Don't do it if you don't love it

Welcome to another 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.

This article has been swimming around my head for quite a few weeks now, and in preparation, I  made a few notes.

Along with the words ‘passion’ (more on that later) and ‘teacup’ (that, too) was a very strange scratching in my handwriting : go with the hair of the arm. I knew exactly what I meant when I wrote it and was confident it would provide the backbone of this article, as well as add some imagery to this conseil*.

The reasons for the awkwardness of my note was two-fold. Firstly, I’d translated it from a French phrase I’d stumbled across a few years ago. Secondly, I’d never been able to remember the exact saying in French but I was sure it had something to do with flattening down the hair on your arm in the direction it grows, and was used to describe how we should pursue those things in life that come most easily to us. That is, going with the grain rather than against it. 

It turns out I shouldn’t have been so sure. When I finally tracked down the saying, I found it had a meaning quite different to the one I’d ascribed to it.

Flatter une personne dans le but d’obtenir sa confiance.

To flatter someone with the objective of winning their confidence.

So, quite off the mark. Or was I?

A further exploration of the definition brought about this explanation:

Par définition, les animaux aiment être caressés, ils se sentent ainsi flattés et dignes d'intérêt.

By definition, animals like to be patted, they feel both flattered and worthy of interest.

The last part of this definition really resonated with this particular animal (moi*).

From the very beginning, aged ten, when I had my very first lesson, learning French made me feel good. There was something about it that I found so intriguing, as though learning these strange-sounding words would unlock a parallel world previously unaccessible to me. This feeling has never gone away. In fact, it has intensified. I’m sure many of you feel the same way.

It’s not so much that I’m flattered by French (of course not), or that it makes me feel worthy of interest, but there is something to be said about spending your time doing something you love. Simply put, it feels right. It indeed feels like patting a dog the length of its coat in the direction of the growth of the hair (the French phrase is so much more elegant, non*?). There’s a therapeutic benefit to repeatedly caressing your favourite pet and I believe the same is true for regularly practising a skill you enjoy. It’s satisfying, calming and fun. And if you truly love it, it becomes so much more than that. It can inform your whole life, as it almost has done mine. 

Our Chouchous* come to Lingua Franca for all sorts of reasons. The predominant one, of course, is the desire to learn French. Many assume the main reason anyone would sign up to French lessons is because they have a trip to France planned in the near future, but in fact, that is a relatively rare occurence for us. As I mentioned in a previous post, most people come to us because they did a little bit of French at school and loved it, and then their lives took a different direction and French just didn’t fit in. Years or decades later, they come to us, wanting to pick it up again.

We also have people who have never studied French before but have long dreamed of doing so. We have partners of French people who come to us to be able to communicate better with their loved one and their loved one’s family. We have people whose children have partnered with a native French speaker, and they want to learn French so they can communicate with their grand-children. Some people work for French companies where having a knowledge of French is of huge benefit not only to their careers, but invaluable in forging relationships with their workmates.

Then we have all the reasons that go beyond the acquisition of language. Keeping your brain healthy, doing something (anything!) that’s not work, taking time for yourself, challenging yourself to learn something beyond the scope of your current expertise. For company. For stimulation. For the laughs. For connection.

We’re often told by students that coming to French is the high point of their week. I totally understand that. As a person who has taken my love of French to the extreme, I live and breathe it. When you’re truly passionate about something, it’s hard to separate your work and personal life, and in fact, I don’t really see the point. Arbitrarily drawing a line down the centre of my life for the sake of ‘balance’ when my passion for language, culture and travel permeates everything seems pointless, even cruel.

That said, though, the true highlight of my week is my Saturday morning Philosophy lesson. I absolutely love it. I get to ponder life’s big questions in a slow and almost meditative way with a group of people who have absolutely nothing to do with my ‘real’ life. It’s so liberating. It’s like washing my brain every week. I walk out of there as light as a feather, and the bonnes ondes* last well into the evening and sometimes, if I’m lucky, roll into Sunday morning and beyond. 

I’m not passionate about Philosophy, though. I just really, really like it. Unlike French, I very rarely race to a text to find out exactly what the Stoics were on about, or memorise a Marcus Aurelius quote. I just enjoy having the knowledge wash over me for the time I’m at my lesson. Occasionally I’ll give it some thought during the week, but sometimes not, and that is fine by me (and my tutor, thankfully). I’m not there to become an expert on Philosophy. I’m there to do something different and be exposed to some of the oldest ideas in history, which are almost all new to me.

Many of our students consider their French lessons the same way. It’s something very enjoyable they choose to do once or twice a week and adds an extra element to the life they’ve created for themselves. They may do French for a year or two, perhaps longer, and will happily let it go when it no longer serves them or they find something else that piques their interest.

Other students have a true passion for French. They’re easy to spot when you’re teaching them. They sit forward, eager for more and more knowledge. They ask questions. At times, they almost quiver with excitement. Their eyes are wide and bright and it’s wonderful to witness. These people never let it go, though the amount of time they devote to it may wax and wane over the years. It becomes part of their identity, and therefore is always there, patiently waiting in the background.

If you’ve ever been on Instagram, you’ve almost certainly seen an inspirational quote (or a thousand) about ‘filling up your teacup’. It’s the idea that we all have a limited amount of energy (our teacup) and that our teacup must be full before we are able to devote our time and energy to others. While a lovely idea in practice, I think many of us operate with sub-optimal liquid levels at times. It’s just part of living a modern life. I believe pursuing a hobby should feel like you’re replenishing your teacup, or at least maintaining the level. Which leads us in to the third group…

Luckily, this group is not a big one. It’s made up of people who have been dragged (or pushed) into French and found it’s just not for them. I feel sorry for them. You can tell they’re trying to put a brave face on it, but that there are about a hundred places they’d rather be at 6:15pm on a Wednesday night than at a French lesson. Others are people who thought speaking French would be like learning to ride a bike. A bit disorienting at first, a wobble or two and then there’s no looking back! Et en plus*, you never forget! Those of you who have studied French know it’s not like this at all. Learning a language is more like learning to play an instrument, with verb tables substituted for scales. And, as boring as it may sound, practice, practice and more practice is the key.

It is to this third group of people that this advice is directed. It’s frank but, for me at least, worth thinking about: if you don’t love it, don’t do it. If the idea of your upcoming French lesson hangs over your head all week and doesn’t get any better when you’re actually there, please let it go. Unless there is a valid reason why you must continue (and sometimes there is), go and do something that makes you feel good. 

This advice is not a rejection. Hopefully if you’re doing French because you feel you should, it’ll feel more like a liberation. Life truly is short, and the bank of happiness to be mined so rich when pursuing something you love that if you don’t love French (or any other leisure activity for that matter), don’t do it. Your time is precious. Fill it with things that make you feel engaged, confident and as though you’re stroking your favourite pet dans le sens du poil*. Not against the grain, pricking your hand, stirring up dust, making you sneeze and generally leaving you feeling bad.

Next month: a few ideas on how to work out what you truly do love, if you don’t already know.

