Mission: High Intermediate French by December 2012 - Advanced by Summer 2013 | My language mission and my log | Forum

Please note that I already have a thread on this forum (many pages in.)  But, for some stupid reason I started the subject with "New User" ignoring the fact that I would post on the same thread for a long time, and this cannot be changed.  And, I have changed the nature of my mission, so I have started a new thread which better reflects the plan.  Benny – if you don't want the forum clogged with dead threads, feel free to delete the old thread.

Very quick background – I am American (native English speaker) and studied in Montréal for two years for my masters degree at an English language university.  I had a very, very, VERY basic knowledge of French going in (meaning, I knew je, tu, vous, a few forms of parler, etc..)  While there, I developed a high degree for comfort with the sounds and spelling, and a fairly large vocabulary from signage, etc., which I think is actually very helpful to me now. But, I developed NO conversational proficiency because I was picking up almost all nouns, and I had zero grammar.  I avoided French TV because I couldn't understand it.  I listened to French radio a lot, but I don't believe in the powers of passive listening to teach a language.  (It certainly didn't work for me.)  I was busy with grad school in a different subject, so I didn't feel I had time to focus on consciously learning French.  Such a wasted opportunity!

My original plan here (in June 2012) was to be "high intermediate" in French in 6 months, as demonstrated with an appropriate score on the TEFaQ (French proficiency exam for Québec immigration.)

I had largely abandoned my old mission thread because I was posting on a blog, but I have since made the blog open to blog authors (me) only.  I started wanting to write well-developed, well-written posts, and frankly, it's just too time consuming to write a good post!  I was spending hours on well-thought-out posts about culture, language learning, travel, etc.. I realized I could be using that time studying French.  So here I am again.

I have been using Rosetta Stone TOTALe.  I have all 5 levels, and have just started Level 2.  I honestly think this program is hugely helpful and I think a lot of criticisms of it are entirely unwarranted. Some other criticisms may be valid for some people.  But, it works well with the way I learn, and I think I have an advantage since I started with a background, albeit a tiny one, in French.  I'm supplementing with online tools and grammar books.  I think RS does a fantastic job of building up the foundation and then, about mid-way through Level 1, suddenly launching into very useful sentences.  I already feel like I'm much, much better equipped to deal with daily interactions in French than I was even just one month ago when I last visited Montréal.

But here's my NEW AND IMPROVED PLAN… I am going to be enrolling in the full-time French intensive (immersion)  program at McGill University in Montréal (my alma mater) in January.  I'll do at least two of the 6-week sessions.  That will be 300 instruction hours in an interactive course, plus being able to live in a francophone environment.  This time around, my SOLE GOAL will be to improve my French, and I am determined to step outside my comfort zone and actually use the language.

I'm hoping to get to high intermediate by the time the program starts in January, so that I can make the most of my time there… it's all the better to already have decent skills so that you're actually able to communicate pretty comfortably and just hone those skills.  I'll also still be taking the TEFaQ (which is not just to test myself, but also to submit to Québec because ultimately I want to apply to immigrate.)  I'm shooting for the highest score I can possibly attain, because the higher the score, the more points I will get for immigration.

Today I am skipping active use of Rosetta Stone and instead am going to review my notebook entries from the last two Rosetta Stone lessons.

I also read a chapter in "Intermediate French for Dummies," about infinitives and present participles. (Great book by the way – the author is Laura K. Lawless, the woman who has also written a seemingly endless supply of information on the About.com French pages.  Sometimes I just want to read from a handy book, though, instead of looking online.)

I'm listening to spoken French and songs on the Montréal radio station I've streamed.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (so, today and the last two days since the weekend) I worked with Rosetta Stone.  I just finished Unit 1 of Level 2, so I am 1/4 of the way through Level 2.  I'm getting more and more useful vocabulary and grammar and am now learning different verb tenses.  The next lesson will cover passé composé, and the last lesson covered le futur proche, a very simple future tense.  Actually I'm not sure if it can be called a tense or just a grammatical construction which indicates a future action. It's simply using "aller" conjugated in the present tense, followed by the infinitive of the verb, for instance, je vais manger, for "I am going to eat." Whatever it's called, this has immediately expanded my conversational ability, which is exciting!

I've also been listening to Radio Canada for at least a couple hours a day.  I'm noticing an increase in the number of words and phrases I can recognize, so I feel like I am making progress.

I just found out that a third movie in a Romain Duris/Audrey Tautou series (L'Auberge Espagnole, Russian Dolls) is in pre-production and will be released in October 2013.  I am hoping to watch it without subtitles at that time!

Today I worked through the first Core Lesson in the second unit in Level 2 of Rosetta Stone French, which covered futur proche and did more work with passé composé, expanding my ability to talk about things I am going to do or have done (or which other people are going to do or have done, as well as asking people about their past and future actions.)

Also, more Radio Canada listening…