One of the first websites that I came across at that time was Johan's Français Authentique. He recommends a process of natural learning whereby you learn new vocabulary words and grammar constructions by listening over and over again to the same audio files, while reading along with the text.
This is what he writes on his website:
- Vous apprenez du vocabulaire et de la grammaire automatiquement : vous n’apprenez pas de liste de vocabulaire ou des règles de grammaire.
- Vous pratiquez votre français en apprenant comme les enfants : sans effort. Grâce à la répétition, vous vous souviendrez de ce que vous apprenez pour toujours.
- Vous apprenez à utiliser le français à l’oral. Vous aurez confiance quand vous devrez parler français.
- Vous apprenez sur la France, sa culture et d’autres sujets. Les articles sont intéressants et vous apprenez en vous amusant.
- Vous écoutez du Français Authentique parlé par des gens dont le français est la langue maternelle.
His approach immediately spoke to me, and is the same I have used to help others learn anglais.
This is also how I learned espagnol while living en Espagne. I was totally immersed dans la langue espagnole. En fait, I probably spent the first three months en Espagne just listening to les gens. After that period of time, j'ai commencé à parler, and it was très facile after that. It was just a matter of building my vocabulaire in order to comprendre et parler about a wider range of topics.
So, now, I am here to say ça marche. It's working - even though je n'habite pas en France.
Aujourd'hui, as I went for une promenade avant my son's match du football, I listened to Le podcast du Native French Speech, episode 33, intitulé "Utiliser un téléphone". It was probably the 5ème fois que je l'ai écouté et je l'ai presque tous compris. Super !
Heureusement, Native French Speech allows their Free Members access to a transcript of chaque episode, so I had also read it over once or twice as well, which really helps me to better distinguish between the words - because sometimes they just sound like they are all jumbled together - to my in-training ear.
I am happy to report that after trois mois of listening tous les jours à quelques chose dans le français, I can say with confidence that I am much more able to understand Native French Speakers and have increased my passive vocabulaire tremendously. In fact, when I have taken some online tests, such as the Test de Connaissance du Français, I have scored at level B2 on the sample test for compréhension orale.
I am confident that as I continue to listen to the various podcasts, videos, and songs en français, I will only continue to get better and better at understanding Native French Speakers. Yahoo!
My next goal is being able to turn all this passive understanding into active use by working with a tutor from France, Aurélie from Native French Speech, in order to parler français.
Voici l'episode 33 - Utiliser un téléphone - Available for free on iTunes and at Native French Speech.
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