*piece of advice | *me | *don’t you think? | *Teacher’s Pets | *good feeling | *plus | *in the direction of the hair

Stop trying so hard

Last month, I advised a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ approach to speaking French.

If you know anything about French, you know there’s always an exception, so here it comes:

The first time this advice was offered to me, I can’t say I took it graciously. My reaction may have involved me throwing down my table tennis bat, flouncing off en faisant la tronche* and slamming my bedroom door. In my defence, I was only 16, mais quand même*.

The year before, I’d been lucky enough to take part in an exchange to Réunion Island, a little slice of French paradis* located in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Madagascar. I’d been learning French since upper primary school and was in Year 11 when a group of about 40 of us left Perth for Singapore. After an overnight stay in a Mauritius hotel where we learned the word for cafards*, our very excited group landed at Roland Garros Airport in the capital of St Denis.

We were billeted out to families across the island and I absolutely fell in love with my host mère, père, deux sœurs et petit frère*.

In the car on the way from the airport to my nouvelle maison, my host sister Cécile said: “Je suis allée en Australie l’année dernière.” Though I’d studied the passé composé* at school and thought I had a handle on it, I managed to translate her statement to mean that she was going to come to Australia the next year. Proof that there’s knowing something academically and there’s really knowing it.

”Fantastique!*’ I exclaimed. “Tu vas rester avec moi*?”

Cécile looked confused, I was embarrassed and that pretty much set the tone for the next four weeks of my life as I struggled to communicate with real French people in real-life situations with my suddenly sub-par French. Néamoins*, I had a wonderful experience, my French did improve (even though I couldn’t tell at the time) and the next thing I knew, we were back at the airport, me in floods of tears promising to return the very next year. It’s been trente-quatre ans* and counting, but croyez-moi*, it’s going to happen.

Since Cécile had already been to Australia, we were to host someone brand new in return. Though I was disappointed to be denied the chance to resume my close friendship with her, I was secretly excited we’d be hosting un garçon* called Michel. Naturellement*, I thought we’d fall in love and live happily ever after and I could already see my future playing out as one half of a très chic* bi-cultural couple flitting between Réunion, Australia and France.

So when Michel and I took an almost instant dislike to one another it was a disappointment to say the least. I found him arrogant, he found me arrogante*. If he was têtu*, I was even more têtue. Let’s just say on n’était pas faits l’un pour l’autre*.

Our discord came to a head over la table de ping pong* and it’s a moment I’ll never forget. It’s also one for which I am forever grateful, as humiliating as it was at the time.

Part of my arrogance came in the form of the pride I took in my French. I absolutely loved it from the minute we started learning it in primary school. I’d worked really hard on it and was therefore very attached to it. Un poil* too attached, as it turned out.

Michel and I had not been getting on since his arrival. He annoyed me like a petit frère*, and I already had one of those. I’d whinged to Mum but she wasn’t having it, telling me it was my duty to be nice to him since he was a guest in our home (fair enough). She suggested I invite some of my friends around with their own exchange students to dilute the intensity a bit, which I promptly did.

We all decided to play table tennis and though this should have been a safe choice of activity, unfortunately both Michel and I were blessed with l’esprit de compétition* and our bickering soon reached a climax.

I can’t remember if this played out in French or in English but I clearly remember Michel and I were on opposing sides of the net when he let out a stream of insults ending with words to the effect of “You think you’re so good at French but you try too hard and it sounds stupid!”. I was absolutely humiliated, my face rouge comme une tomate, my friends standing off to the side, mouths open, and the Réunionnais exchange students shifting awkwardly in their baskets*. Cue the bat slamming, flouncing and sulking for the rest of the afternoon. Oh adolescence, how I miss you!

I hate to admit it, but he was right.

We all know how hard it is to get our mouths around French pronunciation at first, and it can continue to be difficult for quite a long time. There are sounds in French that just do not exist in English, such as the infamous ‘r’ as well as the nasal vowels. Then of course they have words like écureuil*, which seem designed to destroy us.

Additionally, our French teacher in high school had told us to really exaggerate the ‘r’ at first, which is advice I still give to our students when they’re first introduced to it (merci, Mlle MacPherson*!). I’d just forgotten the second part of her advice which was to back off a touch once we’d mastered producing the sound.

So the advice to ‘stop trying so hard’ is valid, but may not apply to you if you’re still relatively new and trying to get your mouth (and head) around French pronunciation. However, if you’ve been at it a while, and it still feels like you’re making an enormous every time you open your mouth to speak French, see if taking it down a notch yields better results.

I know I used to think I had to try really hard to produce a French accent and try I did. Too much, as it turned out. It was only in making a concerted effort learn the rules of French pronunciation (and there are plenty of resources to help with that) that I had the confidence to back off a little.

If you think about it, we don’t have to make an effort when we speak English because we’re really comfortable with the sounds we need to make. In fact we don’t even think about it. The same is true for French people. They’re never trying to sound French, they just do. And that’s because they’ve mastered the required sounds.

Turn on French radio or watch the French news and you’ll soon notice that some people sound very obviously French, whereas others appear to have a softer accent. When I realised that, despite their differences, they were all native French speakers, j’ai eu un déclic* which seemed to give me permission to tone it down a bit. Not all French people sound like a Pepe Le Pew, I realised.

If you do the work of learning the pronunciation, you’ll see there are actually fewer variations than you might think. French pronunciation is one of the few areas of the language that is, in fact, not riddled with exceptions. The same sounds come up time and time again, but are just spelled differently (think of the ‘o’ in ‘tomate’, the ‘eau’ in ‘bateau’ and the ‘au’ in ‘jaune’ - they’re all the same sound). Learn to group these sounds together, and the whole exercise will seem more manageable. Those of you who have done our Absolute Beginner series of workbooks will have been shown this, but it never hurts to go back to the basics with fresh eyes and to have a go at mapping it out for yourself.

Next, practise, practise and practise some more (flashcards are great for this) and be gentle on yourself. It will most likely get worse before it gets better. Then, just when you reach the point where you’re about to self-combust with all the effort, give yourself a break.

Try slowing down and softening your delivery a little and you may well be surprised find your pronunciation sounds more fluid and gentle, and somewhat counterintuitively, even more French.

*sulking *but even so *paradise *cockroaches *mother, father, two sisters and little brother *new house *I went to Australia last year *past tense *Fantastic *Are you going to stay with me *Nevertheless *thirty four years *believe me *a boy *Naturally *very chic *arrogant *pig-headed *we weren’t exactly made for one another *the table tennis table *A touch *little brother *the competitive spirit *red as a tomato *squirrel *trainers thank you, Miss MacPherson *I had a Eureka moment

Fake it till you make it.

Many years ago, we produced a little travel phrase book in which we gave our three top tips for speaking French.

Those of us who have been lucky enough to travel to a French-speaking destination are well aware of the disparity between what we know in our heads and what we’re actually able to get out when put on the spot. It can be a deflating experience, but it’s entirely natural. If you think of a young child who is learning to speak, they are able to understand a whole host of words before they are able to get out their premier mot*. It’s the difference between passive and active knowledge and is also the reason we’re usually better at reading than writing. With passive skills, there is a lot of educated guesswork and context clues to help you, whereas when it’s up to you to actually produce language, you really have to know your stuff.

