
How I Learned French in One Year - antiform
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/29/15258/287
======
sounddust
I learned French in one year by hooking up a mic/mixer to my laptop (so that I
could easily hear myself speak) and watching French DVDs with French
subtitles, pausing after every sentence and repeating what was said.

I'd rewind the film and switch to English subtitles when I didn't understand a
phrase. It takes about 6 hours per film at first, but becomes faster and
faster as you learn more vocabulary/grammar and get used to the process.

It's best to use real French films, because it's important that the actor's
mouth movements match their voice, especially when they're speaking fast.

I live in Paris now, and speak French fairly well with no American accent.

I also read bilingual books and memorized songs on the bus (pasted the lyrics
into iTunes so they'd show up on my iPod when listening to the song).

~~~
xccx
Thanks. Very useful information here. Current theory (Krashen) says output or
production happens naturally only after hundreds of hours of "comprehensible
input". It's great to see contrary evidence. I'd love to know more.

~~~
pradocchia
I had a similar experience learning Chinese. Output did not follow
comprehension.

The rule was never sleep without giving your brain something to work on. I
spent an hour in the morning and an hour at night practicing the precise
pronounciation of syllables, words and phrases, using tapes as a reference.
There was little improvement _during_ sessions, but noticeable improvement
_between_ them. Thus the rule about sleep.

As my pronunciation improved, so did my comprehension. I can't imagine it
working the other way. Comprehension is passive, and no guarantee of accurate
or even coherent production.

Following such a method you can learn a language in 6-12 months.

EDIT: I just read up on Krashen, and well, no, his theories are wrong. I
wasted years on that crap. I doubt fluency is even possible with such a
method. Just do what sounddust said and you'll be set.

EDIT2: The average person acquires fluency _despite_ the Krashen method,
rather than because of it. In my case, due to very poor audio recall, the
Krashen method was a complete failure, so I was forced to experiment with
other ways.

It turns out perception of foreign sounds is very weak in adults. We recognize
a subset of possible sounds and toss out the rest, or munge it into something
heavily accented. The repetition & production method compensates for this by
making such sounds "real". Once they are real, the actual language follows
more quickly.

EDIT3 (sorry): More on Krashen, from <http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html>:

 _The only instance in which the teaching of grammar can result in language
acquisition (and proficiency) is when the students are interested in the
subject and _the target language_ is used as a medium of instruction._

This is so fucking wrong. The study of grammar is _analytical_. Language is
the vehicle of analytic thought--if your proficiency in a language is weak,
your level of analytic thought in that language is also weak. So if you want
to study French grammar and you've only just started learning the language, by
all means, study it in English.

Wow. So this is why the English-speaking world can't seem to learn a foreign
language. Thank you xccx, you opened my eyes.

~~~
xccx
IMO English speakers don't learn other languages because they don't really
need to. If they do need to, and try to learn with a weak method, then they
experience frustration and emotional resistance. (Affective Filter)

For most people, analysis of _how_ a language works is not meaningful. Just
like for software users, most people don't care how a program works. They just
want to use it.

For highly analytical mathematical minds, study of grammar can be effective.
Krashen's research shows, however, that grammar study in classroom
environments does not help the majority of students to achieve conversational
fluency.

So I'm not saying you are wrong. But there's plenty of evidence to suggest
that what works for you might not work for everyone.

Personally, I don't believe that human language is purely analytical framework
for thinking. I do believe, strongly, that language is also physical,
emotional and expressive. I mean, what is the first word out of a baby's
mouth?

Just guessing, but I bet the experience that sounddust describes has less to
do with grammar analysis, and more to do with personally relating to the
_stories_ in the films and songs. He gets input that A) he comprehends and B)
he cares about.

Guessing again, I bet sounddust's success with early output results from
practice within a safe environment, where he has _no fear_ of sounding like an
idiot. It's a much different experience that being surrounded by peers in a
classroom and challenged by the teaching authority.

Further, since he's vocalizing expressions from authentic films and songs, he
can mimic not only correct pronunciation, but also mimic expression with real
gut _feelings,_ like glad, sad or mad. Feelings are meaningful.

So I agree with you, pradocchia, that early output (expressive mimicry within
a safe and playful environment) is useful: 1) it helps us to _hear_ and
understand the new language, and 2) it boosts our confidence so we can talk
much sooner.

And to sounddust, please correct my wild guessing about what you experienced
while learning French!

~~~
sounddust
Sorry for responding so late, but I just wanted to say that you're correct on
all points above about my learning experience, including (and i'm reluctant to
admit this) - the fear of sounding like an idiot (although I got rid of this
quickly after actually moving to France, because you don't have a choice).

~~~
pradocchia
Unexpected (?) but very interesting. I've poo-poo'd some of the points you've
just affirmed, perhaps from selective memory, so the anecdotal evidence is
welcome.

I was also scared of sounding like a fool, and need privacy to practice.

------
jibiki
From <http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about>

"In June 2004, at the ripe old age of 21, all post-pubescent and supposedly
past my mental/linguistic prime, I started learning Japanese. By September
2005, I had learned enough to read technical material, conduct business
correspondence and job interviews in Japanese. By the next month, I landed a
job as a software engineer at a large Japanese company in Tokyo"

Basically, his method involved constantly immersing himself in Japanese media.

