French

This week's focus language was French!

(super romantic language)

This Week's GOALs:

GOAL: Be conversational in French. 

PROCESS: I learned 5 new critical French phrases daily for 7 days, 30 minutes per day. (Google searched "most common French phrases"). 

GOAL: Understand the French grammatical system. 

PROCESS: This process REALLY worked! I had a French-speaking friend translate the following 13 critical English sentences that contain the most important grammatical structures in all languages: (thanks Shawna Pace Kempf!)

The Apple is red - La pomme est rouge
It is John's apple - C'est la pomme de John
I give John the apple - Je donne la pomme à John
We give him the apple - Nous lui donnons la pomme
He gives it to John - Il la donne à John
She gives it to him - Elle la lui donne
Is the apple red? - Est-ce que la pomme est rouge?
The apples are red - Les pommes sont rouges
I must give it to him - Je dois la lui donner
I want to give it to her - Je veux la lui donner
I’m going to know tomorrow - Je vais savoir demain
I can’t eat the apple - Je ne peux pas manger la pomme
I have eaten the apple - J'ai mangé la pomme

(sentences acquired from Tim Ferriss)

I analyzed  and mastered 2 of these 13 new French sentences daily for 7 days, 15 minutes per day. 

      Realizations:

1. Pronunciation -  Pretend to be French. Most of us grew up hearing French spoken in Hollywood movies, so the "sound" of French is very familiar to our ears. (you know, the arrogant-sounding Mafia boss who boasts about French cuisine and has a little French sidekick... I think?). This is a great advantage when learning French, because we already know what we should sound like when speaking. So when speaking French, I found it tremendously helpful to pretend that I was a French man in a movie. This should be applied to all languages across the board. We need to pretend to BE a French man, to BE Chinese woman, to BE a Klingon... 
2. When learning French, I noticed that the back of the throat is very tightly closed (like saying the [ong] in "song"). If you keep your throat slightly closed, you're pretty certain to have good pronunciation. 
3. Grammar - If you can learn Spanish, you can learn French. I've heard a number of times that French grammar is difficult. But, in fact, it's very, VERY similar to Spanish and Italian grammar. Conclusion: if 16-year olds can learn Spanish in high school, then they can also learn French... NO PROBLEM. In the end, everything is easier than we think if we just learn the best methods. It just takes a perception change. 

Total time spent learning French: 5 hours 15 minutes

Bonjour, je m'appelle Benjy.
Je comprends un peu le français, mais pas très bien.
Merci, au revoir.

Benjy Uyama

September 2, 2013 (Home, NC)