Ralentissez! Slow Down!

Consider this: You are listening to a pre-recorded French conversation on your ipod. You have the transcript open in front of you. You follow every word of what is being said. But the moment you turn off the ipod and close the transcript, the whole conversation sort of disappears from your brain. You are not able to even recollect one full sentence. And this is happening even after listening to the recording many times.
Familiar!

Time to slow down! Time to fall back upon age old method of learning. Writing. Write down the conversation on a piece of paper, paying attention to each word written down. Once you have done that, read it aloud, slow….ly. Now see the difference.

I find this very effective. Hopefully you will find it too.

J'ai fait des progrès

When do you know you are making progress in learning a new language? ...
When you suddenly find you are not making progress. When you find that you have hit a wall and to proceed to the next level you need to push harder. And when you start questioning yourself if it was a good idea in the first place.

You see, picking up the first few words like bonjour, comment allez vous, il est, ils sont, is easy. The first few words come almost effortlessly. If that were not the case, you wouldn’t even pursue it far. But as you dig deeper you find things getting tougher. That’s when the real test begins. That’s when you start questioning your wisdom. And paradoxically, that shows that you have made progress.

So, what are the options?

The first and the easiest option is, of course, to lower your goals. You wanted to speak fluently. Now suddenly you just want to ‘manage’ your way through. (“after all I am not going to live in France”).

Other options:
a) Step back, give it a small break (not too much though), build up your enthusiasm and give it another go.

b) Avoid the tendency to restart all over – the tendency to perfect what you have already learnt is actually an escape mechanism to stay in the comfort zone.

c) Mix it up. Start looking for new sources of learning French. Internet is full of them.

d) Try some online quizzes. Here try BBC Quiz in French.

e) Try showing off your skills. Showing off puts pressure on you to sustain the image.

Still Struggling with French Phrases

You know you are still struggling when you encounter a phrase heard before in a new context and still do not get it.
An example:
I came across this expression in Rocket French: “Ça a l’air genial“ (It sounds great). This was some time ago. And I promised to myself that I would never forget this and use it every time I get a chance.
And today I came across this expression in Coffee Break French: Ça a l’air délicieux (It sounds delicious) in a restaurant context. And it just washed past me.
Ah well! One step at a time.

Importance of Grammar

Let’s work this backwards.
1. The main aim of language is to communicate.
2. To communicate you need to be able to form sentences.
3. Sentences are made of words and phrases.
4. However, words and phrases placed randomly do not make sense and hence no communication is possible.
5. Grammar gives structure to a sentence. Grammar tells you where the words and phrases should go in a sentence.
6. I, therefore, do not understand the reluctance to learn grammar early on.

Communication does not merely mean conveying needs or asking for directions or saying how many children you have. The goal is to convey thoughts and ideas.
This obviously takes time. But that is no excuse to eschew grammar.

Because humans pick up basic patterns naturally and without much effort. These patterns are generally sufficient for simple to intermediate level of activities. However, for more advanced tasks a better understanding of patterns is required. And that means more effort. Hence, study of patterns is considered difficult. And since there is a common tendency to achieve without effort, study of patterns such as, mathematics and grammar, is presented as something that is esoteric and not essential for normal routine.

Incroyable! C'est ridicule.

Fear of French

Fear of French

Everyone has a favourite French fear that needs to be overcome before learning French becomes a reality. To many it is the nasal pronunciation, to others it is the silent letters that all French words seem to be made of. These were never my concern. Since, Hindi has special symbols for nasal sound, I knew I will overcome this bit – sooner or later. I did hesitate over silent letters but soon realized that there is a pattern in this apparent madness. So, no! I was not afraid of the usual.
What terrified me was the liaison. Funny, but true. I actually gave up learning French at least 2-3 times because of this. How on earth could someone predict if the next word starts with a vowel?
Nous avons (we have) is pronounced “noozaavoN” (the capital N is nasal). While, nous faisons (we do) is pronounced “noo fayezoN”. So, essentially I needed to know beforehand when ‘nous’ will be followed by ‘avons’ and I needed to know that ‘avons’ starts with an ‘a’. Now that was difficult.
But as I persisted, I noticed something strange. And this is what I believe. I may be wrong, but this helped me.
Actually, nous avons is not pronounced “noozaavoN”. It is actually “noo zaavoN”. So even the French do not know what is coming. Once the French brain knows that the next word starts with a vowel, it then adds the liaison. Once I was convinced that this was the case, I started learning French with all gusto.
So, you see. It is all in the mind. The trick is to: step back and introspect, and then proceed. Now, isn’t this true for all endeavours in life?

