So I’m in San Francisco for the weekend and as usual, I’m looking for ways to improve my French. The nice thing about travelling to a big travel destination is it attracts visitors from all over the world and often you can find at least one or two guides on various languages.
While walking near Fisherman’s Wharf Friday evening, I spotted a souvenir book about the city available in several languages so I bought myself the French version. I still don’t understand every word, but I was able to understand a lot! I could draw from what I know about the city and what logically fits to fill in some of the words and ideas that weren’t clear.
I also found a free guide with maps at my hotel in French. I grabbed that as well, and used it in the same way.
Of course I always have my iPod along for the airport and plane. On the plane I listened to news podcasts in French and a couple of podcasts from busuu.com.
Keep your eyes open. There are often opportunities to work on language wherever you go.
Life may be crazy at the moment, but never fear, I’m still finding ways to surround myself with language. Here are a few of the ways I have kept my eyes, ears and mouth soaking in French this week.
This morning, I took my usual walk along with my ipod and Pimsleur lesson. I really like waking up my body and my mind together this way. I don’t pass too many people along my route, so I feel no shame chattering away with my lessons.
Also this week, I got another Facebook friend to exchange a few emails – he writes in English and I correct him, and I write in French and he corrects me. That works well. I’ve also been chatting a bit on Facebook with different French-speaking friends. Live chat is always more demanding and exciting, need to think on the fly.
Even out and about, when I have a few minutes, I can listen to a bit of a french podcast or check Twitter for 140 characters or less in French.
I hope that’s a little inspiration for busy people who really want to improve their language skills to sneak it in where you can!
Talking is a great way to get better at speaking another language. It’s a way to put your language skills into action, practice listening for comprehension, and coming up with appropriate responses on the fly. If possible, getting together for coffee or lunch once a week with someone who speaks the language you are learning is great! Ask all of your friends if they speak that language, or know someone that does. You might meet some people at an ethnic market or restaurant, or if you are so inclined, you could put an ad in the paper or local classifieds, such as craigslist.
This can be hard if you live someplace where nobody else speaks the language, though. But of course, once again, the internet comes to the rescue! The internet has long been a place to text chat with people around the world, and it is becoming easier and easier to use voice and even video conferencing.
You can go to places specifically aimed at learning languages, or you can branch out and try to meet native speakers who may share an interest with you on interest-based websites. Here are a few I have used to meet and speak with. For a pretty full-featured language site, I would recommend Busuu.com. Even the free membership gets you basic lessons in English, French, German and Spanish, as well as a whole social networks of other people who speak many languages and are learning languages there. They have live chat/voice/video included. In theory, if you spoke portuguese and wanted to learn arabic, you could find a complimentary partner there to talk to. I speak English and am Learning French, so I have found a lot of people to chat with there. Sometimes it’s just a one-time chat, and other times te people become friends and I speak and write to them regularly. Another place to go with voice capability is Second Life, a 3D world. Second Life is not specifically a language learning place, but you can meet people there from all over the world and have a chat. You can get free translators in Second Life, but be warned that they are sometimes inaccurate, and may also slow down your learning. I have made a lot of friends there who are happy to let me try my French with them and are happy to get a little help with English from me, but it’s a big virtual world, and not everyone wants to get involved in that, nor do they all speak their own language very well. There are some language schools within Second Life that build on the capabilities of SL, the best of which is specifically teaching English. That would be LanguageLab.com. Languagelab’s English City offers students a place to hang out and chat and have some fun in a supportive environment. They don’t currently have a French program there, so I’m out of luck.
There are a lot of social networks that have an international presence. Lately I have been spending more time on Facebook, getting to know both French speakers and English learners. Facebook’s text chat is a bit lame, so a lot of people who meet there end up using MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ichat or another application that has text, voice, and video to speak to each other.
You can meet people on a gardening website, book club, music site, whatever you are interested in. This gives you built-in subject matter to discuss, too. Use a translator to look up the names of some of your interests and put them in a search engine. I’ve met people for years who are learning English in all the various places I have visited, so why not try the same? It’s a little less direct, but you can follow your hobbies and improve your mastery of a language and make some friends in the process, then go on to try voice chat with them.
I’m giving it a try in an attempt to try EVERYTHING to improve my french! Here’s what I’m trying, and how you can try the same thing.
First, I used an online translator/dictionary to translate “games online” into french: jeux en ligne. I typed that into google and found 4,410,000 pages – looks good so far. I tried the first one, since it had several categories, and looked similar to game sites I have tried in English. http://www.zebest-3000.com/
So here I was looking at a somewhat familiar format, and I was able to use a combination of the french I know and my familiarity with similar pages to figure out what everything was. I’m happy to see “gratuits” – free games – here. An interesting graphic catches my eye, and I read the description: Bienvenue dans le purgatoire. Okay, that sounds interesting…
I’m a rather busy person these days, and really, who isn’t? I find it hard to make time for language lessons, but I still really want to improve. One thing I have been using for the past year that has worked fairly well is my ipod. It’s compact, convenient, it holds a lot of audio, and it can go just about anywhere.
I love anything that helps me multi-task, and with my lessons on my ipod, I can exercise my body and learn french at the same time! It’s probably not going to work too well if you are a swimmer, but I find it works great for brisk walks around my neighborhood.
a useful tool
I’ve been using Pimsleur, which is a nice audio program. My lessons are roughly 30 minutes long. I have the whole series loaded in a playlist. I like to go through the lessons two or three times, until the new stuff starts to stick, then move on to the next lesson. There is a side benefit to this – I have a double motivation to get out there and exercise, and if I skip it, I notice both my fitness and my french suffer.
I tend to have an online language dictionary open on my desktop at all times. I refer to it while reading or chatting or writing in french. While there is no perfect mechanical translator, I have found some useful resources that have different features.
I started following some french speakers on twitter to get more exposure to the language.
It’s nice to have the language popping up throughout the day. At least one of the twitterers I am following has been posting links to interesting articles, too. So when I have the time, I follow the links and try to read the articles. Of course there are some words and phrases I don’t understand (je ne comprends pas!), so I look them up, or make a note of them, and try and figure it out from the context. Of course, being a social network, thhere is also a great opportunity to learn about the culture as well.
I wonder how many people use twitter this way? I think it’s a great addition to the tapestry of immersion possible through the internet.
Understanding the spoken language is one of the more challenging parts of learning a language, in my experience. One thing I try to do when I can is listen to the radio news in the language I am learning. I have also tried music stations, but much like radio DJs everywhere, they speak very rapidly and use a lot of slang and sound effects.
Generally, news reporters speak clearly and use the official language. I suggest finding the equivalent of National Public Radio from a country that speaks the language you want to learn. The great thing is that there are so many international stations streaming online now.
I have a thing for languages. I only speak one language fluently so far, English, but I am working very hard to increase that number! I am lucky enough to work in a field I enjoy, helping people around the world learn to speak English. I will chronicle my experiences both with learning and teaching, cultural exchange, and whatever else seems relevant.
I’m so excited to see the web being used by so many people as a way to learn, teach and share language! I’m sure I’m not alone in my love of language. I believe it comes from an innate desire to communicate. I find it so rewarding to be able to understand ideas and to express my own to people who are not English speakers.
In case you are interested, I am currently working hardest on learning French, but also picking up some Italian and Portuguese, as well as occasional words and phrases in the languages of my friends from around the world. Living in California, I also know a lot of words in Spanish, but I don’t know the grammar.
So that’s the seed, I’m sticking it in the virtual soil and seeing what comes up!
Stumble It!
