As some of you know, I started learning French il y a très longtemps*. If my calculations are correct, I learned my first words of French in 1983 as a Year 6 student so that makes it a neat forty years ago.

For the first few years, we didn’t seem to advance much beyond basic greetings, colours, saying how old we were and the numbers. It almost seemed as though we started over every year and progressed very little. This didn’t bother us at all as we were just having fun with the language at that point, as well as devouring the pretend pains au chocolats* our Year 9 teacher would bring in which consisted of Furry Friends squished between two bits of Tip Top Bread. Miam*!

It wasn’t until Year 10 that things became a little more serious, and by Year 11 and 12 we were in the thick of it. I can picture (and I reckon Mum could still find) the reams and reams of foolscap A4 paper covered in verb conjugations in my Kilometrico-blue script. I have always loved French so the laboriousness of the task didn’t put me off. I’d just write the verbs out over and over and I ended up knowing them pretty well. Strangely, I cannot visualise an equal stack of pages covered in algebra equations.

So, in recent years when new students ask “How am I ever going to remember these verb conjugations?” my instinct is to tell them to write them out over and over as I did. I often second-guess myself, though, since my technique literally dates from the last century, when applications were something you filled out, not something you télécharge*. If the student is around my age or older, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t know of a better way than learning them rote. However, when younger people ask, I sometimes feel embarrassed I don’t have a more tech-based conseil* to give. Surely, I think to myself, memorisation techniques must have developed in the four decades since I opened my lever-arch file to pull out a fresh sheet?

In an effort to appear more early-adopter than flat-earther, occasionally I’ll recommend the app Quizlet, a great website that allows you to make digital flashcards for free. Mais*, old-timer that I am, I add the caveat that students should create their own digital pack rather than just accessing someone else’s, as I believe a great deal of retention comes in the act of writing out the conjugations. I’m also a believer that if something costs you a bit of effort, you’re more likely to feel some ownership (voire* pride) and therefore more likely to use it.

Even as I’m offering this advice, though, I really want to just say “Write them out!”. To me, it’s so quick and easy to grab a pen and paper and just hop into it. Easy, that is, until you actually have to do it…

I have recently started studying Sanskrit and as you may know, it uses a special (and quite decorative) script instead of the Roman letters used by French, English and many other languages.

In Term 1, our focus is to learn the alphabet and its sounds. It’s a twelve-week course. At Lingua Franca, we cover the French alphabet in one lesson, so I could see I had some work ahead of me.

Like the Chouchou* I aspire to be, I read the course materials before my first lesson and felt bien préparée* as I met my teacher and classmates for the first time. About halfway into the hour, though, the challenge in learning a brand new script became very clear. I made a promise to myself to devote Saturday afternoons to it until I had it nailed. I truly thought it’d take one samedi après-midi* and I’d be done, ready to be a total know-it-all by lesson two. Je suis très naïve*, it turns out.

For various reasons, my first whole Saturday afternoon turned out to be a grand total of 40 minutes by the pool. By the end of it I was confident with seven of the 49 characters and could (almost) recognise another six. “Pas de problème*,” I told myself, “the lesson isn’t until Thursday evening. You’ve got plenty of time.”

Needless to say I didn’t perform terribly well in that class, which didn’t bother me particularly, though I did have to laugh when I noticed I was exhibiting the behaviours we see in our own classes here at Lingua Franca from time to time: avoiding eye contact with the tutor and working out which question she was going to ask me and preparing that instead of listening to what was going on in the moment. Some of you know the drill, I suspect.

So while not being the star of the class was not bothering me, I didn’t like seeing what my lack of preparation was doing for my enjoyment of the language. I was so keen to unlock the doors between the characters, the sounds and their meanings, but I couldn’t do it as I hadn’t mastered the alphabet yet. I felt like I was falling behind. A couple of my new classmates were exclaiming how beautiful the language was and I just couldn’t see it. Worse, I knew that I wasn’t putting myself in a position to be able to make an informed decision as to whether I even liked my new hobby or not.

At the end of the lesson, the tutor set our homework, which seemed a bit overwhelming but I vowed to do it to get myself back on le bon chemin*.

Despite my resolve to do better, I knew I had a busy week coming up. Luckily, I mentioned my dilemma to one of my classes and I noticed one of the student’s eyes light up. Edith stayed behind as everyone else filed out of the room, and then enthusiastically told me how she prepared for her vet science exams. Guess what her conseil was? Rote learning of course. She told me to write the characters out over and over again, in groups first, marking them as I went. Those that I hadn’t mastered she suggested I regroup and go over as many times as necessary to commit them to memory. Then, once I believed I’d mastered them, to throw them back into the mix and go again. Over and over and over until it worked.

I was relieved. Even though she’d done her undergraduate degree some moons ago, it was clear she was a lifelong learner, and had chosen these techniques even when brighter, shinier techniques were available.

She also suggested tackling the learning first thing in the morning, before my day got underway. “Do it every couple of days in bed with a coffee when the world is still quiet. It doesn’t have to take too long.” I admit, this sounded a lot more appealing than devoting an entire Saturday afternoon to the task.

Again, though, I had to roll my eyes at myself. We regularly tell our students to do a little bit often rather than a big session on the eve of their lesson. Why wasn’t I listening to my own advice?

Easier to take Edith’s advice, it seemed, and I tried this technique in the days that followed. The first morning, I ended up with only 10 minutes to spare but rather than put it off, I decided to at least get my homework in my hands and just have a look at the scope of what I had to do. From the course materials, I isolated my reference points and matched that with the homework sheets. That act alone was enough to get me excited again about the challenge before me and as I write this, I only have three or four characters that remain stubbornly out of my grasp. I can also report that my second lesson was an entirely different experience. Though still difficult, I could at least follow along with the class, making mistakes, getting a few right and thoroughly enjoying myself.

Most importantly, my encounter with this ancient language that is brand new to me delivered a powerful lesson in empathy. I know I’m probably preaching to the converted, but learning a language is not easy. Let’s go easy on ourselves and just chip away at it together. I’m pretty sure it’s the key to unlocking the door between frustration and joy.

Sometimes simple is best.