henryaure123

[last pollen]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[clear vigil]

Wait hold on I just realised you’re not a beginner (my bad for skimming)

[stiff idol]

No, lol! I am sort of a beginner, I would like tips even for a beginner. I was just about to read, haha anything would be great. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out

[clear vigil]

No worries! Let me rewrite it lmao

I’ll write this assuming that you’re mostly concerned about listening and speaking

I’m probably quite similar to you in terms of capability, but I think I’m a much more confident speaker than most people at a similar level because I’m really familiar with the basics of the language, because I spend so much time talking in French. It can be hard to find other people to talk to in the language so failing that I mostly talk to myself, which sounds sort of mad but it’s just such a great way to practice. Trying to translate things you see, just talking about your day, any kind of speaking practice is super useful, because over time you become more and more familiar with it until the words will just flow naturally. If you keep finding that you want to say something but can’t, you can look up the translation and then incorporate the word into your vocabulary. It’s super useful to iron out gaps in your knowledge and just to give the appearance of fluency, even if you don’t speak the language fluency. I can’t recommend enough just to practice talking in the language as often as possible

[sinful garnet]

From personal experience, what worked for me were things like

• Actively talking (writing) in the casual channels while avoiding #🌈anglais-français. I even had the Mode sans anglais role given to me so that I couldn't fall back on my English.
• Reading a lot of comics/manga/WebToons in French. The added visual cues helped me understand more and also learn from context.
• Rewatching shows in French. Don't use subtitles. Podcasts can also work, especially if you slow them down at first. While new shows are great, I found it to be easier if I was already familiar with the plot and characters.

[arctic elm]

Comment on obtient ce rôle ?

[sinful garnet]

Faut demander à Nostra ou aux modos.

[arctic elm]

ah la flemme de faire ca mdr

[sinful garnet]

Je peux te le donner, si c'est ce que tu veux.

[arctic elm]

Ah oui ça serait génial, merci infiniment 🙏

[sinful garnet]

C'est fait, tu peux plus te rendre dans #🌈anglais-français.

[arctic elm]

merci beaucoup :)

[clear vigil]

In terms of improving your listening, what might be tripping you up is:
• slang you don’t understand
• accents
• people talking fast and shortening their words (e.g. chépa instead of ‘je ne sais pas’)

For any of this, all I can recommend is immersion. It sounds like you have been immersing yourself by listening to podcasts, which is great, but I often find that listening to podcasts doesn’t help me much because I get distracted easily. If you’re watching films/tv shows on Netflix or any other platform, I really recommend that you watch with French subtitles. That way, you can read the words as they’re being spoken and you can get to grips with how words sound in real life. The only thing to be aware of is that subtitles aren’t always a word-for-word transcription of what the actors are saying.

For slang, I’d recommend following some French speakers on social media, looking at some French memes, lurking on French language subreddits/discords/etc. Also, I set my phone to French which means I get shown more French content. There are words that you won’t necessarily hear in podcasts or educational content that are a lot more common in everyday person French, and observing the everyday French internet is how you learn that stuff. French people love saying ‘du coup’, which I hadn’t even heard of before I visited.

Immersion can be boring and awful but it doesn’t have to be if you’re just engaging with content that you would engage with anyways if it was in your native language!! Amélie, for example, is my favourite film ever, not just my favourite french film

Sorry for writing so much lol :)
Generally, if you wanna improve your speaking and listening, it’s all about familiarity with the language. If you spend enough time around French, it will start to just feel natural to you

[stiff idol]

Do not apologize flos!! Omg, thank you. This helps a crap ton, I am so grateful to you and others who are taking the time to detail step by step. Thank you so so so much, u are the best. Question, with the subtitles portion. I usually watch the shows in French audio but then put on English subtitles but from what you and others are saying is I should also play the subtitles in French with the French audio?

[lavish dove]

Hi Henry! To be honest, it sounds like you're already on the right track.

The biggest, most importantest thing for learning French (or any language) successfully is, in my opinion motivation. And it seems like you have that in spades.

