Living in Franglais Blog 14

Franglais:  A mix of Francais (French) and Anglais (English)

I thought I would write a blog for anyone who has ever been curious about what it is like to try and learn a foreign language through the "immersion" method.

3 months is all it takes to become fluent in another language.  I've heard it time and time again, I really hope it is true because I have exactly 3 months here in France.

That phrase makes study abroad sound like it is all about time, so I sort of expected to just spend 3 months here and then...WHACK! get knocked on the head by the language fairy and VOILA! je peux parler en francais :)
That's not how it happens.

I got here, and could barely put a sentence together, it was rough.  I couldn't really understand anyone, people had to talk to me like a 3 year old, and then sometimes I still didn't understand.  I was embarrassed ALL THE TIME because my French was so bad.  If I was in a store, and I needed something important, I started the conversation by asking if the person spoke English, because I didn't even want to try in French.

I was good at French in high school and college, I always got A's which let me to believe that I had a handle on the language.  But classroom French and actual French are completely totally different.  I got a reality check, it hurt my pride and was very discouraging.

I decided in the first week that there was no way I could possibly achieve fluency, but I've come so far since then.  Learning French for me has come in a series of spurts, intense curves and plateaus and it is so much more complicated than I realized!

 Learning a language through immersion kind of sneaks up on you.  At first it feels like your mouth is stuffed with cotton and you have the ideas, but just can't get them out!  Then, slowly, time oils your jaw, your tongue loosens up, the cotton disappears and after a few weeks, you can speak!  But in this phase you grammar is horrendous, your accent is terrible and people care barely understand YOU and you can't understand them much either.

Phase two:  all that knowledge you learned in the classroom suddenly starts to come in handy!  You find that if you pause for a moment before you start you sentence you can put your verb in the correct tense, and maybe even place your direct objects in the right spot.  You start to sound a little more intelligent :) (ps. this is so much harder than it sounds)

Next comes the accent.  Occasionally people correct your pronunciation and you begin to listen closely and modify your words to match those around you.  The best part about mastering the accent though, is that you can begin to understand people better!  French and English share so many words that when you listen correctly you hear a million words that you already knew, but never understood before because of the accent.  

Now is the time when new words start pouring into your brain.  You learn phrases, and vocab at a rapid pace.  You hear new words, you read new words.  At the beginning of this phrase it is really hard to remember a word if you have just heard it, it has to be written out to be understood, but soon after you can visualize in French :)

Here comes the coolest part:  You begin to think in French.  All the sudden, in conversation, you realize that you aren't translating every word in your head before you speak, you are just, talking.  It is a really awesome feeling, and does wonders for your confidence :)

Eventually people begin to tell you how much you have progressed, and remarking to other people "Doesn't she speak French well!"  It is so nice :)  And you are not nervous anymore when you have to go to an information desk and ask a question because you KNOW you can handle the French.  It is actually really exciting :)

This is as far as I've gotten, and I'm definitely not content yet.  My grammar is still atrocious, I'm lacking a lot of vocab, and I can't understand as well as I would like to.  But I have 2 months left, and that may just be enough time to become fluent :)  Over all though, I have to admit, I'm really proud of my progress.  Learning a language through immersion is EXTREMELY difficult, but looking back, it is a really nifty process.