Welcome to the third article in our new series: How to Learn French. Not just les rouages*, but tips on the attitudes and practices you can adopt to ensure your success.

Last month we looked at ways to keep French in your life even when things take a turn and you’re forced to put your learning on hold for a moment or two.

We’re so determined not to have that (almost) inevitable occurrence spell the end of your French, we’re offering up a second suite of suggestions this month, and we hope they’ll serve as triggers for you to come up with little strategies of your own. Read on…

About ten years ago, I had a student whose French exam was approaching au galop*. I recommended that in the lead-up to the exam she surround herself with as much French as possible.

I was imagining French radio, films and music but after our lesson, Roxanne decided to take it one step further. She changed her phone settings over to French and by the time I saw her the next week she was une épave nerveuse*. She wasn’t highly tech-dexterous in English, let alone in French, so our precious avant-dernière* lesson started with her thrusting her phone into my hands with instructions to “Just fix it!” before we could get down to her exam prep.

As an aside, Roxanne’s life did tend to the absurdly chaotic, anyway. She once accidentally had an entire government building evacuated post-911 when she sent a birthday invitation filled with very fine sparkly confetti to a colleague through internal mail. The envelope didn’t make it past the mailroom, where someone suspected it was anthrax and, alarmed rather than alert, notified the authorities. Roxanne had knocked off for the day and only found out about it when a family member called her to ask if that was her workplace being evacuated on the six o’clock news.

So, while this trick didn’t work for poor Roxanne, I have heard of success stories. We’re also a lot more familiar with our phones de nos jours* so if you think you can handle a few uncomfortable days until you can get used to it, try it out.

Another student I recall went from being mediocre at best with les numéros* to an absolute champion in a very short period of time. He admitted he’d changed over the language of his sat nav to French and the results spoke for themselves. The trick is to get your eyes and ears used to the sights and sounds of French, which leads us on parfaitement* to numéro sept*.

When we’re training students for the DELF exams here at Lingua Franca, we’ve noticed that the listening exercises are almost always the most challenging. For ears habituated from birth to the sounds of English (as is the case for many of our students), being able to decipher French train station announcements, for example, under exam conditions and with a belly full of nerves, is a big ask.

We’ve found some success in helping our students to minimise the shock by encouraging them to seek out French sounds in la vie quotidienne*. My favourite tip is to listen to French radio on the commute to and from work, or to put it on in the background when you’re doing le ménage* or going for a walk, par exemple*. Rather than actively listening, I believe there is a huge amount of value in letting the sounds of French wash over you (a similar effect can be had by listening to French music), while your focus is actually elsewhere.

It’s when our ears are no longer scared of the tonality and melody of the French language that they can start to perceive individual words, rather than the terrifying wall of sound that seems to barrel towards us when we first start to tune in to French. My own listening improved a great deal a couple of years ago (and many years after I’d returned from living in France) when I committed to simply plugging in my phone as I started the car in the morning and listening to France Info (part of the Radio France suite of stations) via their app on the way to work. Try it, be patient with yourself, and in a few weeks or months, I think you’ll be agréablement surpris(e)* by your progress.

Become a French detective as you move about your daily life. The shower is a good place to start. Instead of absentmindedly staring off into space during your daily douche*, take a closer look at the beauty and grooming products that are most likely close to hand. From supermarket to luxury brands, many of the products we use are French, and words like gel douche*, gommage* and crème à raser* will soon be part of your French arsenal.

The same opportunity may lie in your bathroom cabinet. Look out for fond de teint*, rouge à lèvres* and crème solaire* for starters.

Don’t stop there, though. Care labels, pantry staples and stationery items have all been known to leave les empreintes françaises* as well.

Actually, if time is not on your side, forget cooking une recette française* and just try reading one instead. You’ll find that the first two or three you tackle are hard going as they contain a lot of cuisine-specific terminology, but soon enough you’ll see that the vocabulary (and the verbs for that matter) tend to repeat themselves, much as they do in English.

And naturellement*, if la lecture* inspires you to la création* of a mouthwatering French dish, tant mieux*.

So now it’s up to you to passer à l’action*. No matter how determined you are to learn (or continue learning French) it is more likely than not you’ll experience a roadblock or two in your French adventure. If you truly love it, though, j’ai l’impression* that you’ll instinctively find ways to keep it in your life, but juste au cas où*, take five minutes now to write up a quick action plan to safeguard your bonheur*. List two or three ways you'll keep French in your life, even if your rue* becomes a bit rocheuse*. Allez*!

Keep it in your life (cont…)