Update on 2019 Goal: J'apprende le Français

Today is the 198th day of 2019. It's also 200 days into my study of the French language. My primary resource has been Duolingo, which is amazing once you find all the helps and resources on the app and on the website. I also listen to a French language CD during my drive to and from work, and do my best to read French short stories and tweets from Le Musée de Louvre. What I can't understand, I look up or extract from context.

It's been fun. I'm enjoying my studies and plan to continue learning French for at least the next year and a half. I hope you're still working on your 2019 goals as well.

Why Does It Have To Be So Complicated?

I was ready to try out my new language skills and decided to post a line on Twitter in French. I was fairly certain I knew what I was talking about, so I opened a tweet and typed:

Nous allons en Angleterre à visiter nos fille !

Then, I hit send. Smiling, ever so proud of myself, I clicked the "Translate Tweet" link and saw:

We're going to England to visit our daughters!

So what's wrong with that? We are, in fact, going to England, but we have just one daughter in that country. I wasn't certain which French form of "our" to use, so I went with nos, which I've practiced on several occasions on Duolingo, instead of notre.

As it turns out (I think I say that a lot in relation to my studies) nos is used when the following noun is plural. So by saying nos fille, I turned fille (fee-ah)--meaning one girl or daughter--to filles, which means girls or daughters. Since the last letter is usually silent in French, fille and filles is pronounced exactly the same. Thus the correct form of "our" is crucial to differentiate the two.

In English, the word "our" is the same whether the possessive is singular or plural. I never appreciated that until now. I don't know why the plurals and possessives have to be so complicated in other languages, but that's the way it is. I'm quickly learning that.

In the meantime, nous allons en Angleterre à visiter notre fille !

A Quick Update and Disney's Flight of Passage.

2019 is already down two months? How?? Several of us have been discussing the rapid (and frighteningly fast) passage of time. Don't take a moment for granted. It's gone in a heartbeat.

The busyness of our lives contributes to the perception of disappearing time. At this empty-nesting stage of my life, I'm not nearly as busy as younger parents are, but I stay busy enough. So how am I doing on my 2019 goals?

• I was consistent with my flute practice until a week or so ago, but I had a reason for the lapse. More on that in a minute.
  
• I study French on a daily basis. So much so, my husband is beginning to pick up a bit just from listening in. I've completed ten chapters in my Basic French book along with two reviews, and I'm working through the fifth level of the second set of subjects in Duolingo. One must complete a total of 60 lessons within each subject, so when I complete this second set, I'll have completed a total of 600 lessons on the app. This doesn't include all the reviews I had to take to "earn health" (if you make six mistakes, you either have to wait a few hours until one unit refills, refill your health with earned credits, or take a review to earn one unit.) J'étudie beaucoup (I study a lot.)

So what happened with the flute? We've been babysitting our daughter's very large dogs while she and her family relocated across country and got settled. The time finally came take them home. We picked a time near our grandson's tenth birthday and drove them to Florida.

My daughter decided to celebrate my grandson's birthday at Disney's Animal Kingdom. I'm not fond of large crowds and am prone to motion sickness. Consequently, I am not an amusement park person--I spent far too much time at Six Flags over Texas during my girls' childhood and teen years. but I love my grandson. So hi ho, hi ho, it was off to Disney I...went.

My daughter saved the best ride for last. If you're familiar with Animal Kingdom, you know this means the Avatar- (the movie) -based "Flight of Passage" ride. The line was horrid (a 2 1/2 hour wait. Every muscle in my legs and back hurt by the time we reached the ride) but the detailed graphics of a simulator that makes you feel as if you're really swooping through a valley on Pandora are incredible. I can't wait to see how Disney applies this technology to other attractions. I would love to feel as if I'm on the Moon. It's a must-see, but go with someone who can get a Fast Pass, otherwise, dehydrate yourself and plan to stand in close quarters with hundreds of others for a few hours.

Oh, and take Dramamine if rides make you sick. As I said, the simulator really makes you feel as if you're swooping through a valley.

This brings me to my goal of decluttering. With the dogs and their kennels, toys, and beds back with their people, I once again had access to our front room (formerly the dining room.) That room has been cleaned. I gave my daughter two of the four sets of crystal goblets my father-in-law gave us a few years back. My in laws purchased them while living in Europe, but never used them before my mother-in-law died. We use them, but the two of us didn't need forty-eight goblets. That cleared some cabinet space and a box in the attic. I still have to tackle the rest of the attic, and I'm not looking forward to that.

I read a few nonfiction historical books as well, but I'll discuss that later.

That's it for February. March brings us longer days and spring. Take time to enjoy the beauty that's about to surround us.

