Hello everyone! As promised
I am going to film this video in French
to celebrate my 1000 subscribers!
1000! It's crazy!
Be kind with me please and please excuse my New Zealand accent
Let's go!
Although I am not at all fluent or completely fluid in French, it gives me the occasion
to get over my fears one step at a time by speaking French with you
I hope that I will watch this video in 2 years and say
Wow, I have made so much progress in French!
And as you have understood
The subject of this video is indeed my level of French
and how I went about learning French as an adult
starting absolutely from scratch.
I had the idea from one of my subscribers, Emma
who used the Ask Me Anything form
which I put
each time in the description box of my videos by the way
And Emma asked me
Firstly, Thank You Emma for your question
But I am not sure that I am the
role model that you are looking for because
I was a very bad student
when it came to learning French
But as I did all the things you shouldn't do
I am going to answer you by explaining all the things
Al the things you SHOULDN'T do
so that you can French much faster than I.
So a bit of history, I arrived in France
4 years ago now and didn't speak a word
of French. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little
I learnt a few words and expressions
Bonjour, Merci
S'il vous plaît
I took evening courses for 4 weeks
so I knew numbers and colours
Which weren't very useful
the very first weeks! My mother-in-law there like
"Rosie, have you eaten enough?"and me
in a total panic
"rouge, six" (red, six)
So I didn't learn anything at school
and then when I arrived in France I made matters worse
by doing the following things:
The first mistake I made was
being too scared to speak! I was
incredibly timid, I felt stupid
I felt like a small child and so I stayed
in my comfort zone, speaking English.
Of course I spoke a little French when
I went to the bakery or to the pharmacy
But aside from that, I was never
pushed to speak French
and i should have pushed myself actually.
I studied in English, interned in English
built relationships with others
in English
Other expats of course but even with French
people in my course who were bilingual.
Even if I started
to have some French words/phrases in mind
If there was a
1% risk
of making a mistake
I prefered to stay in English.
And as I was shy, it suited me perfectly
and in the end
I took the easiest route
It seems obvious but you shouldn't
do that - you need to dare, speak
dare again, make lots of mistakes
Nobody minds!
The second thing to NOT do
is to not work in your French
every single day.
As I didn't learn languages at school, I didn't know
how to learn French! And I thought for a long time
that if only I had the academic theory
the grammar fundamentals
I could start speaking afterwards
The problem with this plan is that
we never find time
to do that in life, especially if we work
or study! So I was spending
one hour max
per week to learn French
No no no! You need to integrate French
into your daily routine as much as possible.
Listen to the podcasts CoffeeBreak French
or News in Slow French during your daily commute
Do a bit of Duolingo during your coffee break, speak
as often as possible, listen to French music
while you are at the gym or running
Change your Netflix settings and watch your series in French
firstly with English subtitles and then with French ones
Try to make at least 5 points of contact with the language per day
That's how we make progress!
The 3rd thing to not do is not make the most of
your French boyfriend or
your French girlfriend.
People say it's the best way in the world to learn
French, to fall in love with a Frenchman
or a Frenchwomen
Sure, if you speak in French! Don't do as I did
I've been with my boyfriend for 5 years
and we speak exclusively in English
And of course his English is now
perfect and he's lost his French accent
My French, however, still needs
a little loving!
I tried several times to change
with my French boyfriend but I have the impression that
we don't know eachother
We lose our personal jokes,
our personalities...it's a vicious circle because
I have the impression that I'm not quite able
to be funny in French for example
But if I had spent the last 5 years
speaking French with him, we might expect
that I would have been able to by now
get my personality back.
The fourth and final
thing that I wanted to share with you
is to avoid speaking in French
at work like if it were the plague!
Again, I felt silly in French
as if I were
Less intelligent
Less impressive, less impactful, less able to negotiate
for example and it IS true, it's the case.
However, without working in
French, we never learn
such subtilities
in a book for example
You need to work in French to learn
how to work in French. It's as
simple as that. So don't do as I did
by resting in your comfort zone
and by targeting jobs in English
or your mother tongue
But dare to work in French
as I aim to do for my next role
Finally!
So all that just to say that it took me
4 years to start speaking like this but if you're
not a bad student like I was
you could count on it taking more like 2 years
if you continue to work in English
or study but if you work in French for example
or you immerse yourself completely
it's more like 6 months to a year
And of course the French respond to you
from time to time in English but my advice
is simply to continue speaking in French
Even if you feel silly
It's the principle! But in general I find
the French very generous on this point.
They compliment you a lot all the time
on your level of French, even if you're a beginner
My colleagues tell me a lot that I made progress
and that my accent is so charming
that it's not a problem
They're just so happy
that you're making an effort to learn their language that
they give you almost too much encouragement! It's so kind!
So that's all!
If you can stand my French and
you want me to continue
and want me to do, I don't know, one video per month or something like that
Please give me a thumbs up
or write a comment below!
Thanks again Emma for your question
Love you guys and see you in the next video
See you soon!
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