Something to keep in mind though is that motivation ebbs and flows. You need to find things that interest you in French and that compel you to keep learning.

For me, my initial motivation was that I had always been told my family was "French" (I'm American but my mother (and her siblings) as well as my grand-parents grew up in a French-speaking community in the US). Unfortunately my mother never transmitted the language to me, but I was always instilled with the idea that I also was "French". So, that gave me the initial push to start learning French when I got the chance.

But once I started, I had to get into the day-to-day slog of actual language learning. Memorizing vocab, conjugations, grammar rules. It's tiring. So I eventually started trying to make online friends who spoke French and started communicating with them. It was a huge motivator: I needed to speak French with them to be understood or to understand. Furthermore, in highschool we had the opportunity to take trips to Quebec and France and I jumped at each opportunity… the need to communicate with natives provided a great deal of motivation.

After high school, I enrolled in college and decided to major in French. So, I had an academic motivator. I got to study abroad, made friends, found a boyfriend while I was in France: more motivators. By this point my pride in my own ability in French also became a motivator to go further and further in my studies.

Nowadays, I'm married to a French guy, live in France, have French friends and colleagues and I'm still motivated to keep learning.

So, sorry for that long biography, but ultimately what I'm trying to say is that over the 28 years I've been learning French, the biggest question for me has been to find the motivation to push myself further and further. If you can find and keep that motivation, I'm sure you'll be successful, regardless of the actually path you take. Immersion's great, TV is great, books are great, radio's great, Discord is great, pen pals are great - it will all help, but if you can find the motivation, you will naturally surround yourself with all those things!

[sinful garnet]

If you use English subtitles, you'll most likely end up reading and not listening.

Don't give yourself that chance.

[clear vigil]

Yes! French audio with English subtitles can be helpful but I find that I usually just end up reading the English subtitles and ignoring the French audio. I think it’s better to have French subtitles because then you can connect the words you’re hearing to the written words. If you hear "j’ai une voiture jaune" enough times with "j’ai une voiture jaune" subtitled at the bottom of the screen, then every time you hear "j’ai une voiture jaune" without subtitles you’ll immediately be able to recognise what words you’re hearing. It just helps you recognise words and hear people better I think. You could watch without subtitles but if you’re not very advanced then that can just make things confusing. :) Happy to help!

[stiff idol]

Thank you! You don’t know how much this helps, that sounds amazing. Do you have any recommendations where to find people just to spend time around and make some friends who speak French? This seems to me like a super friendly server, so looks like I can do that here. Also, would you recommend studying abroad? I’m thinking about studying in Europe, I love the culture and my goal is to master many languages. I want to master French before hand but I think it would be awesome to study abroad, I also come from the USA btw. Been to places like france, and Europe amazes me every time. Maybe it’s because of my desire to always experience a new culture 😂. Was ur experience pretty rewarding and great? I know everyone’s different, if this is too much of a personal question don’t feel any need to answer

[stiff idol]

AHA! Gotcha, thanks again. Yeah, the only thing is I don’t have a lot of the vocab ingrained yet, so I’ll see it and not know what there saying, but I do see what u mean. Thanks for the suggestion!

[clear vigil]

i find that if you keep coming across a word you don’t understand them you can just google it, then every subsequent time it comes up you will just become better acquainted with it. but whatever works for you tbh!! good luck learning french

[stiff idol]

Merci merci! Super useful, yeah that would be a good idea! I will definitely implement these things. I’ll be around, thanks flos

[stiff idol]

Lol it would be very very nice if you could slow down the audio so I have enought time to write the word down that I do not know. I am watching and it keeps going HA

[clear vigil]

I think there is a streaming platform intended for language learners that lets you do this and has subtitles that you can click on for the translation! i can’t remember what it’s called tho, i’ll look it up

it’s a paid platform though as far as i’m aware

it’s called lingopie! it’s £12.99/mo but cheaper per month if you want to pay yearly. i’ve just heard about it through youtube adverts, i’m not sure how good it is but it seems like it might help you

and it has a variety of shows, not just cartoons