Answers
May 30, 2013 - 10:26 PM
Bravo! Qu'est-ce que tu va faire maintenant?
May 30, 2013 - 10:57 PM
Congratulations. If you don't mind me asking, how did you schedule the lessons? I just got French today and am curious as to whether or not there is an ideal way to move through it. How many lessons did you do in a typical week?
May 31, 2013 - 03:46 AM
I wouldn't suppose to speak for Michael but I can share my own experiences. I am nearing the end of level 3. Everyone is a little different in the way they learn and retain what they learn, so you kind of have to find your own sweet spot. The one thing I would caution you on is the temptation to go to fast. Give yourself enough time to fully absorb what you are learning. If at all possible try to spend some time every day working with the material. For me on the first two levels I spent on average two day on each lesson. That seemed to work fairly well for me. Although there has been some vocab that I've forgotten because some of it you won't use frequently. When I got to level 3, it was a little bit of a shock because they kick it up a couple of notches. The tutorials and dialogs become significantly longer and the workouts are also longer. For level 3, it's been taking me about a week to go through each lesson. Part of that has to do with I started taking classes at Alliance Française at the same time I started level 3 so my time has been divided but still, they even recommend in the lessons that on that level you should try to do more than 2 or 3 lessons a week. Fluenz is an excellent program. I am just about finished with my second class at Alliance Françise and so far I've already known most of the material that we have covered. Of course the real benefit to taking live classes is the opportunity to communicate in real time with other students. Best of luck to you, you've made a great choice!
May 31, 2013 - 07:48 AM
Now the real fun begins! I went to my first meeting with a Francophone group (Alliance Francaise) at a local coffee shop. There were 33 people there and mostly French who now live here. They so nice and meet 2 times each month and provide the conversational opportunities and instant help I have never had. I now try to evaluate my weaknesses and set short term goals for each meeting. I plan to meet with a tutor between these meetings. I still do the Fluenz Flashcard review sessions and listen to the audios and podcasts. I have so many resources at home I need to use....books, instructional aids like verb practice and tons of grammar help and access to French TV/News,etc. Still weak with reflexive verbs, matching up genders, inversion and of course....no future tense. I liked the structure and base that Fluenz gave me and may even look for another program that provides more practice and repetition of listening skills. Are you sorry you asked or do have any suggestions to add?
May 31, 2013 - 08:46 AM
Thanks, Mike W. I appreciate the info. And you're right. It is definitely tempting to keep on running with the lessons. I'll have to try to give myself a schedule. So far I really like the program but then I had spent enough time in the demo that I knew I would. I've already found a great resource at www.conversationexchange.com for when the time comes to put it all in practice. I can't wait. I suppose it will also be a good idea to go ahead and get a French-English dictionary and one of those 501 FRENCH VERBS books. I've used those in the past and they're great for when you begin to advance your language studies.
May 31, 2013 - 11:14 AM
I too found that levels 3-5 take several hours and are much more complex and often confusing. I usually did each program twice and the flash cards at least 4 times and then listened to audio and podcasts many,many times before moving on to another session. As you advance, more and more words have several meanings and many words sound nearly identical to previously learned words. So yes a good dictionary helps. Somethings were still not totally clear, but I knew I had to move on. I am definitely still a beginner but now realize that the complexity of the language will take much more time for me to get to an intermediate conversational level. I can communicate in simple terms and sentences but can easily get lost under pressure or when the speaker talks rapidly and the liaisons disguise words that I know. Time and repetition......I will persevere.
May 31, 2013 - 01:15 PM
Thanks, Mike McP. I really appreciate the info you two have given me. My main problem is that I'm having so much fun with the workouts that I just want to keep right on going. I'll just have to figure out how to rein myself in. This is something I definitely want to get right. As soon as I've wrapped this up I'm going straight to conversationexchange.com so I can hopefully put it all to good use. My wife and I would like to travel to Europe some day and I'd love to be absolutely fluent by the time that day comes.
May 31, 2013 - 02:17 PM
I share the MikeW thoughts and had the same experience. 1 & 2 were fun, easy, satisfying and quick to move through the sessions. When French got complicated in 3,4,5 Fluenz sent in the first string......Caroline 3-5 is the real Frenh deal. I felt confident that she pronounced each word correctly and knew exactly what she was talking about. I think that 3-5 may be reality check and I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you get there.