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language learning on your own
Jul. 30th, 2015 04:07 pmMy advice to a friend:
To start with French, since I imagine you already have an introduction to the basic grammar (and if not, no problem), I'd like to start by
Part I. asking you -what is your favorite film, in any language that you understand VERY well?
1. Get a copy of that film in French (voirfilms.org and streamcomplet.com are good sites) and
2. go to http://opensubtitles.org/ to find the French subtitles for that film.
From there, we will read the subtitles line by line, and translate each word, introducing or reviewing the grammar points as needed so that you understand 5 minutes of the film, then re-cap.
Part II.
Listen to the first 6 words of Lily: http://www.paroles.net/pierre-perret/paroles-lily
and I will explain the meaning (it is spoken French, which is a bit different from 'proper' French...)
That is my favorite way of learning, unless you prefer to go through a book, which I imagine you already tried and disliked.
Personally, I learned French by buying a French grammar book,
1. going chapter by chapter through the book while also
2.reading a page of Astérix each day
3. re-listening to the song, and
4. watching the film until I was too tired for the day (I saw HP1 about 6 times before I understood it all in French!)
From there I went to watching the films and subtitles at the same time, memorizing other songs, reading the Astérix books and watching the films (which are much more difficult than films not filmed in French) -from there I moved to watching films for kids and then adults filmed in France, and reading novels written in French. This works for me far better than taking courses, but each person learns differently, and I have friends who love to make fun of my use of sign-language when I talk (not so much now) as I am a kinesthetic learner, and so using or creating sign-language for new vocabulary helps me learn much much faster.
If you like art, probably the Astérix comics are better to start with, and films also.
Hope this is not too much all at once?
Shira
To start with French, since I imagine you already have an introduction to the basic grammar (and if not, no problem), I'd like to start by
Part I. asking you -what is your favorite film, in any language that you understand VERY well?
1. Get a copy of that film in French (voirfilms.org and streamcomplet.com are good sites) and
2. go to http://opensubtitles.org/ to find the French subtitles for that film.
From there, we will read the subtitles line by line, and translate each word, introducing or reviewing the grammar points as needed so that you understand 5 minutes of the film, then re-cap.
Part II.
Listen to the first 6 words of Lily: http://www.paroles.net/pierre-perret/paroles-lily
and I will explain the meaning (it is spoken French, which is a bit different from 'proper' French...)
That is my favorite way of learning, unless you prefer to go through a book, which I imagine you already tried and disliked.
Personally, I learned French by buying a French grammar book,
1. going chapter by chapter through the book while also
2.reading a page of Astérix each day
3. re-listening to the song, and
4. watching the film until I was too tired for the day (I saw HP1 about 6 times before I understood it all in French!)
From there I went to watching the films and subtitles at the same time, memorizing other songs, reading the Astérix books and watching the films (which are much more difficult than films not filmed in French) -from there I moved to watching films for kids and then adults filmed in France, and reading novels written in French. This works for me far better than taking courses, but each person learns differently, and I have friends who love to make fun of my use of sign-language when I talk (not so much now) as I am a kinesthetic learner, and so using or creating sign-language for new vocabulary helps me learn much much faster.
If you like art, probably the Astérix comics are better to start with, and films also.
Hope this is not too much all at once?
Shira
