Use Ears Not Eyes Rule #2

Once one of my French friend told me this  incident;

   "Where is boulevard Cappuccino?"

This is the strange question two American tourists asked him on a sunny summer afternoon as he was sitting on the steps of L'Opera Garnier in Paris.

After asking them to repeat a few times and as they grew increasingly frustrated, he had to confess he really had no idea what they were talking about and didn't believe the street they were looking for existed.

It turns out it did. They had just made one simple mistake. 

Can you guess what this mistake was? 

They saw Boulevard des Capucines written on their map and pronounced it the way they thought it was pronounced which sounded nothing like the way it's actually pronounced. 

Hardly surprising considering most courses and teachers make you read words and phrases long before you hear them pronounced.

At school, you start your journey with lists of words. If you are lucky, you may hear your teacher read them once or twice, if not you may never even hear the words pronounced before you learn them.

Apps often give you the possibility to hear the words pronounced by a robot voice that sounds nothing like a native speaker.

That's how these two tourists ended up saying "boulevard Cappuccino" instead of "Boulevard des Capucines" and that's how many French learners end up with a terrible accent locals can't understand. 

That's why rule #2 is: Learn French with your ears, not with your eyes.

If you want to be understood, you need to make sure you ALWAYS learn with your ears before you learn with your eyes.

So next time you want to learn a new phrase, make sure you listen to it several times before reading it. This simple change will make the difference between being understood and people asking you to repeat or switching to English because they don't understand you.

À demain ! See you tomorrow!

Thank you and wait for the next rule.

Rule number 1

One of my most frustrating experiences as a learner learning French was when I realized I knew 2,500 words but couldn't say a word.

When it came to actual conversation I wasn't able to let loose. All these words were just jumbled in my head like pieces of a broken puzzle.

I didn't know what to do so I just kept learning more words, hoping they would all magically assemble themselves and form sentences I could use to order a coffee or even have fluent conversations with my French friends Alicia and Ashley.

Unfortunately, the only thing that grew was my sense of disjointed knowledge. There were fragments of language all over my head, phrases here and there but I still couldn't say a word. 

I felt stupid and ready to give up.

Luckily I didn't and later realized I was struggling because I wasn't following rule #1 Learn the words locals use, not the words textbooks teach.

As a French learner, you probably heard that progress is slow and that you just need to keep going, that learning French takes years.

What people forget to tell you is that progress can be a lot faster if you learn the right vocabulary.

Learning a language is like solving a puzzle. It's not enough to have lots of pieces. You could have thousands of pieces but it doesn't matter if you don't have the right pieces.

Le Grand Robert de la Langue Française, one of the largest French dictionaries contains 100,000 words and 350,000 definitions.

You could try to learn as many of these words as possible and spend years painfully trying to memorize the names of body parts and pieces of furniture just like you did at school.

Or you could focus on the pieces of the puzzle you actually need.

A study by professor of Linguistics Mark Davies from Brigham Young University has shown that "with about 4000 words, a language learner would be able to recognize more than 90% of the words in a typical native speaker conversation. If s/he learns two thousand more words, however, this will increase coverage by only about 3-4%."

C'est génial ! That's awesome because it means you don't need to be a walking French dictionary to be able to speak French with confidence, you just need to know the 4,000 words that will unlock your ability to understand 90% of everyday conversations.

These are the words I focused on. These are also the words you should focus on if you would rather know how to communicate effectively than know how to say "the cow is black".

So next time you learn vocabulary, ask yourself the following question:

Is this a phrase/word I will actually use in real-life or am I just learning it because it's there?

And give yourself permission to skip words and phrases you believe you are unlikely to use anytime soon.

Because remember, there are hundreds of thousands of French words and you will never speak fluently if you don't focus on the ones you actually need to communicate with locals.

Learning the words locals use is essential but won't be of much use if people can't understand you. My next rule will help you make sure locals understand you and don't ask you to repeat.

À demain ! See you soon !

*WORD QUIZ :

What word can refer to a tiresome person, a hackneyed statement, or a sedative drug?"There are a special prize if you answer this correctly." So please comment.

ANSWER OF LAST QUIZ : SEDULOUS

Let's Learn Some French

Learning a foreign language is definitely a very difficult task. Learning the vocabulary and the grammar of a new language can be very challenging.

In today's post I am going to tell you some common French greetings which you can use and can be very helpful if you get a chance to visit France.

So the following are the French greetings along with their meaning.

•Bonjour! (Bon-joor) : Good morning or hello

•Salut! : Can be used as both hello and goodbye.

•Bonsoir! (Bon-sua) : Good evening/night

•Merci beaucoup! : