Forthcoming Posts

The pace of posts may drop in the coming few weeks. There's an election on - and that means I have less time to research and post - but do subscribe, or return occasionally - I hope to get some time for the research and writing that I enjoy.

Paroles en situations

I've found one relatively new book to be very useful for my studies in French. It has six "dossiers"

1 Écouter des annonces dans les lieux publics
2 Écouter des messages sur des répondeurs téléphoniques
3 Écouter des messages d'accueil sur des serveurs vocaux
4 Interagir au téléphone en situation d'urgence
5 Obtenir des renseignements par téléphone
6 Interagir dans des lieux publics

VERY practical.



One of the problems I've always faced is attuning my ears to spoken French. I might be able to cope in France if everyone wrote down what they say (in legible handwriting) - but the speed of the spoken languages is often too fast for "a bear of very little brain" like myself. 'Paroles en situations' works through a number of situations - with exercises which focus on different parts of the conversation in turn. There are 'transcriptions' of each 'conversation'. It is that in-depth, repeated interaction which I have found so useful. The book also contains a link to the Hachette website which allows one to load the activities on to a computer. I use both the book and the computer exercises.

Drill Books

Even the name is uninviting - but can 'drill books' help learn a language?

Rote learning has always had its advocates - but for many of us, it has had little impact in the long term. I remember writing out verb tables many, many times whilst at school. Yet I can still struggle to remember the correct conjugation for even familiar verbs. Similarly attempting to memorise vocab lists has consumed a lot of time - with limited success.

The key to success seems to be intelligent use of the individual words and forms used. The ability to recite verb and vocab tables is of itself of little use - it is being able to manipulate the information to create new phrases that is key. That's one of the reasons that I've found Duolingo so effective. Each time I do an session I am required to solve problems - translation; applying the appropriate endings; drawing on the database of vocab stored in my head. Each practice strengthens the links within the brain - making it easier and easier to solve the problems in the future - until one has gained fluency.

Drill books are designed to do this too. The application of the rules - helps "bed down" the rules in one's brain until they become second nature. I find it useful when doing the exercises to vocalise the sentences I am also writing.

There are a number of Drill books available - from various publishers. I've being using the series "Practice Makes Perfect" series from McGraw-Hill.







Similar drill books are available in other languages

The Duolingo Challenge

While I mentioned Duolingo in a post in my series on tools to learn French - there are many other languages available.

One of the ways to encourage your regular use of this tool is to challenge your friends. The 'league table' so created is based not on language or level - but the number of sessions you take in a week. So, if a friend is pretty strong in another language, say Spanish, you can still compete with them - and beat them by practising more.

You are welcome to challenge me - or put in a more positive way, to be my friend.

 I am "David744736" on Duolingo.