Learning a language in 3 months

In my search for language blogs I have come across a very interesting one: Fluent in 3 Months. And I certainly envy Benny Lewis. But I do not agree with him.
Why?
Since you are reading this blog I will assume you know English. If English is not your mother tongue, how much time did it take for you to become fluent in it? 3 months? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?
So, what makes you think you will become fluent in a new language in 3 months? Remember the key word here is “fluent”, not communicating in broken language.
One might argue that if you had applied unconventional methods, you might have learnt English in 3 months. Perhaps, you are right. That’s why I gave you the link. Try Benny’s method and let me know if you succeeded. Personally, I am not in a hurry.

Indians saying no to English

I have never been able to understand why people of India did not take up French as their second language with a vengeance. Hindsight tells us pursuing English as the language of choice has helped India become the software power it claims to be. But given the fact that the English ruled us for over 190 years one would think that Indians as a whole would reject their language for their cultural rival – French. (This of course never happens; colonies almost always adopt their former masters’ cultural norms.)
But assuming Indians had decided to take up French, I can only imagine how much easy it would have been for us to speak the language. And it is not just because of the advantage of speaking the language since childhood. It is also because Devanagri script is very precise and more advanced than Roman script.
Let me take a few examples:
How do you think you should pronounce ‘Le’? Unless someone tells you how, you are unlikely to know exactly. Even after being told, I have heard people saying it incorrectly. But tell an Indian ‘Le’ => ल, and see them speaking effortlessly. Or tell them ‘les’ => ले and you get that perfect French pronunciation. Let’s take something a bit more difficult: ‘venez’. In Hindi, it would be written वने and you have an exact pronunciation key in your hand.

Who and Whom - qui et que

23-Sep-2011

The use of qui and que could be puzzling. Especially since English speakers tend to mix up ‘who’ and ‘whom’ without regret. In addition there are words like ‘which’ and ‘that’ that have similar role as ‘who’ and ‘whom’.

Mercifully, French has only two and the usage is deterministic. However, given the similarity in the two words, it takes time to figure out when to use ‘qui’ and when to use ‘que’.

From what I have learnt, ‘qui’ comes before a verb, and ‘que’ comes before a pronoun.

C’est elle qui conduit. (It is she who drives).
C’est elle que j’aime. (It is she whom I love).

Qui before verb and que before pronoun. You might as well memorize this.

Alternatively you may use this mnemonic: Since ‘qui’ already has an ‘i’ (and I is a pronoun) it cannot come before a pronoun. I find this easy to remember.

Update: 02-Nov-2011

One lives and learns.

Turns out that qui could also come in front of a pronoun. So, I need to change the rule ("Qui before verb and que before pronoun.") a bit.

1. Que before pronoun.
2. Qui before verb. (note: Que never comes before a verb).
3. Qui before a pronoun, if and only if, the pronoun is a person and appears after a proposition.

Example:
He is the person with whom I plan to travel.
Il est la personne avec qui j'ai l'intention de voyager.

She is the person to whom I go with all my problems.
Elle est la personne à qui je vais avec tous mes problèmes.

By the way, if you notice, the original explanation of 'who = qui' and 'whom = que' still stands.

Update: 08-Nov-2011


An interesting usage of qui came to my notice. I picked up the following sentence from Les Portes Tordues: Mais c'est surtout le vent qui nous fait perdre courage ... (But it is especially the wind that causes us to lose heart ...).

Immediately you can see that the pronoun nous follows qui. Now, this goes against the rule number 2 above which states, "Qui before verb", and nous is a pronoun.
Actually there is no conflict here. nous is an indirect object pronoun in this case, and in French, as you know the when a pronoun replaces an indirect object it moves to the front. That's what has happened in this case. And so, qui is still in front of a verb, but in an oblique way.

