adi8299

[tiny remnant]

Please be patient

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

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[dapper jay]

duolingo is quite bad at teaching languages to be honest

it's really slow, doesn't explain how stuff works the way it does and you're progressing more through bruteforcing exercises than understanding for the most part

you should consider it more like a game that can help you with investment and motivation than a serious resource

Grammar is very important. This is basically how sentences are structured and why stuff works the way it does, the rules of the language. Duo doesn't go over that or does it poorly.
It's basically the door to any language, it also helps a lot for motivation to actually understand how things works in my opinion.

Vocabulary is pretty straight forward. You need to know the words of the language to be able to understand and use them. A lot of the time, you can actually infer what word means, but you might also want to learn some vocab in a more focused manner, especially because there are traps and languages don't necessarily talk about the same thing the same way

[tired surge]

Yep I have realized that duo alone isn't enough to learn french. even if i do learn french from duolingo it will take decades for me. So yeah. guide me.

[dapper jay]

Finally, reading and listening is extremely important. This is basically your goal, and can only be attained by doing a lot of it. Not understanding everything isn't important. You just need to get used to doing it, slowly you're gonna get more things, it's gonna become more natural. You should vary your resources as well

My personal learning routine is

• reading & listening to media (best to have both, find stuff you like for instance video games, series, youtube, comics, anything)
• as you're reading/listening, note vocab and grammar points that stumped you (not everything, but for instance if you've seen something twice, or it really denied understanding)
• check those grammar points and do exercises about them
• add this new vocab to your flashcard app
• daily flashcards for vocab

flashcards might be less important for French tho as a lot of the vocab might be transparent
that routine is assuming you have good enough fundations to be able to manage some media and are not a total beginner

[sharp nacelle]

Even if the vocab is transparent, it's still handy to learn the gender

[dapper jay]

if you've been relying on duolingo, I recommend you learn some grammar in a pretty classical manner for now, as it's probably what you're lacking most.
LawlessFrench is an example of a website detailing grammar a lot through various articles. https://www.lawlessfrench.com/learn-french/french-for-beginners/ is a collection from beginner level onwards, but you can just search bascially any concept and find an article for it

[dapper jay]

yes, when you're learning vocab, don't learn "book = livre" but rather "a book = un livre" so you learn the gender as well.
Also for a lot of the vocab it won't be as straightforward, as use cases and meanings vary based on context

[tired surge]

oh yes I agree. gender is a big deal here.

but i think most of the nouns that end with 'e' is female. but i'll have to learn anw

[dapper jay]

about 60%
that's just slightly better than guessing a 50/50, which is to say not good

[tired surge]

yes.

[tired surge]

so this website is my guide? or am I supposed to follow more resources?

[dapper jay]

learning about 100 patterns can give you 85% consistency
it can be useful for guessing, but the actual rule is on a case by case basis. Learn the gender for each noun

[dapper jay]

you can use it as a guide to get up to track with grammar, but you need more
that said, both grammar and vocabulary are something you're gonna learn slowly as you progress through the language, which can only be done through reading and listening to media. Pick things you like, read and listen, then check online the things you missed to understand

[tired surge]

okay I will

[dapper jay]

also small thing but please don't use male/female for grammatical genders, they're not linked to biology

[tired surge]

oh. the best thing i can think of is re-watching anime with french subtitles. it will help i guess. since that is how i learned english (mostly).

but yes I had proper education for english as I learned the grammar, vocabulary and watching anime was the exposure . but for french grammar and vocab is what I need for now.

[tired surge]

can you provide an example?

[dapper jay]

I'm saying that even though "pomme" is feminine and "arbre" is masculine, there is no link to biology, you can't say male/female

[tired surge]

oh. Okay I get it. no issues.