Learning French

I said in my last post that I thought that my learning French had significantly improved in the last couple of years. There are a number of factors.

One key influence has been a class that I have taken in Milton Keynes. Marie da Silva is a French national who has lived and worked in the Milton Keynes area for a decade. She has set up a number of meet-up groups in the area - which have brought together people from a number of countries and languages. These have been great for actual conversations - and have often some fun evenings, which have boosted my learning. Do visit the following website - if you think that this might be for you.

https://www.meetup.com/Language-Cafe-FrenchGroupMK/

Also visit the Lingo Mix Website at http://lingomix.co.uk

As you'll see French is just one of the languages available in the Milton Keynes area - and Marie has been key to setting these up. Her French classes (these are weekly - and are separate from the meet-up group) - concentrated on building a framework of grammar.

That has been key. I had built up a recognition of a wide variety of vocabulary over the years. This was done by concentrating on reading. I've been a reader of Le Monde and French books picked up on holidays in France - and from Librairie La Page in South Kensington; The European Bookshop & Foyles (near Tottenham Court Road) - for a very long time. But the trouble is - that while you can get the gist of something - you don't get the structure necessary to communicate yourself.

I also don't have much of an ear for the subtleties of spoken language - and find it difficult to replicate  pronunciation. Marie has been very patient with me - and over time I've got better - as a result of having to speak in class and at the meetups.

Gabriel Wyner, in his book "Fluent Forever" [How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It]" argues that there are three basic keys to language learning.

1 Learn pronunciation First
2 Don't translate
3 Used spaced repetition systems.

Good advice - and in future posts I wish discuss these ideas further.

How to Learn a Second Language

You'd think that I'd be good at learning other languages. After all, I was bilingual as a child. Though I was born and grew up in the West Midlands, my family were from South Wales - and my parents spoke both English and Welsh to me at home. Yet I've always struggled to learn languages. I don't have the ear for it - and the way we were taught French made it tedious and ultimately failed for me (lots of rote-learning - and writing out verb tables and vocab lists). In fact, while I just scraped an O-Level (my worst performance by far), I happily gave up French the day the minute the exam concluded.

It was a trip to Paris (won at a holiday show in Northampton), that ignited my interest in the language. Over time I learned enough for getting by on the holidays we took in France with the children. I came to enjoy reading it (my idea of paradise was, and is, to read Le Monde whilst sitting in the sun and sipping red wine). In fact, I followed the first year of a D.E.U.G. mention Droit (University course in Law at at Université de Poitiers) through attending the first week of each term, getting and buying the reading list, and studying at home. The exam was a disaster - I could read the question - know in my own mind what I wanted to say - but had very poor skills in writing French. (To be honest, I had almost none).

The trouble is, being able to read in a second language, doesn't help you communicate. So when I would pop across to France for a trip - the shopkeepers and waiters would regard me as any other hapless English visitor.

But learning french (or any other language) isn't impossible.

There are lots of books available - and CDs to listen to, but on their own they didn't work for me. I now attend weekly french conversation classes in Milton Keynes with Marie Da Silva. Marie is french, but has lived in Milton Keynes for some years. She's also keen to promote "real learning". She set up a meet-up group for speakers of French (and other groups for other languages - and has organised fun events bringing together people from many different language backgrounds. Recently she set up Lingo Mix. I thoroughly recommend her website - http://lingomix.co.uk/ - and the activities which she runs in Milton Keynes.

I'm finally making real progress. Having the opportunity, in a friendly environment, to practice speaking the language is essential. So whether it's the Tuesday conversation class - or playing Scrabble in French with teams including a wide range of language skill level (last Wednesday) - or a meal with patient French nationals - my skills improve. I had always concentrated on vocab - but Marie has helped me to appreciate how the structure of grammar aids (rather than hinders) learning.

I hope I can persuade Marie to share some of her thoughts in guest posts in the future.

As a teacher myself, I know that a learner can't delegate learning to the tutor. The learner needs to put in the time and effort themselves. So as well as class, and social events - I use other tools at home. I'll be sharing with you what works for me.