5 ms·

Is there a better option to reach beginner-intermediate level? I am going to have to learn French from scratch in about a month and I'm finding the prospect dau

by tomlu 7y ago

Is there a better option to reach beginner-intermediate level? I am going to have to learn French from scratch in about a month and I'm finding the prospect daunting.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> I am going to have to learn French from scratch in about a month and I'm finding the prospect daunting. I'm intrigued by the fact that you can see this requirement coming up. What's imposing it on you? What defines "success" in learning French? If you're interested in the experimental views of a random person on the internet, babies learn language in the following sequence: 1. Listen to the language with no understanding or context. By the time you're born, you will be able to tell the difference between your language(s), and a foreign language. 2. Practice producing sounds that could be part of the target language. If you're learning French, then at this stage you're pronouncing nonsense syllables, but at least they're nonsense French syllables. 3. Be exposed to many example sentences for which you already know the meaning. (This is actually an ongoing process which never terminates -- seeing an unfamiliar word used in a sentence for which you know the meaning is how you learn new words.) 4. Learn some single words. ("Mom". "Moon". "Jump".) 5. Use your words to communicate with the people around you. Look how they smile! 6. With your growing understanding of sentence structure, move on to sentences. --- As an adult learner, you can collapse the phases (as do babies, really) and take advantage of formal instruction to learn things much faster than a baby can. I strongly recommend using formal instruction to go from "nothing" to "beginner" level. But stages 2, 3, and 6 remain crucially important for pronunciation, understanding, and production, and you should probably focus some time on each of them. You may not need certain abilities. Foreign learners frequently never achieve native-like pronunciation, because strange pronunciation is only a minor barrier to communication. And many people learn a language to the point that they can understand it but can't really produce it themselves. And a word of warning from personal experience -- I can converse well enough over text messages in Chinese for Chinese speakers to feel basically comfortable. All of my practice is in text -- in person, I still can't speak at all. You'll only develop skills that you use.
- matwood 7y ago
  > What defines "success" in learning French? This is similar question I had. I think a lot of people on HN think learning means becoming an expert, but many people just want tourist level of fluency. That means vocabulary, phrases, and basic conversation. Whether someone learns perfect pronunciation and sentence structure or not means little as a tourist trying to get by. I found Duolingo sufficient for tourist level fluency.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  I would say 2. is pretty underrated; especially anglo saxon folk (and in my experience, Americans being the worst) speaking any foreign language sound absolutely like they skipped this step entirely. Funny things like Grissom in CSI supposedly being a German expert and managing to pronounce literally every word wrong to people coming to Paris with college French and have people look at them like they are aliens. The knowledge of grammar is there but the pronunciation is off by miles. My first and last name are not sounds in English apparently and polite people try to pronounce them correctly (I do not really care how it is pronounced; I am not important) them, English and American (and Australian) cannot even hear side by side that they pronounce it really differently. They ask me to record the correct and then their way and they cannot even hear they are pronouncing it differently. How can you learn a language correctly like that? It must be practice right? I came here from another thread because I am sure this is the same as me learning Mandarin; I have been ordering green forks instead of green tea for a long time...
pumanoir 7y ago
Search for Michel Thomas tapes/cds at your local library
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ronyeh 7y ago
Try out the Pimsleur method. You'll quickly get the hang of "sounding" correct, even if you can't hold a conversation. I think it's one prong of a multi-pronged approach to language learning. I used this method to learn some basic phrases and greetings in Russian. It helped me get by as a tourist, along with earning some surprised looks from the locals.
umanwizard 7y ago
Well it depends how much time you have to put into it... Buy (or pirate, but really, you should buy them if you can afford it, they’re great) the entire set of Pimsleur French tapes. There are 90, each 30 mins long. Do one tape every day. Note that this will take you longer than 90 days as you are supposed to repeat tapes when you don’t remember ~80% of the content. Concurrently, get Anki (flashcard program) and find a French vocabulary deck ordered by frequency. Learn as many new words per day as you have time for. Do all your required reviews every day. Concurrently, spend as much time as you can every day reading or listening to appropriate material and trying to understand it. Search for “French graded reader” for some good books to buy.
- AareyBaba 7y ago
  This is what I did for Pimsleur Spanish. I recommend Pimsleur.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Same here. I only wish there were more Spanish levels. I have gone through all of them but now I am stuck at a still very basic level.
- iaabtpbtpnn 7y ago
  You can probably also rent these tapes from your local library!
- unhammer 7y ago
  I also recommend Pimsleur. Unlike with Duolingo, I feel like I can actually produce new sentences with the constructions that I've practiced with Pimsleur. Of course, Duolingo covers more vocabulary, but with Pimsleur I feel like I can actually speak the words and produce new sentences, not just type/recognise them. (I've also heard Assimil is a good alternative to Pimsleur.)
- fatalogic 7y ago
  To add on to these great suggestions I'd also say speak to people. Go on Italki or HelloTalk. Caveman brute force a 5 min conversation if you have to but imo speaking asap is essential and using the resources above + a frequency list can get you through the the first 5 minutes of conversation very quickly. I think a lot of language learns focus too much on vocabulary and grammar when starting out but they don't take the time to drill/ use the vocabulary they are learning in actual conversation. There is no point in passively knowing 1000 words if you can barely use 100 in an active conversation. Another resource that I like but wouldn't recommend it unless it was on sale is the mimic method. Learning the phonetics and how to hear/create the unique sounds of your target language is really important but it's too expensive for what you get imo.
melling 7y ago
I built an app to help learn the first hundred words: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hundred-words/id1469449237 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hundred-words/id1469449237
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jazzyjackson 7y ago
I've really enjoyed the Mango app + website, which I got free access to via my library. It's conversational and has a great interface to repeat things over and over again with native speakers. [0] mangolanguages.com

