Each person will have his or her own learning plan. That said, there are a few Must-Dos for learning that I wish I had known when I started. After 10 years of study, here’s what I recommend.
- Always abide by the balanced strategy.
The balanced strategy is using the 4 mediums of acquisition; that is, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. To advance quickly and maintain learning momentum, you need to study vocabulary and grammar using all four mediums.
In short, your brain has cells called neurons that form pathways with repetitive stimulation. Specialists call this brain plasticity. These pathways will come together at an exponential rate when you use the balanced strategy.
- Keep a Phrasebook.
This might seem obvious, but many overlook it. And it’s imperative to your success. A phrasebook is a way for you to keep note of sentences and statements that are important to you.
Whenever you learn an important phrase, such as « My name is… » or « I am __ years old, » note it in your phrase book. While you’re at it, watch a video about how to say the phrase on youtube, and say it out loud yourself. You will engage the balanced strategy!
Here’s how you should set it up. Buy a sturdy spiral notebook that can take a beating. Open it up flat. On the left hand side you should write new vocabulary words and their translations. Number them. On the right hand side you should have notes about who you learned that word with, what it means to you, when you learned it, where you learned it, and why it’s important to you.
- Know what to expect.
It’s very easy to wear the blindfold and go looking in the dark. That’s what I did, and I lost several years doing so. Here are the three most common ways you can learn the 4 mediums of acquisition (reading, understanding, writing, and speaking). Hint: the third is the best.
First, you could learn in this order: listen, speak, read and finally write. This is what we all do from birth. If you have the good fortune of being in a francophone country, then you will probably take this route.
Or…
Second, you could learn in this order: read, write, listen, and then speak. This is the path I took, and it is the longest path. Outside of francophonia, it is hard to resist the temptation to take this path because we want to take the « easiest » step first. But putting a heavy emphasis on reading first will hinder your long term growth. Resist the temptation. After all, languages are oral first!
Or…
Third, you could learn in this order: read, listen, write, and then speak. If you’re not in a francophone country, this is the path I recommend most. Because most of us don’t have excessive time to devote to learning a language, you will not always be able to practice listening and speaking. You can’t, for example, do so while you’re on the bus or waiting for your doctors appointment.
(For the analytics among you, yes, there are technically 24 different paths because each medium can be paired in 6 different ways with the others. However, it doesn’t pan out like that in our case.)
Most of all, it’s very hard to know what to expect in terms of improvement. For some reason, we have a hard time « feeling » our improvement. Perhaps because our improvements go unnoticed by others, or because each new word learned feels like 1/1,000,000 of growth.
In other words, don’t expect to « feel » improvement drastically. Instead, you can use The French Objective’s benchmark assessments to help.
Don’t forget, the key to learning French is to see the world through it.
- See the world in a new language.
To be successful, you must feel the eager need to learn French. We all went through this process once: we needed to communicate with our parents, so we pushed and pushed until it worked. Just think, you’ve already done it once. You can do it again!
The moral of this adage is simple. To go far, you have to want to learn. With real desire, anything is possible. Throughout your French journey, you face unclear improvement and few people to corroborate it. But if you want to learn, you will.
- Patience and Self-forgiveness.
On the other hand, realize that learning a language is a marathon. Be patient with yourself and enjoy the little pleasures that come with each new word, each new phrase, each new prononciation, each new oral comprehension success, each new step to seeing the world in French.
To learn French, you will have to accept making mistakes. I can’t remember how many times I said something totally dumb or embarrassed myself in front of French people. Because the two expressions are very close, I unknowingly told people I was turned on instead of that I was warm… it got a good share of laughs. But you know what? I’ve learned to laugh it off as well.
Nobody will expect you to speak French perfectly, especially if you are a native English speaker. Be easy on yourself–it will come!
What now?
With these 5 Must-Dos in mind, you can certainly succeed. But where do you start? Well, before you go off determined looking for your first exercises, you need to conceptualize your French journey.
Yes, the biggest mistake you can make is not understanding how you should evolve through the material. You will come accross loads of information, and some of it, although correct, is not neccessary.
Take it from me. I spent way too much time stumbling about the internet and sitting in classrooms listening to lessons whose end I couldn’t concieve. What you need most of all is to understand Fundamental French.