I think where many of our students become frustrated, though, is that they do indeed know their stuff. In fact, sometimes they know it backwards and yet are still unable to get the words out. This is where one of our top tips can really help you.

While we often apply the label of timide* to children, we’re less likely to characterise an adult as such. We’re more likely to call them réservé* or introvertie*. But we can all feel shy when it comes time to speak French in front of others. Avoir le trac* is completely normal.

One way out of this is to take yourself out of the equation. Pretend it’s not you who is about to say the words, but your French alter-ego. Adopting that character may strike you as silly at first, but that’s actually the point. You want to put some distance between yourself (the person who has les papillons au ventre* about speaking French) and your interlocuteur (the person you’re speaking to). Inserting une version française* of yourself into the middle of the conversation can sometimes turn what feels like a stressful situation into a fun one, if not a slightly ridiculous one, and that alone can help.

When we do have a bit of stage fright, it’s likely you’ll deliver your message in a hesitant, quiet voice if you get it out at all. This may prompt the person you’re speaking to to say ‘Pardon?*’ and if you’re like most of us, you’ll immediately assume you’ve made a mistake and probably clam up. However, they literally may not have heard what you said and are simply asking you to repeat it. So, if you’re able to gather un peu de courage* and tap into your inner Hercule Poirot, you may be pleasantly surprised by the sounds that come out of your mouth. Remember, when French people are speaking French, they’re not feeling as if they’re putting anything on or speaking in an exaggerated manner. It’s the same for us when we speak English.

And if this petit article* hasn’t convinced you to fake it till you make it, perhaps knowing the French have exactly the same fears about speaking English will. We’re not so différent*, after all.

*first word *shy *reserved *introverted *Having stage fright *butterflies in your tummy *a French version *Excuse me? *a bit of courage *little article *different

To compare is to despair

A common frustration for our students here at Lingua Franca (and doubtless for language students across the globe), is their tendency to forget what they’ve learned from one week to the next or in some (usually comedic) instances, from one moment to the next.

Before you think we’re being critical of our learners, we, the staff, have experienced the exact same frustrations in the past, and continue to do so. Learning a language is an ongoing challenge, no matter your level, and I’m not sure we get any better at remembering new concepts right off the bat as we progress. Likely, we just get better at recognising the phenomenon as inherent in learning (or improving) a skill and we move on.

Before people get to that acceptance, though, they often lament not learning a second language as a child, when their brains were ‘like little sponges’.

From my experience, this is both true and untrue, and according to the reading I’ve done, the only real conclusion I’ve come to is simply that the debate rages on.

What seems to be accurate is that children are able to learn unconsciously, whereas for adults it takes a bit more effort. However, hour for hour, some say that adults are actually more successful at learning a language (and by that, we’re looking at all four competencies, not just speaking and listening) as they have a whole system of prior knowledge on which to hang the new concepts.

If you’re interested in this subject, I found this article particularly motivating.

However, we’re straying from the point a little, as if you’re still reading and comprehending this article, you most likely don’t need to ask your parents’ permission for a sleepover anymore. That ship has sailed.

What is to be gained from comparing yourself to a child, or anyone else for that matter?

What can be very useful, instead, is to notice those people around you who do something particularly well. For example, do you have someone in your class who has really mastered les numéros*, while you’re still trying to work out what four times twenty plus ten plus seven could possibly mean? If so, ask them how they did it. I’m sure they’ll be flattered and keen to share their knowledge.

Don’t forget, too, that it’s entirely possible someone else in your class is silently admiring your ability to 'just give it a go’, whereas they’re petrified of making a mistake, or the fact that you have a way or rephrasing an idea the teacher has presented in a way that makes it easier for the rest of the class to understand. We all have our skills and they come in myriad forms. This is one of the joys for us as teachers. We’re constantly astounded by the diversity of experience of our students.

When you ask your classmate for their secret, I can almost guarantee they’ll tell you it didn’t ‘just happen’ for them. I know people who have practised their numbers by reading number plates to themselves when stuck in traffic. I know someone else who took out a stack of index cards and cut them in half so they fit in the palm of her hand. She wrote the numeral on one side and the French word for it on the other, popped them in a little Tupperware container and slid that into her handbag. Then, whenever she found herself with five minutes to spare, she’d take out a little handful (pre-shuffled bien sûr*) to test herself. She did this most days for a few months and guess what? She’s still great at numbers many years later. She learned the concept, did a bit of leg work in writing out the cards and then kept the knowledge there by practising a little but often. Job done!

That’s the other advantage we have as adults in learning a language. Most of us (even those who railed against such notions when younger) now know from hard-earned experience that things like practice, dedication and commitment do indeed pay off. You don’t have to be crazy about it. We all seem to lead rather hectic lives and there are limits to how much time we can devote to our pursuits, but being inspired to forge on by those around us is surely a better way to go than wishing to be someone we’re not?

Louis XIV put it well when he said:

”Il est sans comparaison plus facile de faire ce qu'on est, que d'imiter ce qu'on n'est pas*”.

I mean, easy for him to say. His parents took nearly two decades to give birth to a son, so they called him Louis-Dieudonné, meaning "Gift of God" and allegedly he believed it.

We’re not all made to feel quite so special from birth, but still, the message remains. Stop comparing, focus on what you’re good at, and then piquez* ideas from others. So much easier.

*the numbers | *of course | *It is without doubt easier to be who we are, rather than imitate what we’re not | *pinch

It gets easier

I was doing a lesson with one of our very long-term students a few weeks ago, looking at all of the French verb tenses (there are 15 conservatively, more like 19 or 20 when you go deep). 

If you’ve not immediately smashed your computer screen and headed to the nearest corner for a soothing rock, stay with me, because this is a happy news story (je te jure* !).

In looking at all the tenses, we realised that beyond a certain point, they mostly become compounds of the ones you already know (and those that don’t are likely to be literary tenses and very rarely used).

For example, the futur proche* is really just a combination of the present tense plus the infinitive (je vais parler - I am going to speak). For those of you who have dug a little further back into the French grammar armoire*, you’ll know that the plus-que-parfait* is just an amalgam of the imperfect tense and the past participle that you’ve already seen in the passé composé* (j’avais parlé - I had spoken).

It goes on. The futur antérieur* is a combo of the futur simple* and the past participle (j’aurai parlé - I will have spoken) and the past conditional just takes it a step further (j’aurais parlé - I would have spoken).

So, it’s a bit like an apprenticeship, or apprentissage. You have to do the hard yards first in order to develop the skills that will allow you to master your chosen trade in the future.

This may not be sounding like a good news story yet, granted. It might just sound like plain old hard work, which it sometimes is (even though there are many moments of delight along the way).

But the good news starts here. 

Much like my Mum’s very sage advice to me the first time I had my heart broken (“It will never be this hard again, I promise”), your very first course will always be the most testing.

