I have had holidays in France for most of my life so my ‘holiday French’ was OK. Once we started planning the move out here, I started to learn again. By the time we moved, I had a basic grasp of the language, almost a year later my vocabulary, comprehension and confidence in speaking French are better, but I still have a LONG way to go. As this is another topic I am often asked about, here are some of the ‘tools’ I have used and how they worked for me.
Vocab – clearly it is harder to learn a language in my 50s than it was when I was young. C’est la vie. For me, working my way through Duolingo little by little, each day, a couple of times a day has helped with my vocabulary. It can be mind-numbingly boring and frustrating, but the repetition, the combination of hearing, writing, speaking, and translating to and from has definitely improved my vocabulary. Eventually, a new word will stick, and I can start to use it in day to day life.
Another vocab motivation was the admin for living in France such my car (e.g. impôts d’importation, contrôle technique, carte grise, entretein, remplacement de pare-brise etc.) Similarly when registering with a doctor, having a health check and blood tests, applying for carte de séjour and carte vitale, buying a house, getting services connected, applying for planning permission, buying materials, getting repairs done… all required new vocab. Each time one of these came up, I spent time thinking about the words I would need, looking them up and trying to learn them. I’d have practise conversations with myself (yes, I know!) while I was running or cycling or painting walls etc. Of course, it doesn’t always go smoothly, and I end up doing some Franglaise etc but each time some of it sticks and I get less stressed about the next time.
Understanding written French has seemed to come quite easily for me and is improving with my vocab, I can happily read ‘stuff’ now and fill in the gaps of words I don’t know yet. I believe that is quite common.
For understanding spoken French I’d completely oversimplify it with 3 scenarios: (i) French being spoken for people learning the language using slow and simple phrases. (ii) Listening to French being spoken in clear, straightforward, unhurried language without a strong dialect. (iii) Trying to tune-in / join-in to conversations between ‘locals’ talking at a normal pace using very informal language.
For (i) my favourite resource was the InnerFrench podcasts. There are lots of others out there, but for me this hit exactly the right level and I continue to work my way through them. I also bought their ‘Build a Strong Core’course shortly before we moved out which I found very helpful with stuff like pronouns that I still struggle with today.
For (ii) I like to tune into FranceInter or RFI radio stations when I am driving, cooking, painting etc and I have found, little by little, I understand more as my brain has ‘tuned in’ to the language and as my vocab has improved. At first, I could get the general gist of some of the news stories, now I can get most of it most of the time. The music stations such as RTL2 and our local Radio4 have a good mix of French and English language music and repeating adverts are good for picking up new words etc.
For (iii) it is a much slower process for me. The more time I have spent talking to people, the more I can pick up, but this is difficult for me. I’m much better at answering the phone and asking people to slow down a little than I was, I can chat to our French clients and the locals who help me by slowing down and using simple language. I really need more immersion to improve in this area.
There are other things I have been doing which help me too like always having French subtitles on the TV, writing shopping lists in French, using French recipes when cooking etc but the thing that has made the BIGGEST difference for me has been ‘conversation exchange’. I speak to a lovely lady in the North of France for an hour week. We met via the TANDEM app. She wants to improve her (already excellent) English and I want to improve my French, so we spend an hour on Skype using both languages, catching up on the week’s news, discussing whatever happens to come to mind on the day etc. Very informal, relaxed, and unstructured but it has been so good for improving my confidence. I did the same with a few other people before we moved out here and they’ve been so helpful.
Some of my encounters in French are still very awkward and I know I still have a mountain to climb. I could be doing a lot more, but I also need to get the balance right when we have been so busy in the house and with the B&B.
À Bientôt !