~~~
bemmu
Oh man, I wish I could advance at such a pace. Sometimes I doubt these fast-
learner stories, but I guess different people just have different abilities.

I lived in Tokyo for 2 years, studying Japanese full-time, and completed
several courses in Finland before that. Speaking came pretty easy and I am
quite fluent in normal conversation, but learning kanji has proven to be a
real time-sink and a source of frustration, although at the same time I love
them for their beauty. Also reading Japanese feels different than reading
languages in the Latin alphabet, as the characters have an extra layer of
meaning (not a huge difference, but helps to distinguish homonyms + create new
kinds of puns / emphasis).

There are roughly 2000 kanji that you should know to be a high-school level
reader. The latest test I took (<http://www.speedanki.com>) shows I know about
800. Reading a newspaper is not possible currently, as I would have to
constantly look up kanji, and often the important words are the rarer ones.

But I will learn them. At this point it's an obsession, I'm not even sure why
I need to know them, except to prove to myself that I can.

~~~
samuraicatpizza
If you use Firefox, the gTranslate extension is pretty good for looking up
words/phrases quickly. All you have to do is highlight the word, right click,
and there's a translation menu item that has the translation. It might not be
the best for individual characters, but it's quicker than going to the
dictionary every five seconds.

~~~
bemmu
<http://www.rikai.com> automatically displays popups for kanji as you hover
your mouse over them. Here's a direct URL to browse the Japanese Slashdot with
it: <http://tr.im/ooJg>

But what I really meant were dead-tree books and newspapers that I could read
while not at the computer.

------
fb
If you want to learn to speak French and use it actively, not just to prepare
for some exam, I can recommend French In Action from my experience. It is a
base for a 2-year course at Yale University. The whole course revolves around
a story about an American student on vacation in France, a French girl, and
their families. A complete multimedia course consisting of 52 30-minute video
episodes with commentaries, 2 textbooks (500 pages of transcripts, visual aids
and readings), 2 workbooks (1000 pages of exercises), 1700 audio files aiding
the workbook and 2 study guides (400 pages). There is material for roughly 2
hours a day study for year and a half, but it'll get you to the level where
you can easily live in France (or Quebec :).

~~~
sp332
Watch French in Action for free (legally!) here:
<http://www.learner.org/resources/series83.html>

------
russell
The Peace Corps of my youth taught the volunteers to speak the new language by
3 months of total immersion, then threw them into the wild. My friends who had
gone through the process said that they could get by, but it took a year to
become totally fluent.

I picked up enough Portuguese to fumble along in Brazil by taking 40 hours of
lessons from Berlitz, 2 hours per day twice a week, just me and the teacher.
That was kind of the minimum to make continuous progress. Group classes are
way less effective, and courses at the local JC are totally worthless. The
only thing that counts is how much time you actually spend speaking.

It's expensive as hell, but I strongly recommend 100 hours of individual
instruction before going off on your own in learning. It gives you a good feel
for the pronunciation of the language. If you learn by reading but with the
wrong pronunciation, it may take a long time to recover. The proof to me was
when I was in rural northeastern Brazil. The person that I was haltingly
talking to said that he could tell that I was from Rio by my accent. I wasnt,
but my teacher was.

~~~
akamaka
I can't agree more about learning the correct pronunciation first. I spent
some time tutoring students learning English, and many of them had spent years
learning to read without any training on pronunciation. They end up speaking
English using the sounds from their own language, and will never recover from
it without massive relearning effort.

The two takeaways here are: learn pronunciation first, and learn the script of
the new language immediately (or you'll just mentally transcribe the sounds
using your first language)

~~~
tokenadult
_learn pronunciation first, and learn the script of the new language
immediately_

Correct, and correct. All native speakers of any language are habituated to
produce the sounds and perceive the phonemes of their own language, and NOT to
produce the sounds or perceive the phonemes of any other language. Acquiring
an understandable accent generally takes good training at the beginning.

~~~
tungstenfurnace
OK, so what's the optimum strategy?

How about starting with a CD and book of nursery rhymes and then listening
whilst following the text.

Then eventually ditching the CD and reading/singing the rhymes from the book
out loud.