At Lingua Franca we have 16 different levels ranging from Absolute Beginner 1 to Advanced Revision. By far and away the first lesson of Absolute Beginner 1 is the trickiest. In fact, to be more specific, it’s the very first vocabulary list, about some seemingly benign basic greetings, that can cause intellectual panic to set it.

Take a look for yourself:

In that very first 15 minutes of the lesson, we touch on the following:

• silent letters

• strange vowel combinations (oi is pronounced wuh?)

• tu vs vous

• the supremacy of the masculine gender (in grammatical terms)

• standard vs familiar language (bonjour vs salut)

• liaison

• the difference between on and nous

• pronunciation exceptions (monsieur)

• how to pronounce French ‘r’s

• agreement (enchanté vs enchantée)

C’est beaucoup, non*? If you’ve been doing French for a little while, the above list probably doesn’t look that scary at all. You’ve may have even forgotten that these were new concepts to you once upon a time. But imagine how it feels to be back there at Lesson 1, trying to take all of this in. You’d think it was a foreign language.

Spare a thought for our Absolute Beginner 1 students, as it doesn’t let up for the rest of the workbook. Numbers to 100 (“what do you mean 4 x 20 means 80?”), nationalities without capital letters, the joy of their first irregular verb (hello, être*) and the back-to-frontness (for English-speakers) of the noun plus adjective situation. 

We can actually pinpoint the moment the shine will come off for most brand new students. It’s Lesson 4, when they learn to conjugate (huh?) their very first regular verb. The mood almost always goes from engaged and excited to focused and serious as they broach the verb vendre* and when the door opens at the end of the lesson, it’s like a wave of tension follows the students out. 

However, for the courageux* and courageuses* who front up for Lesson 5, it’s all good news. Having had their French hearts broken, it’s only upwards and onwards from that point. Places around town (fun!). A guessing game in French? Count me in!

And so it goes along the winding path of your French learning. Peaks and valleys, climbs, descents and periods of coasting.

Another of our students tells a very reassuring story of learning to be a volunteer guide at an art gallery. The training was extensive and the information new and copious. With so much information swimming around in their heads, the trainees felt as though they’d never be able to remember everything, let alone communicate it in a comprehensible (and engaging) way. 

Just when our student thought she could take no more, the trainer explained to her that it was totally natural at that point to be utterly confused.

The trainer explained to them that this period of confusion often represented the last moments before the information would start to synthesise and arrange itself in their heads. That is, that this was the worst it would get. As it turns out not only was Mum a master consoler, but she had some insight into brain function as well.

It might help to think of your learning as a series of waves of various heights, with blobs of confusion dotted along the way. Comme ça*, the next time you’re faced with a new and challenging concept, you can be secure in the knowledge that understanding and mastery is just over the next rise, and that, de toute façon* you’ve seen much worse before.

*I promise | *close future | *cupboard | *pluperfect | *past perfect tense | *future perfect | *future simple tense | *It’s a lot, isn’t it? | *to be | *to sell | *courageous (male) people | *courageous (female) people | *That way | *In any case

Create your carry-on

Le mois dernier*, we spoke about the almost-universal experience of freezing up when speaking French. If you’ve experienced it, you know how frustrating it can be. The minute the pressure’s on, all those perfect phrases we form in our heads when under the shower or driving the car partent en fumée* and we’re left fumbling, stumbling and, often, completely mute.

It’s terrible for your self confidence but there is a way to remedy it. You just need a little grab bag of phrases you can count on. Much like the items you put in your carry-on luggage when travelling, these phrases need to be simple, useful and easy to access at all times.

So how do you ensure you’re able to bring them out when you need them? I wish the solution were un chouïa plus inspirant*, but the reality is simply to practise them over and over and over again, (preferably out loud) until they become completely banal to you. Hopefully then, when you feel that deer in the headlights moment approaching, you’ll be able to reach into your in-cabin bag of a brain and pull out a phrase that works, no rummaging required.

We’ve provided some ideas below to get you going, but remember, these phrases are going to be your best buddies, so make sure you have a little stock that appeal to you, and that you’ll enjoy spending time with.

*last month | *go up in smoke | *a touch more inspiring

• Yes.

• I like that.

• Pardon?

• That’s great.

Keeping things positive encourages conversation, no matter the language.

• Yes, that’s true.

• I prefer…

• I don’t understand.

• I’m not sure.

Add a little nuance to your language and give the dialogue some room to move.

• Yes, I agree.

• Can I…?

• What does….mean?

• It was…

Asking for clarification is a really good way to make sure you’re on the right track as well as deepen your understanding of both the language and the culture.

• Exactly.

• Do you think that…?

• For me, it’s more that…

• And in fact…

Really get into the l’essentiel* by sharing ideas and opinions.

Bon courage*!

*the nitty gritty | *Good luck!

Go back to basics

Arriving at work a few weeks ago, and with this article half-written in my head, I happened up on a scene that was not only très familier* but enabled me to round out my thoughts on the matter of how to learn French (or at least a very important aspect of it): what to do when you get stuck.

There was someone, let’s call her Catherine, talking to one of our tutors, let’s call her Marie-Hélène (because that is her name and she deserves most of the credit for the ideas in this article).

Those of you who come to lessons at Lingua Franca know there are (strangely steep) steps to arrive au nid* and that the front is all glass. As I puffed my way to the top, I grinned as I saw Catherine and Marie-Hélène speaking to one another in French (I could could tell by the way they were moving their mouths - French is all out front, with English the face is flatter). I was so rapt because I could see they were enjoying a really lovely little chat before they started their respective classes. They looked both engaged and relaxed.

However, as soon as I opened the door and they saw me, the conversation stopped dead. I encouraged them to keep going, and they did pick up the thread of the conversation but I could tell without even looking at Catherine that she was feeling self-conscious now that I was there. Her speech became halting, she made a mistake, corrected herself, then looked at me for reassurance, and within the space of a few seconds, simply gave up, exclaiming “And I was going so well!”

I agreed, she was going so well and I felt really bad that my arrival had put paid to a great little French moment for her. I felt for her, which is illuminating because as I write this, I realise that when the very same thing happens to me, I don’t feel empathy for myself, I just feel like une idiote*.

People are often surprised to hear that this also happens to me, but I can assure you it does. Even though I can rabbit on at full speed in French with my workmates sans problème*, the whole atmosphere changes if one of their (French) partners or friends walks in. All of a sudden, that critical voice in my head revs up and consequently mon français part en quenouille*. I start doubting myself, sure I’m making errors the owner of a French school shouldn’t, positive the partner or friend is judging me, then I start looking to my workmates for reassurance that I’m not making error and so it devolves. The whole thing would be funny if it didn’t make for such an awkward scene.

The only thing that is reassuring to me is that my workmates, who are second-language speakers themselves, all report feeling the same thing but in reverse when speaking English. In fact, I’ve really got nothing to complain about - I face this situation from time to time. They face it every day. And, when I lived in France, I faced it every day, too, and managed to overcome it to a degree.

