Je suis désolé que mon français est trés mauvais. But I am very eager to change this. So some day the previous sentence will actually be somewhat grammatically correct. I am not really aiming for written perfection, but I want to be able to hold a decent casual conversation in French without forcing the other person to switch to German or English all the time. I decided this a few weeks ago. However now I have been accepted to speak in Montreal at the mostly French speaking PHP Quebec conference!
I have been trying to get to this conference since years and obviously it now also makes the perfect fix point for my French learning efforts. Of course I doubt that I will be ready to give my talk in French. But I would hope that I can at least chat a bit in French with people while I am there. Seeing all my Swiss friends speak French, Italian and Spanish (some also Portugese) while we travel around European Frisbee tournaments makes me so envious!
Now the question is how should I best go about learning French? I had quite a lot of French back in high school, but I wasn't all to interested (somehow France remains the only country on earth where I was physically attacked be strangers - and not only once but 3 times .. always on school trips) and the rest of my class did not seem all too competent or interested either. So I know the basics to survive (say my name, where I am from and what I want to eat). My French accent is fairly decent (it was the only thing that got me to barely passing in school) and I have a basic idea of how sentences are ordered.
So my current plans is as follows. I will buy a new Bescherelle and start studying verbs while I am traveling around. I am also considering buying a learning DVD since after all my main goal is speaking and not writing. I am also hoping I can afford a flat fee train ticket for all of Switzerland next year again. Then I will try to make it to Frisbee practice at some of the French speaking teams in Switzerland to get some exercise. I will probably simply try saying French sentences in my head at every opportunity. I might also ask some co-workers of mine who speak French well, to speak French with me. Any other hints? Suggestions for or against a specific learning DVD .. anything you can suggest!
I don't think there's a secret method to learn a language but to just practice, practice again and keep practicing. Go read some french-speaking sites, try to get a french speaking channel on the telly, read french-speaking novels or papers, speak in french on msn/irc/whatever IM you use (btw if you wish to I can translate this whole comment in french :p), etc, that's what I do for english and I think it's working quite well :-)
As of the bescherelle, I'm not sure it'd be of such a great help. Lots of french people have at most a slight understanding of french language grammar, and the bescherelle is something very "high level", this is not something we use very often, even at school. That said, if you really think it'll help, go on, you'll always find interesting and useful things in it.
anyway, good luck for your studies, french is really an a pain in the ass to learn ;)
btw, I meant conjugation, not grammar for the bescherelle
After 5 years of trying ... I tried a lot of things :) There's this audio guide I can highly recommend "French with Michel Thomas".
Next time, try sending a conference proposal to the french PHP user group (AFUP). The yearly conference is held around 15 / 25 of november. You'd be able to speack some french with red wine drinkers and cheese eaters !
Hey, I recently decided to go the a course to raise my knowledge in french. But as I tried a lot too I propose a very good software from a vendor called >Tell me more<. If you are interested in more details do not hesitate to contact me.
btw. was nice seeing you on the IPC2K7 last week.
hf
Hello Lukas, Learning a foreign language, is a real issue. Certainly, improvements can be reach by speaking or writing. I presume your native language is english. So I think, you have to find an 'alter ego' speaking/writing the language you have planned to learn. You can try this basic experiment : for example you start a diary, you write it in french. You ask your alter ego to correct your writing. In the same way this alter ego can himself :
- translates your diary in english and you make the correction, - writes its own diary in english and you make the adjustment.
So on a daily base, for example half of one hour each day would be of great profit. Myself I'm interested in a such experiment., and we can speak about whatever you want, cooking, politics, economy, literature, PHP, design pattern France, United States , UK as you want. I've a blog we can start on it. I forgot, I'm a french man.
Marcel
=======The french release=======La version française====
Bonjour Lucas, Apprendre une mangue étrangère est un vrai problème, Des progrès peuvent être réalisés en parlant ou en écrivant. je présume que votre langue maternelle est l'anglais. Aussi je pense, il faut que vous trouviez un alter ego parlant/ecrivant la langue que vous avez prévu d'apprendre. Vous pouvez tenter cette expérience simple : par exemple vous démarrez un journal, vous l'évrivez en français. Vous demandez à votre alter ego de le corriger. D'une manière similaire, cet alter ego peut lui même :
- traduire votre journal en anglais et vous corrigez, - écrire son propre journal en anglais et vous faites les ajustements..
Ainsi sur une base journalière, par exemple une 1/2 heure par jour pourrait être d'un grand profit. Moi-même je serai intéressé par une telle expérience, et nous pouvons parler de ce que vous voulez, cuisine, politique, économie, litérature, PHP, modèle de conception, France, Etats Unis, Royaume Unis, comme vous voulez. J'ai un blog on pourrait démarrer sur celui-ci. J'oubliais, je suis français.
An easy way for me to learn a foreign language (you must have the basics) is to watch movies and series in the desired language while using subtitles in your mother tong or any other language that you understand which is easy using nowadays DVD's.
Thank you all for your feedback! Merci beaucoup :)
You're welcome at Lyon Tu es le bienvenu à Lyon
