My plan for today was pretty much the same as my plan for yesterday: I had a French lesson with Madame Carine for a few hours in the morning and then completed some online research / self-directed work in the afternoon. My main goal was to work on my pronunciation today; I feel like Madame Carine is a really great resource for learning how to speak French like a native because she actually grew up in Paris, and I’d really like to make the most of my time with her. More specifically, I wanted to get the alphabet down as well as a few conversational phrases.
My French teacher had prepared a few powerpoints for today’s lesson, and we started off with one that was centered around the alphabet. Fortunately French has the same alphabet as Spanish and English, so I don’t have to learn any new letters. However, French is a little different in there are no short and long sounds. Each letter has one sound, regardless of what word it’s used in; in English letters can make different sounds depending on their context. Most of the letters were pretty easy to pronounce, but I did find pronouncing the letters “r” and “y” a little difficult. There are some French sounds that are just really different from the sounds you make in English (some that involve using the back of your throat or your tongue in a different way) so that’s definitely going to be a learning curve. When we moved on past the alphabet to pronouncing full words, Madame Carine taught me a whole bunch of general rules for pronunciation. I had done some pronunciation work on my own using Duolingo, but it was much easier to figure out how to say words with a teacher nearby rather than stuttering through them on my own. She commented that a lot of people complain that pronouncing words in French is hard, but reassured me that once I had learned the right rules it would be much easier. Some of the rules I learned were that the “h” is rarely pronounced in words--like in the word “hippopotame,” where you really say “ippopotame.” I also learned that “s” is silent when it falls at the end of a word, like in the word “mademoiselles.” After practicing some pronunciation, we moved on to conversational French. I learned phrases like “bonjour,” “comment ça va?” “au revoir,” and “à demain.” At the end of the lesson Madame Carine and I had a short conversation in French using the phrases I had learned. In terms of learning about French culture, I looked into the origins of the name “France.” I found out that France was originally called “Gaul,” and its population was made up of three different ethnic groups--the Gauls, the Aquitani, and the Belgae (this would be during the 2nd century BC). The Gauls were the dominant ethnic group, and that’s why France was called “Gaul.” However, the region was subject to lots of invasions by outside tribes and ethnic groups. Near the end of the Roman Empire (so in the 5th century), the German Franks invaded Gaul; the word France is derived from the word Franks. This invasion is also how France became Catholic: the king of the Franks, named Clovis I, married a Catholic French woman named Clotilde who converted him to her religion, which he later spread to the rest of the nation. Today was a really fun day. I’m enjoying this individualized learning because it means that the lessons can move at a pace that’s right for me. For instance, when I struggled with pronouncing the r in “monsieur,” we spent a few minutes working on sounding out the syllables and making the sounds in the back of my throat. On the flip side, I found learning conversational French much easier, so we were able to move faster through that. Tomorrow I think we’ll be starting on grammar and verb conjugations, as well as some more vocabulary, so I’m looking forward to that.
0 Comments
1/10/2019 0 Comments Day 3: First Lesson (1/9/19)Today has felt pretty hectic: I had my first French lesson this morning, stopped by school for a few hours to complete some work, and then had my first volunteering session at 3 p.m. I’m not sure the volunteering is worth commenting on, since it occurred after school and was only an orientation (in other words, it didn’t really have anything to do with learning about French language and culture). So, my goals for today had more to do with my French lesson: I wanted to get to know my teacher a little bit, to keep an open mind (because language learning is hard), and to complete any extra work my teacher assigns me for tomorrow.
