Many people ask me about my french learning journey. I usually have long winding voice notes, texts, and stories about the journey I've taken thus far. Still, I want to share it for the first time in writing. If you follow me anywhere or read my earlier post about language learning being a rather promiscuous process with learning resources, then what you're about to read will serve more to fill in the blanks with some details I had left out earlier for convenience.
I started off learning French using Duolingo. I was in my final semester of university and wanted to learn french for the sake of it. I thought it would be fun, and in many ways, I always pictured myself as a french speaker. I started with the cheapest, most fun, the most accessible application I could find in the app store. At first, I didn't begin with french alone - I was too excited by Duolingo. I added Spanish, German, and Italian and tried to learn them simultaneously.
Terrible idea. This decision cost me about 4-5 months of learning time. Nothing stuck very well, so I started reading on another free resource - Google. I found many things that could be improved with the Duolingo app and my way of learning french. Firstly Duolingo (especially at the time) was great for building a basic vocabulary or learning a bit of grammar. However, it could have been better when learning to hear or speak a language in the real world; I read people talk differently. I was frustrated. To refine my fortunes, I dropped the other courses to focus squarely on francais. I found a website called "French Today", and I saw several haphazard videos on youtube - I picked the former. On French Today, there was a demo course called A moi Paris. It came complete with an app, and it was all to learn french listening. You got 3 short conversations, and they played at 3 different speeds; Slow, intermediate and native speaker. I played those conversations at least 100 times each. This was perfect for me. When you're learning, it's best to target specific weaknesses on the way up. This helped me hear french better, and it helped my accent (pretty awesome, by the way)
Afterwards, I kept at it with Duolingo; they improved the general engine of the app and added a story feature. The story feature also allowed me to listen to slower recordings and quicker speeds, just like I had done on french today. I set up all my games in french and because I read a verse a day, my Bible was also in french now. The Duolingo French podcast came along at just the right time. Initially, I needed the transcripts for each episode, but my French listening slowly improved. I got confident and thought it was a great time to see some films. I did pretty okay with the Short indie french films, especially when I slowed them down. With the longer, more complex films, my confidence was honestly shot a bit - I could barely understand.
Someone suggested I try Michel Thomas. You'll have to look him up, but he's a pretty big deal with rapid language learners. He famously had to learn a lot of languages during the war. I went through the intro to his french course, and it was pretty good for me. I didn't learn many new things, but what you might need at some points of your learning journey is affirmation. Someone to show you their success using a method you might also have stumbled upon. For Michel Thomas, learning was relaxed. You don't try to remember anything - that's the teacher's job. You didn't have to try to cram grammatical structures or vocabulary; shortcuts and easy, laid-back conversations were all it took for them to stick. I think what I also got from it was enough confidence in the process. You don't need to speak like a native to be a french speaker - you set your own finish line as often as possible.
Two years in, I continued through my master's program doing whatever lessons I could find. Duolingo got richer in content; I had a French-speaking classmate to practice with and build confidence, and eventually, I took a course in intermediate French speaking on Coursera. The course was more of an intro to student-ship in France. Still, it was good for showing I could cope with intermediate levels of French (at least in the academic setting). I continued with all my resources and eventually added Netflix to the list. With Netflix, I can see french films, and it's nice to see many of them or several scenes without needing subtitles.
It's been a long and windy journey that's still ongoing, but at present, I can think, read and write in French, I have the confidence to make essays or poems in what is my third (or fourth if you count pidgin) language, and I can listen to those formerly troublesome Duolingo podcasts on twice the average speed - I don't miss a beat. My method (if you even call it that) has been very scattered and strange, but if you have the time and don't want to spend [too much] money on learning a new language, this has been fun. It has made learning my current language of interest more effortless and even more exciting.