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/lit/ - Literature

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16124696 No.16124696 [Reply] [Original]

What's the best approach to reaching fluency in french within 3 years?

>> No.16124699

>>16124696

Go live in France, obviously.

>> No.16124724

>>16124699
this
It's pretty common, University classes are open to anybody and you can work there and have higher living standards than in any other shithole. Almost half of my teachers did it in the 60's and 70's.

>> No.16124736

Repetition and saturation

I fucking hate French and learned it by half learning it and halfassing learning it for long enough that it just started to stick even though I actively resisted practicing

Learn the grammar and then just start reading because 90% of the fucking stupid language is idioms you have to burn into muscle memory anyway. You could probably speed the process up by trying to write French too, but then you'd have to talk to the French so good luck with that.

>> No.16124849

I've been trying to learn German for 10 years and still can't read anything above a middle-school reading level.
The plateau is real.

>> No.16124865

>>16124849
6 years here. Any tips? I can´t read mostly because of my poor vocabulary, but my listening is good.

Also I try to mentally start conversations in german, it helps me to keep the little I know.

>> No.16124870

For a handful of months, I used Anki to study vocab. Then I moved to reading books in french now and then (Robbe Grillet's starter book, then a Bachelard book, then a Laruelle book)
I also found a youtuber I like who talks about topics I'm already familiar with and I watch his videos.
Not fluent yet, but I've only been going for a bit over a year. I'm still doing way better than if I were just studying grammatical forms by rote like in high school.

>> No.16124881

>>16124870
Also, huge tip
If happen to be already somewhat steeped in philosophy, reading philosophy in a foreign language is so so so much easier than reading fiction. Fiction writers tend to use a way wider vocabulary.

>> No.16124884

>>16124865
If you have 6 years in then I'm assuming you have at least a basic repository of vocabulary. Like the 1000 most common words or something like that.
It's probably mostly intermediate, advanced, and specialized vocabulary that throws you off.
The countless different verbs in German are especially tough to crack.
I'd recommend going to memrise and studying an advanced vocab course.
For reading, you can buy a Kindle and download German e-books, and then download a German-English dictionary.
Then when you come across an unknown verb you can just tap it and it will instantly be defined.

>> No.16124893

>>16124881
I tried to read Spengler in German once.
The sentences are half a page long and contain like 15 clauses each.
Vocabulary is actually the easiest aspect of a language to learn. It's nuance and understanding the relationships in a sentence that is the difficult part.

>> No.16124915

>>16124893
I agree. My first philosophy book in French was a random Barthes thing. And there was a lot of stumbling with understanding the grammatical flow (stuff like "...ne...que..." is not obvious at all to an english speaker). But through a lot of trial and error and google translate, I made my way through, and each book has been easier than the last...
Then I try to pick up a Klossowski book and it tries my patience like crazy.

>> No.16124938

>>16124884
Thanks for the tips!
I tried reading alice in the wonderland in german, thinking it would be easy but the words are very archaic.

>> No.16124939

The key is obviously immersion - go somewhere you have to speak it. France is a good choice, obviously. But it can be really useful to work using the language. Doing development work in a former French colony like Haiti or Senegal is a great option.

However, a big secret to mastering a language is to date someone who speaks that language - when you have to speak it for intimacy, you get really good, really fast.

Pro-tip: focus on mastering the grammar first, because once you have that down, it's just about memorizing the vocab.

Another tip: read newspapers and watch French TV. TV is shallower than film, so you'll learn everyday language from it. Newspapers are written in very plain language, so they won't go into esoteric language like novels will.

>> No.16124948

>>16124939
nice points
also something nice about newscasters. they have to speak clearly and in a standardized accent

>> No.16124979

>>16124849
>me in 7 years

how do i ascend?

>> No.16124981

>>16124696
Read the Stranger over and over again.

>> No.16124991

>>16124979
You have to actually study.

>> No.16125006

>>16124991
This came and still does come as a great shock to me.

>> No.16125190

>>16124849
Are you a retard or something? I learnt strong conversational German in 6 months, and became generally fluent after 2 years. How? Pimsleur + Anki + German friends to talk with

>> No.16125209

>>16125190
Wow, you sound like an amazing person.
I wish I could be like you. What an absolute stud.
So strong, so powerful. No one can stand before you.
No one.

>> No.16125213

>>16124849
It's all immersion.

>> No.16125739

>>16124893
German starts out feeling insanely hard and then it becomes really easy

Sometimes a German attacks you with a half a page long sentence, and you just karate chop it into bitch ass clauses in mid air without even slowing down. Feels satisfying

>> No.16125937

>>16124699
I once read a post by a tourist who was in France, and asked for directions in English, and he couldn't find anyone who'd understand him. Eventually, the one person he found told him: "I could tell you in English, but I won't. We're in France, so speak French."

>> No.16125943

>>16125937
>You speak American in America

>> No.16126051
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16126051

>>16125943
Yes. yes you do. Any Briton who is caught saying "aluminium", "lorry", "blimey", etc... should be executed on the spot by a gun-wielding patriot.

>> No.16126189
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16126189

>>16124696
do you know how musicians learn to play? they do the same simple exercise, pattern for hundreds of times.

when you read in foreign language, you say, pronounce what you read, and read every sentence 10, 20 times in a row.

>> No.16126222

>>16124696
Probably moving to the French speaking country.

Btw I took French classes, and the language is really beautiful itself, but for me pronouncation was the hardest thing I have ever experience in my life.

I know it was my fault, because I did not pay enough attention, but really if I compare French to German, English or Russian, I have never had much trouble with reading simple texts, but in French it was incredible hard.

>> No.16126346

>>16125937
The French really are the Americans of continental Europe.

>> No.16126365
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16126365

>>16126346
Down to the sexual obsession with black people.

>> No.16127528

Does anyone know of a book that has been posted here a few times in language learning threads it was about a method of learning the reading skills of a language rapidly and it focused entirely on getting reading skills up to par quickly. I believe the original version of the book was teaching french

>> No.16127630

>>16124849
nah you're just a lazy retard

>> No.16127933

>>16124724
Actual man child who has never lived on his own assuming that 60s and 70s estate and rent is the same as today. Fucking idiot