I drove to the Alliance Francaise fairly early this morning, and had some trouble finding it--it’s a nondescript building off of Reynolds road, only about 5 minutes from school. Eventually I pulled in, walked to the right entrance, and found my teacher. It turns out that the building the Alliance is in is actually sort of a community center where there are lots of different organizations, so it made sense that I was confused at first. This first lesson was more of a logistics meeting, where my teacher (whose name is Carine) drafted a schedule, had me fill out some forms, and told me a little bit about how these lessons would work. I know I’ve sort of gotten off to a slow start--switching from taking lessons in Burlington, to Skyping the same Burlington teacher while I’m in Toledo, to taking lessons in-person in Toledo, but I’m really glad that this is the situation I’m in now. From my perspective, it’s a lot easier to learn face-to-face than through Skype and online classes. I think I’ll keep doing Duolingo on my own, as Madame Anton (my previous teacher) suggested, as a supplement for my Alliance Francaise lessons, but other than that the majority of my French learning will be in person, which is great. I will be meeting with my Alliance Francaise teacher every day at the Way Public Library in Perrysburg to learn basic conversational French. This means learning vocabulary, verb conjugations, and pronunciations through speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Even after the intensive is over, I’m planning on continuing these lessons, just a lot less intensely. Rather than meeting with Madame Carine every day, I might meet with her once or twice a week during the spring semester, just to keep up my French learning. Madame Carine told me that tomorrow, we’d start by learning French sounds and doing some basic reading, so I decided to watch a few videos on the French alphabet and French pronunciation to prepare for my first lesson. There are no short and long sounds in French, which makes learning how to read out loud sort of easier than learning how to read out loud in English. I also watched a really long video (like a full half hour) on the basics of the French language, which taught a bunch of basic sentences. It also gave some insights on French culture, adding tips about when to use each version of saying “thank you” or “you’re welcome.” These videos were really helpful, but when I was practicing the sounds and the sentences out loud I had trouble making them sound legitimate--I still sounded like a native English speaker trying to form French syllables. I guess this is to be expected, but somehow I thought knowledge of one language would make learning how to speak another much smoother. I also looked into French verb conjugations, and learned that those are sort of similar to verb conjugations in Spanish, in that there are two versions of the past tense. However, the endings for, say, conditional are much different in Spanish than they are in French. It’ll be interesting, as this independent study goes on, to continue comparing the two languages and my learning process for each. My first French lesson is tomorrow, so today my goals were to solidify my schedule, do a little research on the similarities between French and Spanish, and complete another Duolingo lesson.
Rather than relying totally on my Skype lessons, I decided to contact the Alliance Française of Toledo, as Dr. Apostolou recommended, to see if they might offer in-person French tutorials. I found out that they do have availability, so I’m meeting with a French teacher at Alliance Française for my first lesson tomorrow morning. Fortunately my schedule will remain the same--with a lesson in the morning and independent work / volunteering in the afternoons. Although these are individual lessons, the teacher I spoke to on the phone also said that the Alliance offers group classes every Wednesday evening, so I might end up attending those, as well. I think that being able to interact face-to-face with a teacher (and perhaps other students) will be really beneficial for me, and I’m looking forward to meeting her tomorrow. Today I also did some research on the similarities between French and Spanish, in the hopes that this knowledge will help me connect my experience with Spanish to learning French. I found out that both languages originate from colloquial Latin, or the Latin spoken by members of the lower classes within the Roman Empire. The two languages also share an alphabet, which is useful to know because it means learning how to write in French will be much easier than learning how to write in Mandarin or Arabic (they both use letters with accents, too). The two languages have a high lexical similarity, as well, which means that they share similar words--specifically, Spanish and French have a lexical similarity of 75%. I find this really interesting, because this percentage is not much lower than the lexical similarity of Spanish and Portuguese, which is 89%--only 14% higher, and I always assumed that it would be really easy to learn Portuguese if you knew Spanish. Perhaps learning French will not be as much of a stretch as I thought (although I’m sure that pronunciation will still be quite a learning curve). Further, Spanish and French share similar grammar, in terms of having nouns with genders, two versions of the past tense, and similar verb conjugations. I completed another Duolingo lesson today, and although I found the vocabulary fairly easy the speaking / listening portion was really hard for me. Words (like “croissant” or “une”) didn’t sound the way I expected them to, and when I heard spoken sentences the words flowed together so I couldn’t really distinguish where one word ended and the next one began. Also even though the alphabets of Spanish and French are the same, the French sounds were really unfamiliar to me--like the fact that the word “comment” in French really sounds like “como.” I’ve been listening and speaking Spanish for a long time, so I think it’s going to take some time for me to adjust to French. Overall, today was productive, but I’m looking forward to meeting my teacher. I’ve discovered through past independent studies that self-directed learning is best done with a mentor, so it’ll be great to start up my French lessons tomorrow. Today was the first day of my French immersion independent study project, and my plan was mostly to prepare for the upcoming three weeks. As my daily French lessons haven’t started up yet, my main goal for today was to finish up some housekeeping tasks / clarify the logistics of my project. I also wanted to start learning on my own, through an application that Madame Anton (my French teacher) recommended--Duolingo. But, my independent study project focuses on French culture as well as French language and culture, so I decided to do a little research on Le Jour des Rois, as Dr. Apostolou suggested, as well.