I think when you’re speaking to someone you don’t know, it’s easier. Of course you may be a bit nervous or shy to trot out your French when you’re not used to it, but the stakes are relatively low, and if you’re forced to speak your second language day after day, you do lose a lot of that apprehension. However, place most of us in a situation where we actually care about the outcome, and our French can grind to a halt.

So, the solution I was going to offer in my previously-mentioned half-written article was simply this:

When we’re under stress and our mind is going a million miles an hour we tend to forget to breathe. By pausing and taking a breath, we can often put the brakes on the runaway train that is our mind.

For a brief second, just take notice of your surroundings and with any luck, you’ll feel your brain start to relax.

Then, in order to quieten that critical voice in your head, follow Marie-Hélène’s excellent advice, which is:

Marie-Hélène suggests going to back to phrases you know you know. According to her, this is not the time to try to break out a new phrase you learned last week and think you know. Fall back on the phrases you use all the time, even if they may seem too simple for the occasion. Better to get out a simple sentence than no sentence at all, non*?

This makes sense to me. If our brain is already stressed and our critical little voice is telling us we’re rubbish at French, pulling out a well-worn phrase or two may just be enough to stop it right in its tracks. Fake it till you make it.

Marie-Hélène suggests creating a stock of these simple phrases in your mind, and practising them over and over again until they become second nature. That way, when you’re under the pump, you should be able to pull out something of use quite quickly.

The way I imagine it is in terms of luggage. When we travel, we usually pack one piece of carry-on luggage with all our essential items for use in flight. It may not contain our prettiest or most sophisticated items, but it does contain things that get the job done (passeport*, téléphone*, portefeuille*, mouchoirs*, châle*). Reaching for a fancy phrase when under pressure is the equivalent of asking to disembark the plane to access your suitcase which is located at the back of the hold because you know, you just know, that once you’ve remembered how to unlock it, and under five layers of t-shirts and just next to your wash bag, you’re sure you have just the bon mot* for the occasion. Meanwhile, your fellow travellers have ordered their cocktails and are settling in to watch a movie.

Next month, what exactly are those phrases you want in your carry-on? We’ll take a look, and offer you some options according to your level.

In the meantime, continue to be courageous. Not everyone would even give it a go. Chapeau* !

*very familiar | *at the nest | *an idiot | *no problem | *my French goes down the toilet | *isn’t that right? | *passport | *telephone | *wallet | *tissues | *shawl | *clever turn of phrase | *Hats off to you!

Let it go

Welcome to the fourth 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.

The verb tenir in French means ‘to hold’ and as a way of remembering it, I often suggest students think of the English word tenacious. A tenacious person holds fast that which they wish to retain. They don’t let it go, and this is generally considered a positive quality.

Tenacity, though, can sometimes lead to obstinacy and stubbornness, and now we’re sensing there might be a flip side to this coin. In the thesaurus, a couple of adjacent meanings are ‘intransigent’ and ‘mulish’ and suddenly I find I’m not so keen to call myself tenace* after all.

For yourself and for the sake of your French, sometimes you’ve just got to let it go.

There’s definitely a place for rigour and precision in language learning, and we’ll certainly cover that in a future article, but in some instances, greater strides can be made by adopting an attitude of benign neglect.

Laissez-moi expliquer*.

Many of our students love French so much that they want to understand every single word they hear. This I understand, of course, and I place myself firmly dans leur camp*. However, after years of observing students tackle listening exercises, in particular, it’s become clear to me that attempting to decipher every single syllable can be detrimental to comprehension.

More successful are the students who are able to sit back, relax, and concentrate on trying to gain une compréhension globale*. These days, I can usually pick these students by their body language. They tend to recline slightly in their chairs, some even close their eyes, and they often emanate a slightly amused air. It’s almost as if they’re giggling to themselves saying “Okay, this is going to be interesting, but let’s just wait and see how bad it is, and I’ll see what I can salvage from the wreckage once it’s over.”

The tenacious students, by contrast, are usually hunched over their notepads, pencils at the ready (freshly sharpened, naturellement*), brow furrowed and shoulders rising to lobe-level. I’m not mocking these students, je vous assure*, as I am one myself, or at least I was one. I’m trying to reform.

What tends to happen to the hyper-alert, tenacious students is that things go well until they encounter the first word they don’t understand. At this point, they become fixated on that one word, and that is where their comprehension stalls. They’re obsessing over that one word, meanwhile the audio track is continuing apace, and if they do manage to unstick themselves from where they got stuck, they then realise they’ve missed the last ten seconds of the track and la panique* really sets in.

Conversely, the more laidback listener has accepted they’ve missed the word, but they’ve maintained their gentle focus and are often able to get the general gist out of the rest of the track. In an exam, you’re usually granted a second if not third listen, and this is where these students fill in some of the details. Moreover, by maintaining their slightly detached approach, they’re often able ascertain where the action is taking place (in the street, in a shop, over a meal), and are more keenly aware of the attitude of the speakers (excited, frustrated, angry). This allows them to make educated guesses at to what the content of the track is, and increases the chance of a broader comprehension and, therefore, success.

I remember sitting a French exam many years ago where I fell straight into the piège* of the tenacious listener. Hunched over, pencil poised, straining to get as close as possible as I could to the cassette player (as I said, many years ago…), the examiner hit the play button and we were off. I was okay for the first few seconds, I was pretty sure I heard the word Bretagne, so had placed myself in Brittany (or was it Britain? Oh god…ne panique pas*!).

A couple of seconds later I heard the word ‘far’, and started to smile. I couldn’t believe my luck (or was it cunning?). In the course of my preparation for the exam, I’d become friendly with my teacher, who happened to be from Bretagne and who had, only a few nights before, made me a Far Breton, a traditional cake from Brittany. A self-satisfied smirk divoted my face as I continued to listen to the fast-moving track, quietly confident that I was streets ahead of the others in the room.

That is, until I heard the words ‘bord de la mer’ (seaside), ‘danser’ (to dance), ‘autour’ (around), ‘le vent’ (the wind). My smirk faded, my brow contracted and a light sweat broke out on my hands and face as I struggled to work out what on earth was going on. I had images of dark-haired Bretons in traditional dress doing the French version of ring-a-ring-a-rosie around a dense cake in a high wind on a treacherous cliff. What the hell was going on?

Mercifully, the audio track eventually stopped, I made some chicken scratchings in lieu of actual answers and before I knew it, the deuxième écoute* had started up, way before I was ready. Still focused on my beloved ‘far’, I picked up very little new information, made some rather minable* amendments to my scribble, and red-faced, handed in my exam.

Outside, and partaking in the usual post-exam outpouring of anxiety, I was loudly lamenting that I couldn’t make the connection between the dancing and the cake, when someone next to me said “Oh, I thought ‘phare’ meant lighthouse.” A couple of others chimed in that they’d thought the same and then it all made sense. Well, relative sense. I still maintain dancing around a lighthouse once a year as part of a Breton festival abuts on the absurd, but it makes a whole lot more sense than a stupid cake-dance.

