Etikettarkiv: language

Life in Paris

A part of your brain

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As you all know I try to learn French, a language not so easy to learn as you might think. So this summer I focused on another language, English, and mainly to understand “legal English”, reading a lot of contracts.

I am not going to write much about those classes but I learned something new… The part of your brain “learning” langues is not the same part “storing” your native language. Had no idea. So at the end learning languages is to train that part of your brain to store more information.

I any case, this Thursday is my last English class and soon time for the French again. Or more: Time for the French verbs again. So upon recommendation I invested in a new book, the Bescherelle book. So now I think I have around 15 French Verb books at home. Crazy… And also proof that my “foreign language” brain hard drive is kind of full cause still… I cannot wrap my brain around those verbs.

Have a Nice Day

Björn

Franskt, Life in Paris

A bit more french?

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Today we play with the word “Is”, which if I studied Italian might have been a so called piece of cake, but now I study French and si should be a simple “if”.

But depending on the words around it can also be a “such” and “if” and then we have the j’y which completely pushed me over the edge to madness.

Again, French is really really hard and I admire everyone who get it.

Björn

Blog post, Life in Paris

Start again then

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So, today I started the French studies again. Or studies… I started to re write my notes into a new note book, repeat, repeat and again repeat is the only thing working for me. And now I also need to focus on speaking cause people don’t understand even when I from start say the right thing. Really enjoying. And confusing. You think you know what to say, you say it, it is correct but no one understand you. And for sou who not speak French it is a language no one understand if you don’t say it perfectly. 

Just like when people learn Swedish and struggle with our “sh”-sounds in Swedish I obviously have a huge problem with the French Je, J´ai, ch.. sounds. 

My friends here and home kind of not understand the struggle I have with French but again, I have no language ear at all. And self studies is kind of hopeless, like a parrot I repeat but actually have no idea what I’m saying. And since I am worthless in gramma (both Swedish and English) the French language with its specific gramma is really hard to learn.

So I am still between start all over again and giving up and try to find a way to learn that actually stay in there. We will see what happens.

Björn

Blog post, Random posts

French again

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I admit, I am not a linguist

So… Again I’m back to the problem I have with French verbs. And knowing me, some of you do, I am not good at stuff I don’t learn fast and my study technology is by doing, not reading and for sure not study on my own using on-line platforms. With that said, let’s turn back to the reason for this blog post.

I have nothing to “hang” up the French verbs on and what I learned yesterday, gone today. It’s unbelievable!!!

But looking at my language learning history. I had three really bad grades in school, math, Swedish grammar and English. You can say that from school start up until the family moved from Norrköping to Stockholm Swedish and English went fast downhill, from the top of the mountain to the ground rapidly.

English, kind of saved by the use of pen friends. Yes you youth born after 1975, back then we had penfriends. Both domestic and abroad. The Facebook and Instagram before Internet. Also thanks to the fact that nothing on TV in Sweden are dubbed (besides children shows).

Back to French verbs then and my brains way of complicate things. Let’s take an example, the verb être… To be or in Swedish vara.

My brain, in my Swedish mind set want to:

Je être, Tu être, Il/elle ètre, nous être, vous être and so on. In Swedish Jag är, Du är, han/hon är, vi är, ni är… only är, är, är. If this was French, I might have nailed it 100%. But even if the verb is être in french it goes je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes and vous êtes.

And that’s a easy one, verb by verb it change like this and I have no idea how to get this into my mind and make it stay. In class just rattling verb by verb it’s fine but in daily life my brain goes: “Oh, I need to say “I am Björn”, hmmmm, I am, is to be, vara in Swedish, so jag är, I am, verb être, it’s not Je être Björn it’s… yes I go for suis”.

All that activity takes time and in daily life not an option and since être is the easy one, please, just add all the other verbs.

I kind of give up every time… Je suis stupid, d’accord.

Then add the past and future and all the La and Le together with using the correct a, au, e, en, on, une… And my brain turn into a nuclear melt down.

And still I have not found the, for me, best way of learning this. Again, I have nothing to “hang” the French on to make it stick.

This blog post is a post about frustration

Björn

Franskt, Life in Paris

French test

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D Day

So total it finally was time for the Lilate, the French test… Test my level (by the way in September 2015 they said it was on the level of a four year old). And I don’t have the result yet but let us guess, 2 year old maybe?

First I lied terrible about my age, cause 50 in French was gone, my brain told me that 50 in French is something you never heard about Mr. So I grabbed the first number I could think of, 38! And the darling person on the other side told me she thought it was less… Bad line obviously but good to know… I look good on Skype with a dirty lens.

Then all the expected verb confusions before what I been told, read a short text and answer queries on the text. OK went not completely  bad even if the text on sun hours in Sweden during Spring, summer and winter kind of included words in French I never ever even heard before.

Then the fun part, to tell the test lady about something she asked me. I was told this will be on work, my hobbies and so on. I was asked to explain the phenomena “Northern light” in French “Aurore”. Hello? I can´t explain that even in Swedish! Electro magnetic fields in French?

But now its done, no more thoughts on that.

Björn