As some of you guys know, I am trying to learn as much French as I can in one year. There is at least one article per week on Friday’s that will be French related though other days will also include French content if applicable.

I thought it’d be appropriate to write updates on my progress so far and it’s been about a month since I started my current “phase” of studying. Originally these updates were going to be monthly but I”m starting to think that they’ll be bi monthly or so after this one to have a larger lapse of time to see some results or lack of.

So far I’ve mostly been using the apps I’ve mentioned in another post and even broke the habit of using them only to build up the habit again. I am training about an hour every day, some days I train more and some others a bit less but I’d say the average is about an hour.

So far my progress has been a bit slow, I don’t think I’ve made tons of improvement grammar wise though I do think the vocabulary is starting to stick. Vocabulary is one of those things that you have got to memorize one way or another and through the apps I’m using daily. Even someone like me who forgets the vocabulary often, has been able to retain a good amount of it. I still forget plenty of it and very basic words but I do see a small improvement in my vocabulary.

Besides the apps I am also using some beginners books and podcasts to improve my reading and listening which I will talk about at a later time. I have also made a page to archive all my french posts at miscrave.com/learn-french. So check that out if you’re just starting or want to see what you’ve been missing on.

There are many things that you need to consider when you want to speak another language. Part of it is having the right material to work with, practice, memorizing and many others. The most important out of all of these however is forming a habit. It might seem like the simplest thing to do but it’s also the hardest.

For example, last week I talked about some apps that you can use to learn French. But if you don’t begin using them daily, you never form a habit and then you stop using them. I know this because it happened to me before and it wasn’t until I forced myself to practice every day that they became part of my routine every day. If we always leave things for “When I have time”, you’ll never achieve things because there will always be stuff that comes up and takes that time away. So, It is imperative that you force yourself to make time for it.
Continue reading Learning French – Forming a Habit →

It’s always important to better ourselves and learn new things and because of it I decided to set a new goal for me: To learn French in one year. Over the next 364 days I will be practicing french daily throughout different means to get better at the four skills, speaking, writing, listening and reading.

For a little background, I’m not starting from zero, I’d consider myself almost at an intermediate level. I studied French for 3 years back in High School but of course I didn’t learn how to speak it and it was quite a few years ago. I then studied it for a year and a half about 4 years ago and started studying again since last fall, now I haven’t been the best student and classes are only twice a week for 4 months of the year so while helpful, they aren’t the best if you really want to learn at a faster pace and it leaves a lot of room to get unmotivated.

Continue reading Learning French in one year, join me! →