What helped you learn French fluently?
French is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, being official in 29 countries. These include Canada and Haiti in North America, French Guiana in South America, more than a dozen African nations, five European countries, and Vanuatu and several French overseas territories in Oceania.
French is one of the many Romance languages and it is also known as the language of love. French is not a very difficult language which most people will try to convince you to believe! At the same time, French reading isn’t quite as straightforward as other Romance languages you may have studied, or heard of! Unless you approach it in the right manner with realistic goals and avoid the mistakes that many first-time language learners make, you won’t find yourself on the fluency bandwagon!
Immersion method of learning
Every new language needs time commitment; you can not achieve remarkable progress if you only put a few hours a week into it! I would suggest you have an initial plan ready so you approach the language in the most focused manner. Plan what you want to do in the first hour, first day, first week and the first month of learning French. Plan to minuscule detail each possible activity on how you want to approach the entire French learning so that you can learn it fluently in the shortest possible time. A Travel immersion for the sake of learning a language is sworn by many to be the best possible method to learn a new language. All you have to do is to take admission into a college or university of your choice to learn the language, pack your bags to stay at that place for a minimum of six months or a year. However, this approach seems to have an overwhelming effect on many due to the cultural shock that they get as soon as they land up in a new country due to their inability to express themselves or ask for something due to the language barrier. However, the travel immersion method is no longer a chosen method as it proves to be inconvenient, challenging, expensive and time-consuming for many. Also, it works best for outgoing confident individuals, who have the courage to live with the natives without knowing their language. Nowadays both online and classroom courses are available in partial and complete immersion training methods where you do not have to travel across the world to learn a language and you can do so from within your comfort zone. In the full immersion training method, all the classes are held strictly in the target language and students are provided with notes or CDs as a reference to follow and understand the lesson and context better. However, in the partial immersion method, the lesson is conducted in the target language but it is also explained in the commonly used language of the country.
Define Fluency for yourself
To define your fluency goals and develop realistic expectations. It’s also a great way to set realistic goals and determine an achievable plan for reaching them.
A goal is to learn to speak French at an advanced level in just one month by studying only two hours per week, is not a realistic expectation. However, if you plan to achieve an advanced level by studying and practising french for multiple hours a day, over the course of three months, that might actually be doable. If you are not sure how to study the integral aspects of the language, start by learning the rules.
Fluency in French is a need-based personal opinion. Language proficiency or linguistic proficiency is the ability of an individual to speak or perform in a language. For some being able to hold an understandable basic conversation with their business clients or friends could mean fluency, for others, however, it could mean being able to manoeuvre their way around while travelling, or an advanced skill level that allows you to engage in meaningful conversations, and for the others fluency could we actually talk like a native French speaker. Whatever be your personal parameter or need, it is important to note that there are different levels of fluency available!
You also suggested starting on a weekend or days which have consecutive off so that you get a little cushion to plan further ahead further, and review if you need to change your approach to learning and will also help you gather information on setting realistic timelines for yourself to become proficient in the target language.
How I got this right?
I approached my language learning in the following few methods that worked for me I am a person generally who loves to learn more through visual aids and listening rather than reading and learning
So the first thing I did I went ahead with Duolingo to get some information about the commonly used French phrases and words. Duolingo is a playful platform not really meant for a serious learner but it was able to give me the look and feel of how the language is and helped me make up my mind on how best I should approach my learning if I want to be fluent like explained before fluency is a very personal choice what may be fluent to me may not sound fluent to someone else!
The second option I chose was to go seek online resources to get all day to day conversational French words that would help me develop the basic spoken French for myself. I made a list of all those words important and difficult, used a Digital dictionary, labelled all my kitchen items with French words, labelled all the items on my study table with French words, created a small mini France in my home with pictures that were labelled, so I could repeatedly see them and connect to them with their French words.
A piece of advice I would like to give to all the French language learners who are striving to be fluent in French is to avoid linking the objects and situations in life with English words because that makes you really slow. Your mind would be forced to register those objects and situations in English and then translate them into French for you. Instead, start linking all the objects to their French words so that your mind can instantly make sentences and you can speak them.
My personal favourite! 🙂
My personal favourite, which I credit my fluency to and recommend all the French language learners to follow, is to watch French videos, talk shows and movies show to listen to the French dialect, the way French words are pronounced by so many different people, and catch the common idioms or the local slangs they use. Personally, when I started watching the French movies with English subtitles I very closely followed the way they spoke and I tried to copy speaking like them in the same accent as they were speaking and spent quite a considerable amount of time trying to perfect my accent like them through a repeat play copy accent until I got it right, almost right I mean. 🙂 Once I kind of perfected the dialogues I went ahead and had a look at the transcript and restarted the entire exercise now with the spoken words said in the copied accent. Once this exercise was effectively completed I overlapped speaking with the speaker to find out the pronunciation difference between how I spoke and how the way the speaker was talking. I worked my way through this, practised real hard, heard the dialogues on my earplugs to get the pronunciation of the accent as close as possible. Don’t fret over the French R, it will come with time! Until you get the hang of it, you can’t rely on the spelling of French words as an indicator of pronunciation there are too many silent letters and multiple spellings for a single sound.
These all have worked for me
I also used Anki flashcards are a revision.
Other than this I heard the French playlist on Spotify every day, while on my way to work. After getting the hang of speaking along with the movies I started using the same technique with music, recorded audiobooks and podcasts online! Do remember the only way to achieve fluency is through listening and talking. There are no shortcuts.
Make a journal or write a diary where you can actually capture all the phrases used in day to day life. You could write a grocery list, you could write about your day, about a colleague or just about anything. This helps you build a very useful vocabulary list for yourself that can help you make short conversations with people. This not only gives you confidence in the subject but motivates you to take your learning to the next level. but it also empowers you to start short conversations. Logon to watch news videos or read news online to further your interests. Train your mind well so you can use French literature as a study tool.
Find the conversation partner who could help you improve your French by speaking to you for 15-20 minutes every day. Logon to italki (you can get a teacher as a conversation partner), Meetup or other language exchange group to find one if there isn’t any in your neighbourhood.
Finally, just remember you need to identify your style of leaning from everyone's suggestions. What works for one may not always work for everyone.
Review your progress weekly and monthly. If you found that any part of your study routine didn’t work for you, then I suggest look for alternative methods to get it right. How you study is far less important than studying often and consistently.
Remember perseverance is the key and practise your magic wand. All YOU need to do is to stay motivated, not be deterred and keep the momentum going!
Keep learning every day, and keep using your French by speaking as often as possible, and fluency will come sooner than you think.