Never Make Fun of Someone Who Struggles to Speak Your Language

In several posts, I mentioned one of my goals for this year is to learn the French language. It's been a desire of mine since I forgot what French I learned during two years of High School. What I've studied over the past fifty-three days has renewed my belief that one should never make fun of a person who struggles to speak another language.

I've had two years of French and two college semesters of Spanish. Learning to recognize and read words is actually easy. Learning to pronounce them correctly is a little more difficult. Learning to understand a different language when it's spoken to you and to think in that language well enough to respond properly is hard.

The difficulty doesn't just involve a lack of vocabulary. One can whip up a stack of flash cards and memorize words in a jiffy. Learning grammatical structure and tenses so you can place the correct words in the proper order at the right time is a different matter, especially when the sentence structure of one language differs from another.

Take, for instance, the way adjectives are placed in the English language. Those who know and speak English know the adjective is placed before the noun, e.g.: 

I have a red car.

In French, as in Spanish, the adjective is usually placed after the noun:

J'ai une voiture rouge.

I say usually because I'm learning some adjectives are placed before the noun:

J'ai une petite voiture (I have a small car. So does that mean I have a small, red car is written as, J'ai une petite voiture rouge?)

Why are some adjectives in the French language placed before the noun and some after? I haven't a clue, and I'm still trying to figure out which ones goes where.

Add to that learning which nouns are masculine and which are feminine, because that drives how the preceding article and accompanying adjectives and plurals are written and pronounced, and you have a person who is trying their best to mentally figure out how to form a sentence and then to speak it so that it's understood by the listener.

It's confusing, so s'il vous plaît and por favor, do me a favor. When you encounter someone who struggles to speak your language, don't laugh at them. Help them out. I know what they're going through. It isn't fun to stand there feeling like an idiot because you're trying to communicate with someone in a different language.

Je Parle Français? I'm Getting There

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my goals for 2019 is to learn the French language. For six weeks now, I've put in a lot of time each day (J'étudie beaucoup--I study a lot) using the four resources I mentioned in my The Thing About Learning Languages post. These sources compliment one another nicely, and I've learned much since the beginning of the year.

So, can I parle français yet? Un peu (a little) but I'm still in the early stages of learning. I've picked up words, sounds, and phrases, memorized and conjugated a few verbs, and am learning the gender of various words, but I don't yet know enough to make good use of them. However, I have learned a few simple sentences, such as:

Je suis une femme américaine (I'm an American woman.)
J'ai deux filles et trois petit-fils (I have two daughters and three grandsons.)
J'ai un chien et deux chats (I have a dog and two cats.)
Je vais a l'hôtel (I am going to the hotel. I'm not, but I know how to say it.)

And so on. However, at this early stage, I'm reading the language better than I'm speaking it. Far better than I'm thinking in French. It will take some time for that to happen.

It's a slow process. Various articles (de, du, aux, au) and a seemingly lack of pattern when it comes to word gender continue to trip me up, but I'll get it eventually. I just need to apprends more. Especially since I had to look up that word in order to use it.

Each day is a new opportunity to learn, and I intend to take advantage of that.

The Thing About Learning Languages

As I mentioned in my 2019 Goals post, I decided now was the time to start learning the French language. It's been a goal of mine since I took French I and II in High School, and I didn't want to put it off any longer.

To that end, I'm using four helpful resources. The first is the Duolingo language app. Duolingo has improved their app over the years, and it now offers five levels per subject instead of one, each more challenging than the last. The app had me paying attention to verb conjugation and the gender of nouns and their accompanying articles before I caught on it was doing so.

I needed more written experience though, along with something that offered a more systematic approach to learning, so I ordered the Practice Makes Perfect: Basic French Second Edition workbook published by McGraw-Hill Education. After reading recommendations by AP teachers in the reviews, I was concerned the material may be above my current level of knowledge, but I purchased it anyway knowing I would use it eventually.

As it turns out, it fit my needs perfectly. Each chapter is short and introduces new material in a clear, concise manner. Enough to learn, but not so much as to overwhelm. The accompanying Language Lab app that I downloaded on my phone provides flashcards for each chapter along with audio exercises and reviews.

Which leads me to one issue. When it comes to language, the spoken language has always come first. It existed long before someone decided it was time to record observations and history on some type of permanent medium, whether it be pictures or the lines we call letters. Children learn the spoken language before they learn to read. When the time does comes for them to learn the written form of language, they do so through word and letter recognition already knowing how words are pronounced, and with phonics--that is, associating the sound of the letter with what they see.