Lesson learned? Well, no, not really. I still found myself stopping in my tracks at the first mystery word, whether in a listening exam, a casual conversation with a colleague, or when reading. In fact, for many years, I somewhat ruined the joy of reading in French by swapping novel for dictionary at every new word, assiduously making notes in the margins, and then picking up where I left off. It’s true, my vocabulary improved somewhat, but really only if the word recurred multiple times in rapid succession. And I found the exercise so laborieux* that I rarely made it past the first few pages before giving it away, anyway. Students I know who took a more laissez-faire* approach to reading convinced me that they eventually came to understand the story without cracking a dictionnaire* because they were (sagement*) more focused on the context and mood, rather than every petit détail*.

This approach is valuable in situ, as well. Imagine you’re in France and you ask someone for directions. They launch into a detailed explanation of the best route and you can feel your anxiety start to rise as you realise you didn’t understand the fifth word they said. This has happened to me on countless occasions and it is only recently that I’ve stopped falling into the trap of remaining fixated on that elusive word. I’ve learned that in many instances the reason you’ve not understood is that it’s the name of a street or a shop you’ve never heard of. Better to try to keep your focus, be on the lookout for key words, stay attuned to the person’s gestures and facial expressions and then, once they’ve wrapped up, go back and politely ask them to repeat the very first bit. If you’re able to garder le sang froid*, you’ll get a general sense if it’s miles away or just around the corner, and if it’s a complicated or simple route. Nearby and easy to get to? Say ‘Merci, c’est gentil.*’ and off you go on your merry way. Miles away and complicated to get to? Bonjour Uber.

Finally, remember that learning French is a long and lovely road. Ultimately it’s yours to navigate in the way that suits you best. Just bear in mind that it’s also a winding road, even circuitous at times. Words have a way of circling back to you, over and over it seems, so you’ll always have another opportunity to catch up to that slippery word around the next corner.

Relax your shoulders, loosen your grip and enjoy.

*the nuts and bolts | *tenacious | *Let me explain | *in their camp | *an overall understanding | *naturally | *I assure you | *the panic | *trap | *don’t panic | *second listen | *pathetic | *hands off | *laborious | *dictionary | *wisely | *little detail | *keep your cool | *Thank you, that’s kind of you

Keep it in your life (cont…)

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*!

*the nuts and bolts | *at a clip | *nervous wreck | *second-last | *these days | *numbers | *perfectly | *number seven | *daily life | *the housework | *for example | *pleasantly surprised | *shower | *shower gel | scrub | *shaving cream | *foundation | *lipstick | *sunscreen | *French fingerprints | *a French recipe | *naturally | *reading | *creation | *so much the better | *take action | *I have a feeling | *just in case | *happiness | *road | *rocky | *Go!

Keep it in your life

Welcome to the second 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 I wrote that the secret to learning French is not to give up. That may seem self-evident, but it’s a little more nuanced than one might think at first glance.

At Lingua Franca we meet people every week who come to us after a huge break in their French learning (sometimes up to 50+ years) who are keen to get stuck into it again. We love helping these people (in fact they account for a very large part of our clientele) but I often reflect on where their French might have been had they somehow managed to hold on, even in the most tenuous of ways. When I think about the progress our students make in just one or two years and extrapolate that to cover a decades-long break, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the person in front of me.

Again, that’s not exactly for the reason you might be thinking. Yes, they would have been a lot more advanced had they not taken an extended break (which, by the way, is often not by choice but necessity). What concerns me more is the angst that can accompany the decision to return to a long-dormant skill. So often, by the time they turn up at le nid*, they’ve been wanting to come back to French for a period of months if not years, but have been held back by the fear that they will have forgotten everything they know or worse, are worried they’re no longer even capable of learning. What I really admire is that despite these doubts, they still do take the leap and in almost every single case, they are pleasantly surprised by how much does come back and how much they enjoy learning French again, even with their ‘ancient brains’, as they often refer to them.

So, let’s get into my top tips for keeping French in your life when you need to prendre une pause* from your lessons.

PS This will be a two-parter - look for more tips next month.

If you really love French, you may have a tendency to idolise French people, imagining that they’re cooler, as well as more sophisticated, interesting and cultured than you (am I giving myself away here?). Even if you don’t go to such lengths in your admiration, you’ll still likely want to engage with them when your paths cross, if only to practise your French. I say do it! Sometimes even the briefest of exchanges with a real, live French person can put a pep in your step and, at worst, you’ll probably learn a new word or two. At best, you’ll gain a friend for life. Just square your shoulders, and in a big, brave voix*, hit them with your best bonjour* and see what happens next.

One note of caution, though. While we love practising our French on les Français* we cross paths with in our lives here in Australia, remember that the same is also true for them. Many French travellers are here for the express purpose of improving their English, so be generous. Once you’ve had your say, switch back to English if you get the feeling your interlocutor would appreciate the practice.

Many of us have had the demoralising experience of travelling in a French-speaking country and screwing up the courage to trot out a rudimentary French sentence on an unsuspecting waiter or taxi driver, only to have them reply in perfect English.

I remember with much chagrin when I was working in a café in Perth while at uni, and doing exactly that but in reverse to a lovely young French woman who was seated in my section. She placed her order in careful, heavily-accented English and I, suspecting she was French, and busting to use my skills (and being a show-off at heart, to be honest), responded in rapid-fire French that “Yes, I would be happy to get you a mineral water and a tuna salad and would you like anything else?” I absolutely cringe when I think back to that moment, because now I can see that she'd been sitting there for ages, working up the courage to speak to me in English, and I just trampled all over her moment. I remember my response didn't get the reaction I was hoping for, and at the time I couldn't understand why. I do recall now, though, that her shoulders visibly dropped, and not in a relieved way but in a defeated one.

Now that that very same scene has been played out in reverse to me on countless occasions I finally get it. There's a time and place for everything and these days I think there should be some sort of international rule: he or she who is doing the travelling should be the “practiser” and the local the “practisee” and vice versa. Qu'est-ce vous en pensez*?

Look straight ahead of you wherever you are and take a mental snapshot of what you see. Now, see how many things you can name in French in the image you’re seeing in your mind’s eye. If I do it now, the first three things I see are une chaise*, des livres* and un crayon*. If you’re feeling enthousiaste*, add another two for a total of five (une fenêtre*, le jardin*) and then for top points, take it up to ten (un tapis*, une bibliothèque*, un cable*, des coussins*, une table basse*).

You may need a dictionary at any stage of the game, but that’s what our phones are for, non*? We always recommend Word Reference but there are dozens of options for online dictionaries and apps. Or you could even use one made on an actual printing press - très original*.

If you can remember to do this even once a week, you’ll be keeping le français* swimming around your head, which is notre but*, after all.

We’ve never had so much entertainment available to us at the touch of a button and a lot of it is free, aussi*, which means there are few excuses for not watching a French series or film de temps en temps*.