by tomlu 7y ago

Is there a better option to reach beginner-intermediate level? I am going to have to learn French from scratch in about a month and I'm finding the prospect daunting.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> I am going to have to learn French from scratch in about a month and I'm finding the prospect daunting. I'm intrigued by the fact that you can see this requirement coming up. What's imposing it on you? What defines "success" in learning French? If you're interested in the experimental views of a random person on the internet, babies learn language in the following sequence: 1. Listen to the language with no understanding or context. By the time you're born, you will be able to tell the difference between your language(s), and a foreign language. 2. Practice producing sounds that could be part of the target language. If you're learning French, then at this stage you're pronouncing nonsense syllables, but at least they're nonsense French syllables. 3. Be exposed to many example sentences for which you already know the meaning. (This is actually an ongoing process which never terminates -- seeing an unfamiliar word used in a sentence for which you know the meaning is how you learn new words.) 4. Learn some single words. ("Mom". "Moon". "Jump".) 5. Use your words to communicate with the people around you. Look how they smile! 6. With your growing understanding of sentence structure, move on to sentences. --- As an adult learner, you can collapse the phases (as do babies, really) and take advantage of formal instruction to learn things much faster than a baby can. I strongly recommend using formal instruction to go from "nothing" to "beginner" level. But stages 2, 3, and 6 remain crucially important for pronunciation, understanding, and production, and you should probably focus some time on each of them. You may not need certain abilities. Foreign learners frequently never achieve native-like pronunciation, because strange pronunciation is only a minor barrier to communication. And many people learn a language to the point that they can understand it but can't really produce it themselves. And a word of warning from personal experience -- I can converse well enough over text messages in Chinese for Chinese speakers to feel basically comfortable. All of my practice is in text -- in person, I still can't speak at all. You'll only develop skills that you use.

matwood 7y ago
> What defines "success" in learning French? This is similar question I had. I think a lot of people on HN think learning means becoming an expert, but many people just want tourist level of fluency. That means vocabulary, phrases, and basic conversation. Whether someone learns perfect pronunciation and sentence structure or not means little as a tourist trying to get by. I found Duolingo sufficient for tourist level fluency.
tluyben2 7y ago
I would say 2. is pretty underrated; especially anglo saxon folk (and in my experience, Americans being the worst) speaking any foreign language sound absolutely like they skipped this step entirely. Funny things like Grissom in CSI supposedly being a German expert and managing to pronounce literally every word wrong to people coming to Paris with college French and have people look at them like they are aliens. The knowledge of grammar is there but the pronunciation is off by miles. My first and last name are not sounds in English apparently and polite people try to pronounce them correctly (I do not really care how it is pronounced; I am not important) them, English and American (and Australian) cannot even hear side by side that they pronounce it really differently. They ask me to record the correct and then their way and they cannot even hear they are pronouncing it differently. How can you learn a language correctly like that? It must be practice right? I came here from another thread because I am sure this is the same as me learning Mandarin; I have been ordering green forks instead of green tea for a long time...

pumanoir 7y ago

Search for Michel Thomas tapes/cds at your local library

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ronyeh 7y ago

Try out the Pimsleur method. You'll quickly get the hang of "sounding" correct, even if you can't hold a conversation. I think it's one prong of a multi-pronged approach to language learning. I used this method to learn some basic phrases and greetings in Russian. It helped me get by as a tourist, along with earning some surprised looks from the locals.

umanwizard 7y ago

Well it depends how much time you have to put into it... Buy (or pirate, but really, you should buy them if you can afford it, they’re great) the entire set of Pimsleur French tapes. There are 90, each 30 mins long. Do one tape every day. Note that this will take you longer than 90 days as you are supposed to repeat tapes when you don’t remember ~80% of the content. Concurrently, get Anki (flashcard program) and find a French vocabulary deck ordered by frequency. Learn as many new words per day as you have time for. Do all your required reviews every day. Concurrently, spend as much time as you can every day reading or listening to appropriate material and trying to understand it. Search for “French graded reader” for some good books to buy.

AareyBaba 7y ago
This is what I did for Pimsleur Spanish. I recommend Pimsleur.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Same here. I only wish there were more Spanish levels. I have gone through all of them but now I am stuck at a still very basic level.
iaabtpbtpnn 7y ago
You can probably also rent these tapes from your local library!
unhammer 7y ago
I also recommend Pimsleur. Unlike with Duolingo, I feel like I can actually produce new sentences with the constructions that I've practiced with Pimsleur. Of course, Duolingo covers more vocabulary, but with Pimsleur I feel like I can actually speak the words and produce new sentences, not just type/recognise them. (I've also heard Assimil is a good alternative to Pimsleur.)
fatalogic 7y ago
To add on to these great suggestions I'd also say speak to people. Go on Italki or HelloTalk. Caveman brute force a 5 min conversation if you have to but imo speaking asap is essential and using the resources above + a frequency list can get you through the the first 5 minutes of conversation very quickly. I think a lot of language learns focus too much on vocabulary and grammar when starting out but they don't take the time to drill/ use the vocabulary they are learning in actual conversation. There is no point in passively knowing 1000 words if you can barely use 100 in an active conversation. Another resource that I like but wouldn't recommend it unless it was on sale is the mimic method. Learning the phonetics and how to hear/create the unique sounds of your target language is really important but it's too expensive for what you get imo.

melling 7y ago

I built an app to help learn the first hundred words: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hundred-words/id1469449237 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hundred-words/id1469449237

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jazzyjackson 7y ago

I've really enjoyed the Mango app + website, which I got free access to via my library. It's conversational and has a great interface to repeat things over and over again with native speakers. [0] mangolanguages.com