We had an interesting lesson in French today where we talked about inclusive language in French. To be honest, I thought that anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female would have used “vous” which is the equivalent of “they” or a formal “you” in French but I was wrong. The pronoun iel is used […]
My French Journey
It’s been interesting to be learning French these last few years. It’s now well and truly ingrained into my life. I cannot go a day without listening, watching, writing or talking French. When you learn a language, you pretty much should make a pact with yourself that it should be part of your life. And […]
Become Fluent in French in 8 Hours a Day
I stumbled upon this video on YouTube and it was an eye opener. First of all, I thought to myself that I can easily do this now that there is time in my day. Devoting 8 hours a day to language learning is achievable especially if you don’t work, have no family commitments and want […]
Nothing Wrong With Starting with Grammar When Learning a New Language
I watched this interview with D’aria talking about how she learned French and it struck me that we both started the same way. Many people on YouTube and other articles online advise NEVER to start with grammar. However this is wrong. I started like her. I bought the Practice Makes Perfect books and methodically over […]
My First Day of Summer School
This morning was my first day of Summer School and I was like a little kid. I did all my morning chores and even went into the garage to pump up my bike tyres. I hadn’t cycled in years but as the University of the Third Age in nearby, it seemed wrong to use the […]
My French Learning Journey…What’s Next?
I can’t believe that when I started on my learning journey to become fluent in French, two years ago have passed. Since then, I have had my life enriched with new people I have met around the world who are French native speakers or francophiles who have helped and supported me along the way. I […]
The Immersive Language Experience At Home
I’ve been writing about my language learning journey with French (click on the Search box above and type in ‘French’ to see the list of blog posts) over the last 18 or so months and one of the things that I’ve been deliberating is whether “language immersion” works and whether we need to be IN […]
30 Day Learning Challenge
Recently I found a tweet that had a language learning challenge over 30 days that I wanted to try out: I decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. A few French speaking people have been helping me along – most prefer to give their feedback through Direct Message as […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]
Resources I Use to Learn French
Many people on Twitter have asked me what resources I’ve been using to learn French recently. Others have also shared their own resources and apps they use to learn a language. I marvel at the huge amount of resources we have available – mostly free and readily available to learn a language. I have written […]
Learning French
By now you would have seen the tweets where I bang on about learning French. Many years ago in the (*cough*) I did six years of French but I failed. What a waste of six years of doing a language at high school! Since then, the only time I spoke the language was three times […]