Will keep updating this post till mastery is achieved.

Primary French Learning Resources

I took some time (J’ai pris du temps), but I eventually have homed on to the following two resources for my daily French learning.
1) Coffee Break French - I listen to the podcasts (J'écoute les podcasts) as I drive up and down my work place in the mornings and the evenings. It helps me maintain my cool while driving (you need to drive in Bangalore to understand what I mean) and I drive slowly when I listen to my iPod.
2) Complete French (Teach Yourself series) – I spend (Je passe) about 45 minutes (quarante-cinq minutes) to 1 hour (une heure) working on each page diligently.
3) I make an attempt to read and understand something from www.francegazette.com.

The above resources may or may not work for you. There are many other really good resources out there. But there are a few things I have learnt in my attempts to self study French. These are:
a) There are too many resources out there. It is easy to get distracted. There are no perfect resources. So decide quickly which suits you the best and get on with it. Jumping from one resource to another does not help.
b) The most expensive course is not necessarily the best one.
c) It is difficult to depend on internet for information on which course suits you best. There are far too many affiliates trying to sell you the best course that is. Most of the times it is difficult to separate a genuine review from an affiliate sales pitch.
(By the way, all links on this blog are, and will be, non-affiliate ones, I promise you that)
d) Self-study needs discipline. You need to promise to yourself a fixed amount of time everyday dedicated to self study. Otherwise it is a waste of time.
e) Experiment with different styles of studying and determine which works best for you. I find I retain more when I write. The pages of my copy of Complete French are peppered with notes and comments. In addition, I will not proceed to the next page unless I know every word of the page I am working on then.
Bonne chance!

French is making my English better

Le français est faire mon l'anglais mieux.
And no, it is not because English has borrowed many words from French.
I try and repeat the last sentence I spoke in French - often in my mind, and sometimes in front of friends. In order to ensure I can do this, I try to keep the last sentence short and simple. And I find that this helps me with my English language skills too.
You see, if communication is the main purpose of a language, then keeping it short and simple should be the goal. That's it. C'est ça.

Revisiting Hercule Poirot - Revister Hercule Poirot

You know what?
All those Hercule Poirot books … all those skipped French expressions --- I feel like rereading all Agatha Christie books just to understand what dear Poirot exclaimed.
I picked this from Wikipedia:
The plane dropped slightly. "Mon estomac," thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly
I know now what this means: My stomach.
I now also know that even if estomac were female noun, it still would have “mon estomac” and not “ma estimac”. Isn’t that wonderful? N'est-ce pas merveilleux?

Small Moments of Joy - Petits moments de joie

We language learners live on tiny spikes of happiness. So it was when I came across and, more importantly, understood: “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” (This is a famous quote by Voltaire and is a favourite quote of software domain; no wonder software are so buggy; but I am digressing).
I was reading the article “Beta-Think” by Michael Bungay Stanier included in the brilliant initiative to End Malaria (p. 55). (For more details go to http://endmalariaday.com/; by the way, I am very proud that $20 of my money will go to buy two mosquito nets that will help eradicate malaria.)
“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”.
Le mieux => the best. “Mieux” means better. C’est mieux => It is better. But with the pronoun “Le”, Le mieux means the best.
L’ennemi even looks like distorted “enemy”.
Le bien. Bien generally means well, as in bienvenue (well-come => welcome). But in this context it means the good.
To translate: The best is the enemy of the good.

Unfulfilled Desire to Learn French

I can still remember the first time I had the desire to learn French. It is was way back in 1986. I was browsing at the Sapna Book Shop in Bangalore. And on the top shelf were this huge letters staring back at me: Linguaphone's Learn French. This was before the days of CD and podcasts. I could not afford it, of course. But the desire stayed.
I am now 47. I am not sure there are many at my age who start learning a new language. And that too for no reason other than to address an unfulfilled desire that is 25 years old.
My friends and family ask me if there is anything to gain from this.
Any thing to gain???
I guess no.
Or perhaps this is part of my retirement plan - when I am done with my day job, I will teach young children French. Or perhaps, I will freelance as a translator. Now that is not a bad idea. No?