Studying French

I haven’t come to France with any great ability at speaking French. I only did three years at school, over twenty-five years ago, and then have re-learned the basics at home and attended an excellent ‘intermediate-level’ evening class over the past year.

In addition to the class, I have watched French TV news online a couple of times a week and read the sports news paper L’Equipe regularly. And, of course, I have practiced speaking on our regular trips to France over the past 2-3 years.

I have been quite astonished by my progress, particularly over the past year, as I’ve never been very successful learning foreign languages. My comprehension of written French is really quite good and my comprehension of spoken French is improving.

However, I actually think my talking has deteriorated over the past three weeks. I think this is mainly because I’ve got lazy. Maybe it is because we have had a lot to do and I have not been sitting down looking at grammar and learning vocabulary.

Also, in the past, I would plan for hours what I might say in a certain situation and make sure I knew all the words and how to put them together. Now I expect just to be able to talk without preparation, which is a little optimistic!

So from this week I am starting to systematically learn French again. I am going to quickly revise my French course and the grammar I learned. I am going to revise verb conjugations and tenses and learn five new words a day to expand my vocabulary.

There are also some exercises to do, both in my course book and online and I just need to step out of the house to be able to practice listening to and speaking French – and there are many situations that I can plan and practice for.

The most exciting aspect of this year abroad for me is to be able to take part in a different way of life and learning a new language. Learning does take some effort and planning, but I am in the perfect situation and have the motivation to do it.