The thing which annoys me most at the moment is that I’m losing my French. After approximately 10 years of off-and-on study and achieving a DELF B1 certificate, I speak it passably well. But French and Quebequois friends are still correcting me (thanks!) for making dumb mistakes.
The problem: I don’t think there’s much I can do about it. If you have any ideas, I’m desperate to hear them.
I reason it out like this:
In language acquisition, there comes a point of diminishing returns where the amount you learn from private study, attending classes, doing homework, etc falls well below the amount of effort required to do these activities. I reckon I’ve hit that point. There’s plenty more I can learn. I am by no means an expert or even a particularly fluent french speaker but native french speakers generally feel confident they can speak to me and be understood.
Once this point is reached, the only way to improve one’s language skills is to practice, to use the language regularly and in everyday situations. Language becomes merely a tool rather than an object of study. There are two ways of doing this:
- total immersion in the culture until the language becomes second nature;
- regular activities which are conducted in the language.
For me, the first is at this stage impossible due to family and other commitments. As for the second, I can find no activities where learning the language is not the primary aim.
Conversation groups don’t do it for me as I generally have nothing in common with the other people and I’m not good at small talk for the sake of it.
That’s my reasoning. Is it flawed? Are my expectations unrealistic? What have I not considered?
I need to find an activity which, first and foremost, interests me in and of itself which is then conducted solely or mainly in French. My development in French, I feel, will come now from experience rather than training.
Is there, for instance, a local petanque group that’s full of native speakers? Does anyone have any other ideas?
Here’s a thought, start a online RPG game in French – use microphone, etc.
Cthulhu in French…..
Dave
Bonjour…
Love Daves idea….
1. Travel over there again, even for a short trip?
2.Convince Kathi to move over there? Andrew and I loved it but we have to wait for the kids to finish high school. So currently its just a dream.
3. Convince a friend to learn French so that you can have someone you are interesting in to talk to?
I would love to learn French too. It is such a beautiful language.
It must be so frustrating.
Good Luck Leonie
Like Dave suggested, gaming seems an obvious choice. RPGs have the advantage of being heavily language based, but even board or card games would work since you generally talk about the game as you play.
Are there any French-language online games?
I really ought to try and get back to learning some conversational French again, myself.
I like the idea of a games night. If I had the time, I might even approach the Alliance Francaise to run one weekly.
A couple of years ago I read somewhere of a group of people who meet regularly at Lake Macquarie (or Newcastle I think) to speak French – idea was to socialise and practice the language. I have just come back from 3 weeks holiday in France this week and am enthused about learning myself, though it is not entirely practical as I am already over-committed with no chance of starting lessons until next year.
However I will hunt about and see if I can locate that info…
Sorry just re-read your page and realised my error re ‘not a social group’.
However this might help:
Whilst in Grenoble visited a great bookshop the Bookworm Cafe, which had a book club running for the locals: idea was to meet and discuss a book or a theme (for eg horror movies / books) entirely in English. This would work great in the reverse if you could locate or start a book club with conversation on the topic in hand in French of course.
Good luck.
Thanks, Kathleen. All info is greatly appreciated.