Between streaming services, free-to-air on demand and French film festivals, make it your mission to watch something in French once a quarter. And of course if you decide to faire un marathon* (we can recommend The Bureau, Spiral, The Hookup Plan or Call My Agent for starters) then that counts as your annual intake. Bon visionnage*.

I’m ready to accept that French may not be your one and only true love. You may even be a well-rounded person who is able to entertain a variety of interests and activities (though why you would cheat on French like that when there is such richesse* contained in this one subject matter alone escapes me, but I digress…).

Our aim here is to ensure French stays in your life as you hit the pause button, so I’m going to suggest a bit of a commingling of intérêts* for your own benefit. Love tennis? Do a bit of research on a French tennis player, or even the home of French tennis, Roland Garros. Who was Roland Garros anyway? And why is there a Bugatti named after him? Vous voyez ce que je veux dire*?

I picked tennis at random, but there are as many pistes* to explore as you have the energy to pursue. Simone de Beauvoir, Pierre Cardin, Le Nôtre, Le Corbusier, Baudelaire, Roland Barthes, Monet, Louis Braille, Charles de Gaulle, the Lumière brothers (Alice Guy-Blaché for that matter), Inès de la Fressange, Joey Starr…la liste est longue*.

Many students tell us they speak French perfectly in their heads, it’s only when it comes time to get the words out in class that they stumble. I think we can all sympathise with that.

Recently a student told me they’d found a woman on Youtube who was able to speak several languages fluently, and one of her tricks was to talk to herself out loud in French. She’d pick an activity a day, and then describe what she was doing à voix haute*. So if she was cooking, she may say: “Je coupe les oignons*” or “Je lave les salades*”. You may be surprised at just how much you can say when in a comfortable environment. Getting used to the sound of your own voice speaking French will make it all the more likely you’ll get your words out when faced with a ‘real’ French language opportunity.

This short list is just a soupçon* of the ways you can keep French trotting along by your side, even along when other priorities in your life seem to be conspiring to tear you apart. Be sure to check in again next month for plus d’idées*.

*the nuts and bolts | *the nest | *take a break*voice | *the French | *What do you think of that?
*a chair | *some books | *a pencil | *keen | *a window | *the garden | *a rug | *a bookcase | *a cable | *some cushions | *a *coffee table | *aren’t they? | *very original |* French | *our aim
*as well | *from time to time | *binge watch | *Happy viewing
*richness | *interests | *avenues | *Do you see what I mean? | *the list goes on
*out loud | *I am washing the salad leaves
*taste | *more ideas

Don’t give up

Welcome to the first 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.

WARNING: C’est long* - I’ve obviously got a lot to say on ce sujet*!

I used to think that success in learning French all came down to having a flair for languages.

While it is true that some people are naturally gifted at learning a second (or third or fourth) language and therefore may find the whole process easier, now, after 13 years of teaching French, I know it’s not the secret sauce so many are looking for.

The key ingredient is much less sexy. It is simply this: don’t give up.

As the owner of a French language school, I obviously have a vested interest in this topic. Our business relies on people turning up week after week, term after term and year after year. We try to make the experience of learning French as enjoyable as possible to facilitate this process, which is just good business sense, but to really get to the heart of the matter, it’s helpful to zoom out a bit.

Let’s take away schools like Lingua Franca, apps like Duo Lingo, where you live, your current circumstances, budget, work commitments, health and all the other complicating factors that can affect our ability to learn a new skill at any one time.

Let’s get back to tin tacks. 

You want to learn French and you have one life in which to learn it (unless you’re a believer in reincarnation in which case you can take your foot off the pedal a bit).

My instinct, when faced with this kind of very clearly defined problem, is to tackle it head on. My thinking would go something like this. “Right, you’ve only got a certain number of years in which to achieve this goal, so best let’s get started straight away and work like crazy on it for the next few years so that in the not too distant future you’ll be able to look back across your perfectly mapped timeline and say: ‘I did it!’ ”

Though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time, I know that from the minute I realised I loved French at age 11, I was on a mission to ‘conquer’ the language. I wanted to get to the end of it, to be able to say “I’ve done it”. I know I’m not alone in this desire. I also know there will be much wiser people than me shaking their heads as they read this, wondering why I’d bleed this pursuit of all its fun, mystery and grace by imposing such a harsh timeline.

The irony is that it is the love of the language itself that leads many of us to gallop towards a perceived finish line. We’re greedy, gluttonous almost, for more and better and easier. I want to learn more words, I want to be able to understand better and why isn’t it easier to get the words out when I know I know them?

I’m now about to turn 50, so I’ve been learning French for almost 40 years, and I’m yet to conquer the French language. My timeline’s in tatters and about five years ago it finally dawned on me that there is, in fact, no finish line. Never will I reach the level of fluency I have in English in the French language. Never. It’s simply not possible. The day I realised that was not a great day for me. 

Before you go and drop a lit match on your kerosene-soaked library of French books, let me tell you about what we actually see happen at the Lingua Franca offices, and what has been my personal experience as well.

With a couple of rare exceptions, the path to language acquisition is not linear. Depending on your personality type, you may very much wish it to be, but then how could we account for the potential clients we meet on an almost weekly basis, the majority of whom tell us a version of the following story?

“I did a bit of French at school and I absolutely loved it but then for some reason I didn’t or couldn’t continue it and then life got so busy and I just never got back to it. So now here I am, thirty-five years later and I’m really keen to get back into it but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten everything.”

Sound familiar? I’d estimate that two out of three of the stories of French we hear contain most, if not all, of the elements above.

So what’s the solution? Absent a dream run of French all the way through school, followed by studying it at university, a year-long exchange to France in early adulthood, weekly lessons at a reputable French language school as well as regular travel to France throughout the rest of your adult life, what is one to do in order to realise the dream of speaking French?

Again, the trick is simply to not give up.

There are so many impediments that can befall you and I am not suggesting that it’s possible to continue to power on with your French when they do. Illness, having children, financial difficulty, your favourite teacher leaving, moving cities or countries, ageing parents, fatigue, a general loss of interest - all of these things can befall us, and sometimes two or three at a time. I’m not suggesting that you doggedly pursue your French when the decks are stacked against you. What I am suggesting is that you find a way to keep a thread of French in your life, even if at times it’s as fine as a silkworm’s work. If you don’t, you risk never returning to it so that when, in ten years’ time, someone asks you if you speak French, you’ll be answering no, whereas your contemporaries (who didn’t stop) will be replying with a very confident “Oui, bien sûr !”

Looking back, I think that’s perhaps what I did, even though it wasn’t a conscious decision at the time.

I did have the beginnings of a dream run, at least. French in Grade 6 and 7 at my local primary school, then French all the way through high school, plus the extreme privilege of a four-week exchange to the French-speaking Île de la Réunion in Year 10. Then I had my first little bump at university when I decided to study Law and French just wasn’t on the menu at the uni I attended. To be honest, I don’t remember missing it too much as I was fairly absorbed with my move to the big smoke, my first serious boyfriend, a part-time job, and, oh yes, my studies.

