My French Journey: What I have Done in the First 5 Months

This blog is for you, and me

What are we REALLY looking for when we decide to read someone talking about their language experience? My answer would be "I want to know any tips/tricks that will make me a fluent speaker under 6 months." Although this blog may not provide a direct answer to that, but hold your horse!

While the "6 months fluent in XYZ language" may not be promised here, but you will witness a good range of language learning methods being truthfully praticed in this authentic experiment. You will see the direct uses and adaptions of these approaches in my French learning. And I would like to discuss with you about what worked well, what didn't, and why. 

If that is not a strong enough reason for you to stay with me. In this blog, I will also share how knowing other languages (Chinese, English, Vietnamese, which has some subtle connection with French, and Thai) boosted my learning.

If that is still not strong enough, I guess all I can do is start a new series only sharing cuttest cats I see on streets.

Alright, enough joking, here we go!

Part One. How is My French after 5 Months' (Dec 2023-April 2024) Learning?

So, quick question, how is my French now? Quick answer: I can now recognize some high-frequency words when watching videos or overhearing conversations on the streets. I can also describe things simply and order food in a restaurant.

You might be thinking, "Is that all?" Especially when there are thousands of videos on YouTube showcasing seemingly miraculous language learning methods that promise fluency in 6 months, and countless testimonials to back them up. It may seem like I'm falling behind the current fashion of language learning pace.

However, this was just a brief assessment of my progress so far. I don't deny that I had to take some time off to deal with life matters (like, getting COVID) and spent a month traveling in Thailand and Vietnam. But despite these interruptions, I'm not disappointed with my progress. Most importantly, I've established a comfortable learning system that I can stick to, and I notice improvements almost every single day. For instance, understanding the sentence structure of a completely new sentence or effortlessly producing a phrase without translating it in my head. Pretty cool, right?

Part Two. Why French?

It's quite simple: I wanted to become an absolute beginner in a second language again, so I could experiment with various learning methods to see what works (and what doesn't). Ultimately, this will enhance my understanding of educational theories, and hopefully, I'll enjoy speaking French with as much ease as I do with other languages (Chinese, English, Vietnamese, and Thai).

Part Three. What are My Goals and How Will I Achieve Them?

As mentioned earlier, my current goal is to be able to engage in daily conversations. I could simply learn 3-5 new words each day and hope that after a year (around January 2025), I'll be enjoying casual chats with friends in cafes, with a glass of wine in hand.

Well, that was one of the biggest misunderstanding I had about language learning when I was studying English in college. "Being able to..." is a great prompt to construct/start a learning objective, but it requires more detailed planning than simply finishes the promt with "chat with friends in a cafe". 

Ok, let's stay in the cafe chat scenario. I may want to express my frustration with a noisy neighbor who disrupts my sleep. Here, I need vocabulary relate to sound, time, person-description, emotion,  and sleep disorder. Grammatically, some past tenses to describe my struggles in the past few nights; present tenses for my current feeling; future tenses to convey potential actions I might take, like calling the police.  I might even need some modals to express my assumption about this neighbor ("Il doit être un DJ. Cette musique est tellement forte!"- He must be a DJ. This music is too loud!). 

I can go on and on, but you see what I mean? We need to tailor our language learning to specific situations. Here is another example for more perspectives (optional). If my goal is "being able to handle customers' complains in a restaurant setting". Well, it requires vocabulary relate to food, service, and equipment. A mix of tenses and modals would be crucial, particularly those used for solutions ("Puis-je vous apporter un nouveau plat ?"- May I bring you a new dish?) and maintaining appropriate formality ("vous", not "tu"- the formal and informal form to say you in French).

Since I know the importance of setting particular goals, I felt exhausted. I mean, be realistic. If I plan my goals in this way to every single lesson I learn, it will become almost a full-time job. I mean, this is pratically how teachers construct curriculums, right? 

I decided to take a short cut.

After googling "most helpful French textbooks", I picked 3 and scaned through the index area and the last few pages of them. Ultimately,  "Taxi!" emerged as the one that best aligned with my needs.

I didn't forget the whole "tailoring learning to specific situation" philosophy while I took this approach. A text book has its natural advantages. The content is well constructed (progressing from basic to more challenging) and repeated (good for understanding and memorizing); the topics are practical (no rocket science, but things I will definitely say in conversations, like hibbies); good visual support and audios spoken by people (some even with slite accent, which is a bonus, in my opinion). 

To further practice "tailoring into specific situation", I go beyond the textbook. To truly internalize the content, I actively "recycle" each lesson's concepts. For instance, after learning nationalities, I practiced using them with friends. Learning prepositions like "sur" led me to create the sentence "mon chat est sur la table" (my cat is on the table). While a simple sentence, it personalizes the concept of "sur" and makes it more meaningful.

I know I'm a little drift away from "how to make goals". Now, let's get back on the track. The refineded goals are:

• being able to recognize all the vocabulary I learn from this textbook even if encountered in videos.
• Meaningfully apply language elements (vocabulary and grammar) in real-world contexts. For instance, if the lesson revolves around identifying a criminal at a police station, my goal would be to use the learned grammar and sentence structure to describe five people I know, expanding the vocabulary range.

Each lesson in the A1 textbook has a corresponding personal goal (there are 36 lessons; I'm currently on lesson 6). In addition to the textbook, I regularly watch videos and take notes from Easy French and Lingoni channels (I actually started with Lingoni, but that's a story for another post!).

How do I achieve my goals? This is actually more appropriate to talk about in the assessment section:

Part Four. How Do I Know that I Learned (Assessment)?

Recall now, as children, the world gives assessments to our language skills. Parents may repeat what we said in the correct form if we made mistakes. A sentence on the newspaper may exposes us to proper usage. When it comes to our own learning, especially without formal institutions, how do we know that we learned the meaning, understood the use and grammar, and properly recycled our knowledge putting in real practice? 

The first thing came to my mind is using AI. 

This is what I designed in my learning system incorporates a unique assessment approach using AI. In each lesson, there are "textbook content", which includes the text, grammar, pronunciation exercises, and vocabulary. And there are "personal content", which is generated by me, for example, writing a short story of walking a friend's dog. In my assessment, I need to ensure I can remember, use, and make variations of these content accurately and appropriately according to the context.

For receptive skills like listening and reading, my assessment at this stage is simply recognizing words and short expressions while encountering them in familiar materials. 

I draw inspiration from rubrics used in standardized exams like IELTS to evaluate my spoken and written output. My assessment considers three key aspects: accuracy, fluency, and diversity. For speaking, I practice forming short sentences when encountering something I can express in French. If unsure, I write the sentence down and use AI tools to get feedback. For writing, I leverage Chat-gpt for grammar checks and refinement.

There is a very important take away I learned in making mistakes: It's not a sign of failure. It just shows you know where you need to grow. No correction, no improvement, right? It's a stepping stone.

Part Five. What's Next?

My current plan is to stick with the textbook ("Taxi!")  while supplementing my learning with Easy French and Lingoni videos for additional exposure. I will continue document moments where I discover how to optimize language learning theories through my own practice. And of course, share with you here! In the next post, I'll delve into effective memorization techniques – stay tuned!

This is the very beginning of my French journey, and I'm glad you are here to share these "a-ha" moments with me. If you have any questions about second language acqisition or wonders of English, Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai, please feel free to leave it in the comment area. Let's make this a collaborative adventure in language acquisition.