind of boring and am rarely motivated to use it so.... something i use daily is better than something I don't. Mainly I've been working on Spanish for some vague unplanned future trip back to Costa Rica. I'll let you know how it works, someday, I guess. I do find that depending on the accent I can follow along with some TV in Spanish, occasionally chat a bit with friends who speak Spanish And I'm in the group where my accent tends to be better than my vocabulary and grammar. I think that's because I like singing songs in Spanish, etc. Duolingo used to have live online small classes you could pay for separately and I miss those. I get the value of a real tutor, but I have 20 other hobbies/intereats and all I've got right now is random spots in my day, so Duolingo works well for what I can commit to.

 

[elemmac]

There's a lot of good material on YouTube. I also highly recommend watching movies and TV series and try not to look at the subtitles.

I spent a college semester in Europe, at a school that had a big international program. All classes were taught in English, but there were students from all over. Most other students didn't have English as their first language. I remember one guy from Holland that spoke REALLY well, and he even had an almost-American accent. I remember him telling me that he watches American television shows. So, even though I've never learned another language this way...I think it's fantastic advice to watch shows in the language you're learning.

 

[altagirl]

I had a Dutch friend who was fluent in several languages and also learned mostly from TV. They had a lot of cartoons and programming in different languages. And her parents were using English as a "secret" language to talk behind the kids backs so they learned that extra fast. LOL.

 

[Christy]

Along those same lines I have a friend that grew up speaking Bengali and English--maybe Hindi too--but who learned Gujarati when she married so she could understand if/when her in laws were talking about her.

 

[BlizzardBabe]

This is a fun site that I've used a bit.

Introducing Coffee Break Languages

coffeebreaklanguages.com

 

[SkiBam]

As for accents...I think my Scot background helps there. But the Quebecois accent is horrible. Parisian French is sing-song like.

I think to say the Quebec accent is "horrible" is a bit unfair. Yes, some accents might not sound great to a "Parisian" ear, but to me it's often more like the difference between some Amercian/Canadian English and some accents from England. (Accents from some parts of England are almost unintelligible to me .)

As an anglo living in Quebec, my French is passable. There are so many people here who are totally bilingual - they grew up speaking both languages and now sound like native speakers of both. I am very envious of these people but I learned French (sure didn't learn much in school in Ontario!) as an adult and will never sound like a native. One problem I often encounter: I'll speak French to someone, explaining that I want to practise my French, and they reply saying they want to practise their English.

Lots of politics around language in Quebec, but where I live everybody seems to just want to communicate. So there's often lots of switching back and forth - and it's fun.

There's an excellent website called Mauril on CBC (to learn English) and Radio-Canada (to learn French). Not sure if these are available outside the country though.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

@SkiBam I was one of the lucky ones, bilingual at birth and trilingual by age 10. I have so much more awe and respect for those who had to earn their skills the hard way. Well done. Practicing is the hard part unless you find willing partners. I taught French phonetics for a year, and my biggest suggestion is to listen to it nonstop even if only as background noise. I found that the students who could not hear the sounds, stood zero chance of being able to replicate them for themselves.

On a side note, I am from Paris and find the Quebequois dialect most charming. I follow all these groovy and funny french canadians on insta just so I can listen to them, and also prepare my eventual visit to that part of the country and my ability to follow a conversation.

 

[SkiBam]

@SkiBam I was one of the lucky ones, bilingual at birth and trilingual by age 10. I have so much more awe and respect for those who had to earn their skills the hard way. Well done. Practicing is the hard part unless you find willing partners. I taught French phonetics for a year, and my biggest suggestion is to listen to it nonstop even if only as background noise. I found that the students who could not hear the sounds, stood zero chance of being able to replicate them for themselves.

On a side note, I am from Paris and find the Quebequois dialect most charming. I follow all these groovy and funny french canadians on insta just so I can listen to them, and also prepare my eventual visit to that part of the country and my ability to follow a conversation.

That's great! And when you come to this part of the world. be sure to look me up.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

That's great! And when you come to this part of the world. be sure to look me up.

Avec grand plaisir!

 

[-nat-]

I've used DuoLingo, Rosetta Stone, and Pimsleur. While there is a cost, Pimsleur is hands down the best option to actually converse and sound like you know what you are saying. LOL

Before going to Greece, I used Pimsleur for a couple of weeks. Its a hard language, but Pimsleur breaks the words down, so you can figure out how to correctly say the words. People were so impressed with our few words of Greek (taught my family a bit of what I learned).

Also used it before a trip to Italy and felt totally prepared to weather the three trains and one bus required to meet my friends.

Used Rosetta Stone Spanish CDs for years and never made a lasting improvement. DuoLingo is free, but it doesn't really help to have a conversation and understand other people. Pimsleur is now my go-to for any language learning before a trip.