Unsurprisingly, if we fast forward two years from then, we’ll find me studying for the resit of a contract law exam I’d failed, in the little flat in South Perth I shared with a girlfriend. It was summer holidays, stinking hot and there I was in my unconditioned bedroom trying to force the required information into a brain that just did not want a bar of it. A chronic procrastinator, I decided to reach for my old French book from Year 12 and it was when I cracked that text that it all came flooding back to me. The excitement, the mystery, the puzzle of a foreign language. Each page held a potential that any language lover will understand. What do I know, what don’t I? Why is that like that? Hang on, that can’t be right…oh yes it can. Oh wow! I get it!

A two-hour drive and a very tearful conversation with my uncomprehending parents and I was back on track, studying a Bachelor of Arts at the University of WA. As if making up for lost time, and very much against the advice of my course advisor, my first four units that year were French, Italian, Japanese and English. I even decided to go to TAFE one night a week to study Spanish.

Now two years older than my cohort and infinitely more worldly by my own skewed estimation, I was more interested in working and partying than studying. Though I did turn in all my assignments and attend most of my lectures and tutes, my head just wasn’t fully in it. I had not lost my love of language, but I hadn’t quite grasped what a blessing it was to uncover a passion at such a young age and the importance of treating it with respect. I’ll never forget one of my favourite French tutors, a gruff but cynically funny man, complimenting a couple of the weaker students in a tute on their progress and then taking a breath, looking directly at me and saying without a trace of a smile “And your French, Ms Waugh, is just getting worse”. I flushed with shame but only because I knew how right he was.

The end of my degree looming, with a decidedly average result transcript and no desire to teach, I was saved by my Mum, who saw that Qantas was recruiting flight attendants and a second language was a requirement. I applied, got in and managed to scrape through the language assessment and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Sydney for training.

As language speakers, it was a requirement that 50% of our roster be made up of flights to the destination on the Qantas network where that language was spoken. So the German speakers would be up and back to Frankfurt, the Thai speakers would go to Bangkok, the Spanish speakers were sent to LA and we French speakers would be sent to London as there were no Paris flights at the time.

There was a fair bit of resistance to the language speakers by some of the older crew members, who perceived us as ring-ins who only got the job by virtue of being ‘lucky’ enough to speak a second language. Therefore, we were only intermittently called upon to perform the tasks we’d been employed for: reading out the standard flight announcements in French, communicating any ad-hoc announcements as required and of course, assisting any French-speaking passengers who found themselves on our code-shared flight.

While I enjoyed reading out the French announcements while hiding from view in a galley, my speaking skills, through lack of practice, became so poor that the thought of being called upon to make an ad-hoc announcement about a diversion or a broken down catering truck was enough to ensure there was a constant pit of anxiety in my stomach before each flight. As for being asked by a fellow crew member to assist a French passenger or - worse! - being accosted by a real-live-French-person as I made my way down the aisle and not having any time to prepare - quelle horreur* ! I mean, I was okay if they wanted a glass of water (but still, was it d’eau* or de l’eau*?) but what if it was a medical emergency? So I watched, over the course of my 11 years with Qantas, as my French got worse and worse and worse to the point where if someone asked me “Parlez-vous français ?”, I’d answer ‘un peu*’ and slowly back away.

It wasn’t a linear decline. I’d have little blips where it would get better temporarily, whether by deciding to do a course on my time back in Sydney, or taking my annual leave in France, or buying a French textbook in my downtime in Singapore, but nothing really stuck and I started to consider my French as a skill I once had. As I write this, the fact that I went so close to losing the very thing that has turned out to be the most stimulating and sustaining thing in my life makes me very sad. 

Though speaking French was an asset at my next two jobs as well, (public relations for women’s golf in Europe and manager of a French restaurant upon my return to Australia), it was still not enough for me to fully comprehend that French was the golden seam that ran through my life and was begging to be mined.

It was almost by accident that I started tutoring French on the side but when I did, the penny finally, finally dropped for me. There I was, thirty-six by now, adrift, working in a job I hated but needing some extra funds to pay my mortgage. At the end of my very first lesson, when the client paid me, I could almost have left the money on the table and walked out. I’d had an absolute ball and the hour had flown by. Sixty minutes of talking about French with someone who was as nerdishly fascinated by the language as I was felt like an indulgence, not work.

And then the race was on. As I gathered more and more clients I had to make sure my French was up to the mark, so spare hours were devoted to swotting up on my French in an effort to make sure I was a least a few steps ahead of the next person who called. I was in heaven, effectively being paid to study French and then share my findings with people who were as enamoured with the language as I was.

That was 13 years ago now, and I have worked with the French language every single day since. I guess you could say I’m in a bit of a purple patch, particularly when contrasted with the spotty treatment I meted out to my passion for the first three decades. As it turns out, I’ve stayed the course, which I put down to two things. One, my love for French kept drawing me back and two, a language is a very patient and tolerant object of affection.

This is what we see every day at Lingua Franca and in the language learning community more broadly. Yes, we’re all familiar with the rust that sets in when we’re not exercising our linguistic muscles as frequently as we should, but nothing is ever lost. Your language skills lay in wait as you go off in pursuit of your life. Yes, they’re layered over with newer, more relevant information for your current situation but the day you decide to dredge them up, they’ll be there, I promise. The rise to the surface may take weeks or months, but eventually they’ll all be floating on the surface of your mind and it’ll be like welcoming back old friends. 

So if you see a dip in your learning on the horizon, or are blindsided by an unexpected chicane, just remember your French will always be there waiting for you and that your job is just to keep hold of that tenuous thread for as long as it takes you to correct your course. It’ll make your eventual return all the more joyeux*.

Next month: techniques to do exactly that.

*the nuts and bolts | *it’s long | *this subject | *what horror! | *of water | *some water | *Do you speak French? | *a bit | *joyous

How to Learn French

Some of you may have already cottoned on to the fact that I am pretty passionate about the French language.

I started learning it at the age of 11 at my local primary school and right from that first lesson it was le coup de foudre* for me.

Nearly forty years later, I’m still learning French and about 13 years ago I set up Lingua Franca to teach other people this belle langue*. The Lingua Franca team has taught literally thousands of people and part of the reason we all love it so much is that while we’re officially the educators, what we learn from our students is like a rich vein of gold that we get to mine at each and every lesson.

As an Australian who learned French as a second language from one of the most remote corners of the earth, with no French heritage and little in the way of French culture to discover, I’m often asked by our students how I did it.

When I look around the office, though, it’s clear that I’m in no way different to so many others. My colleagues, all native-French speakers, are fluent English speakers as well. We have students we’ve watched become fluent and others who have come to us already speaking fluently. What we all have in common is that we took the first step, and then, crucially, kept going.

In this new series of articles, we’re going to look at how to learn French. Not the le, la et les* of it, but actually how to succeed in achieving the goal so many of you have.

So, gardez un œil* each month for our very top tips, drawn from the personal and professional experience of the whole team here at Lingua Franca: moi, l’équipe et nos Chouchous, bien sûr*.

*love at first sight | *beautiful language | *the, the and the | *me, the team and our Teacher’s Pets, of course