Most of my morning was taken up by a doctor’s appointment, but afterwards I sent an email to Madame Anton clarifying the times that we would be Skyping each day. I also purchased the book she asked that I get for the class--it’s called 5 Minute French by Berlitz and contains audio, pictures, and print. I was expecting to have to purchase a serious textbook (I don’t think this book is exactly that), but since I’m learning French for such a short period of time, a more abridged book is probably best. Once Madame Anton had emailed me back about the times of our Skype sessions each day, I got in contact with an organization that helps tutor children of refugees (or refugees who are children) in a variety of subjects (not just English, but math and science and social studies as well). I believe it’s connected with the University of Toledo, but I’m not exactly sure--one of last year’s seniors recommended it to me. I know that this organization needs volunteers, but they might not need them during the school day (I’m still waiting on a call back about that) so I also contacted Mobile Meals, an organization in Toledo which delivers food to refugees as well as impoverished members of the Toledo community. I think I have more than enough work without volunteering, but it might be nice to practice my French a little in the real world if possible. Depending on how much work Madame Anton gives me and the requirements of my final project, I might end up volunteering with these organizations after school ends rather than during the normal school day. At the end of the day, I set up a Duolingo account and completed my first lesson. It was fairly simple, involving learning vocabulary words like “chat” and “femme” and “homme” and “garçon,” and understanding basic sentences like “je suis une fille.” In terms of researching Le Jour de Rois. I found out that the word “jour” means day and the word “rois” means kings, so “Le Jour de Rois” means The Day of the Kings. It is also known as “Epiphany,” and it’s a religious holiday that is celebrated in France on the first Sunday in January. To commemorate the coming of the three wise men (who, according to the Bible, brought gifts to Jesus Christ), the French often have family gatherings and eat a special cake called “La Galette de Rois,” the word “galette” meaning pancake or waffle. “La Galette de Rois” is flat and golden brown; it’s special because there is a small ceramic figure hidden inside. At a family gathering, each person is given a slice of the cake, and whoever discovers the ceramic figure in their slice becomes the “king” or “queen” of the day. According to the San Joaquin Delta College’s website, Le Jour de Rois is less about religion and more about celebrating family and having fun for the French (Manceau 2018). Overall, I think my day was really productive. I’m glad to have clarified my schedule by contacting Madame Anton and those volunteer organizations, and it was also fun to start learning on my own a little bit. When I spoke with Madame Fox about learning French, I told her that I had been taking Spanish for about 7 years, and was wondering if that knowledge might help with learning French. She told me it would in some French words are similar to Spanish words; however, the pronunciations would be completely different. I definitely noticed that as I was learning on Duolingo today. For instance, the word for man in Spanish is “hombre” and the word for man in French is “homme,” but they sound completely different. I’m excited to continue learning tomorrow! Works Cited: Manceau, Gisèle. “Le Jour Des Rois.” San Joaquin Delta College, San Joaquin Delta College, 15 Mar. 2018, www.deltacollege.edu/student-life/student-media/delta-winds/1998-table-contents/le-jour-des-rois. |
AuthorKiran Dzur |