Then (having read the translations) doing the same whilst visualising the
content.

~~~
tokenadult
_what's the optimum strategy?_

For an adult learner, CONSCIOUS awareness of the different phoneme system of
the target language is almost surely necessary. For some language
combinations, dictionaries with International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation
keys can help a good deal. Better quality language textbooks have a beginning
section detailing differences in the sound system from the learner's native
language to the target language.

------
myth_drannon
Language learning is such a VAST and ignored area in start-up community. I'm
also learning French and while Rosseta Stone is the mainstream software it's
practically a wasteland with small occasional gems like <http://babbel.com> (
which is very nice Adobe Flex application). Anyone finding a quick and a fun
way to learn a language will become an instant billionaire :) But I guess it's
the general problem of knowledge learning and is as old as the human race
exist. Imagine building something that has a possibility of destroying the
current concept of school! For now all we have is sci-fi stories about
swallowing pills for instant learning ....

P.S. I wrote a little Adobe Air application for someone who likes to learn a
language while listening to songs or watching youtube. You can search
lyrics/save/translate and bookmark your videos. It's a just organizes the
whole process. Have fun ! <http://www.singandstudy.com>

~~~
tokenadult
_Anyone finding a quick and a fun way to learn a language will become an
instant billionaire :)_

The emphasis would have to be on fun in that formula for making a fortune.

------
jleyank
If you're planning to live in Quebec, then French skills are critical. Lots of
points for immigration/selection, and things just aren't in English outside of
Montreal. If, however, you're trying for someplace like Vancouver, French is
less important.

I think various websites publish the skill set(s) the country and/or provinces
are looking for. It's trivial for a US-ian to get work here, and it's a 3-6
month process for Europeans to do so (at least in software-related
businesses). It also helps if you're young, single, ...

~~~
a-priori
I'm from southern Ontario, in Canada. Right now I'm living in Lausanne,
Switzerland, which is a French-speaking city. Knowing French is absolutely
critical for living here, and English is almost useless. Thankfully, I speak a
bit of French from school... it's not much, but I can get by, and my
girlfriend speaks it quite well.

It seems that most Swiss speak at least two languages well, but these two are
usually Swiss German and either French or Italian. Those working touristy jobs
usually know enough English to take orders and direct tourists to bathrooms,
but that's about it.

 _Edit:_ The irony of this article is, of course, that this guy probably now
has a better understanding of French than most Canadians outside of Quebec.

~~~
eru
Most Swiss seems to speak at least three languages well. In addition to Swiss
German most of them also know German. (And those are different languages.)

------
tokenadult
Not to rain on his parade, and congratulations to him in achieving a personal,
verifiable goal, but learning French as a native speaker of Russian who
already had huge exposure to English is less remarkable than learning a non-
Indo-European language for him. It is also more remarkable if a speaker of a
non-Indo-European language learns English (or French), which I have seen done
more than once.

But more power to anyone who takes the time and effort to learn another
language well.

~~~
billswift
Language FAMILY doesn't really make that much difference. Closer relationships
like Spanish to Italian or Russian to Polish help a great deal, but it is much
easier to learn Bahasa Indonesia or spoken Japanese for an English speaker
than it is to learn Russian. Language relations are based on historical
development, not always (or even usually) on current similarities that would
help a learner.

~~~
tokenadult
_it is much easier to learn Bahasa Indonesia or spoken Japanese for an English
speaker than it is to learn Russian_

The United States government agencies that track this matter don't generally
seem to think so. But if you have other evidence on this point, I'd be glad to
hear it.

I agree in general that a grammatical feature such as minimal marking of nouns
for case and verbs for person, number, or gender, making word order the main
basis for grammar distinctions, makes Chinese eerily familiar for native
speakers of English. But even though Chinese grammar is "easy" for native
speakers of English, to the degree that some Americans say "Chinese has no
grammar" (definitely a false statement), nonetheless lack of a lot of cognate
vocabulary or similar phonological system usually means that the native
speaker of English will thrive as a learner of any Indo-European language over
almost any non-Indo-European language.

The comparisons I've seen most often assume native speakers of English
learning various languages to an equal tested level of functional proficiency
after government-sponsored training. Length of training to reach the required
level is generally longer for the non-Indo-European languages than for the
Indo-European languages. The "easy" languages for English speakers are the
typically studied languages like French, German, and Spanish, perhaps because
of prior exposure as well as close similarity. It would be interesting to see
what studies of language learning starting from various native languages to
acquire various target languages are showing these days.

------
eguanlao
Wow! Fabulous link. Thank you. It just so happens that I am in Montreal at
this very moment. I came here for the weekend to get away from Chicago. I am
thinking seriously about moving out of the United States to either Montreal or
Paris. I have decided to start taking French lessons at Alliance Francaise de
Chicago (<http://af-chicago.org/>) this summer, and I have "acquired" MP3
albums of French lessons from the Interwebs. I will try the methods suggested
in the article and in the comments here. Thanks again.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Cautionary tales:

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspon...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8096988.stm)

------
ivankirigin
Any recommendations on learning to speak and understand japanese without
learning kanji? I hated studying kanji while taking japanese language courses
in undergrad.

~~~
menloparkbum
Get a Japanese girlfriend.

If that's not possible, sounddust's method seems the most likely for a hacker
with limited access to Japanese people.

~~~
randallsquared
With Japanese, you risk ending up speaking fluent Japanese-girlfriend, rather
than what you would be expected to speak as a Japanese-speaking male.

~~~
menloparkbum
This is valid, you will sound like a girl. However, it's better than not
knowing how to speak at all. It isn't so hard to correct - just go drinking
with some old japanese guys once a week.