When one learns a language later in life, one often does it backwards. We start by learning the written word in a textbook with an instructor explaining language elements to us in our own language. This can lead to mispronunciations, especially when one is self-teaching. While I do have audio lessons at my disposal with the help of the two apps I'm using, I'm reading more than I'm listening. Consequently, I don't have a clue how to properly pronounce many words, especially those that contain one of the three different accent marks in the French language. I guess until I happen on it during an audio exercise. 

One cause of this is the fact that neither of my main resources have taught me the French alphabet. Learning the alphabet is crucial because the sound of the letter is included in its name. Granted, there are exceptions, but if I want to pronounce these words properly, I need to stop what I'm doing and learn the French alphabet.

That's my first goal for the month of February. After that, I'll begin the next group of chapters in Duolingo and in my workbook.

Update on 2019 Goals

I realize we're only halfway through the month, but this is the point where many of the well intended begin to waver in their yearly resolutions. So how am I doing? Here's an update on goals I mentioned in my 2019 Goals post and a few I omitted in that post.

The flute. As I mentioned in my 2019 Goals post, I slacked off on practicing my flute. Since picking it up on New Year's Day, my tone has significantly improved, as has my ability to sight-read music. I still mix up the E and F notes on occasion, but it's getting better.

As I mentioned in my One-Flat Life post, after initially learning how to play the flute a few years back, I began to avoid notes and keys I found difficult. Instead of avoiding those, I now focus on them while practicing scales and flute exercises.

Learn French. A few years ago, I downloaded the Duolingo app to my phone and began practicing French. When it comes to languages, I'm accustomed to a systematic form of learning, so the seemingly random aspect of Duolingo was, for me, confusing. I eventually abandoned the app in the hopes of finding a class.

However, months and even a year later, I could still recall much of the material covered, so I downloaded the app again. Duolingo has upgraded since that time. While the information  presented still seems random to me, they've improved the system and now provide levels for each section, insuring the student is more proficient in that subject before moving on.

I still need some systematic study, so I purchased a workbook online and am working on verb conjugation.

I intend to practice both flute and French daily, even for a few minutes. In order to learn, my efforts must become a daily habit.

Clean as I go is working out well. My husband has been infected by the bug too, and we're accomplishing more around the house.

Two goals I didn't mention in my 2019 Goals post is my and my husband's intention to read through the bulk of the scripture again this year. Using a plan available through my Olive Tree app, we're almost finished with Genesis. That said, we feel it has taken too long to get through that book, so there will be days that we'll double up on reading, particularly with long books.

My last goal for 2019 is to cook decent meals. To this end, I purchased an Instant Pot. Read my post on that device to see how it's turning this bad cook into a kitchen ninja.

That's it for now. From this point on, I'll post monthly updates. I hope you're able to stick with your goals as well.

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2019 Goals

My writing took yet another hard hit last year, crumbling what was left of my aspirations. It was time to let it go for good. If something tried to pull me back into the industry as has been the case over the past decade, I would simply have to convey my apologies and move on. I need more direction from the Lord on that front before I try again.

Over the past fourteen years, I spent a great deal of time each week writing, revising, editing, critiquing, and publishing books. With that suddenly gone from my life, I found I had a lot of time on my hands. I usually don't make New Year's Resolutions, but I decided to make a few for 2019.

1. Practice the flute every day. I'd formed a habit of playing for a few days and then setting my flute aside for months at a time. Consequently, I was never ready to play when asked, and I sounded horrible when I picked up the flute on December 31st and tried to play a song. A week later, my tone is returning, as is my ability to quickly read music. I even reached that elusive Eb in the upper register. Once.


2.  Learn to speak French. I had two semesters of the language in high school. While I could, surprisingly, sometimes understand bits of conversations I overheard that were spoken in French, I've forgotten much of what I'd learned in my classes. Living in Texas, I chose Spanish for my college language requirement, and I used that skill on occasion while working at an international telecom in Dallas. But I've always wanted to go back and learn French well enough to read and converse in that language. I'm a week into my studies. I'm constantly confusing masculine and feminine forms, but I'm making progress.


3. Clean As I Go. No one who knows me would call me lazy. Quite the opposite. It's true I'm a hard worker and a self starter, but I also know myself and know I do indeed have a lazy side. It emerges more at home than it does at work. Too often after work, I'll walk past a pile of something or a task that needs completing, and plop on the couch. I spent my adult life cleaning up for and after my family, and at some point in the past decade, I decided I'd had enough. While I no longer need to throw myself into house cleaning as I once did, I do need to be more proactive at home. 

There they are, my goals for 2019. They're measurable, predominantly practical and most important, attainable. After a decade of chasing my dreams, much as I chased snow geese here in eastern North Carolina with similar results, attainable is what I need at this point in time.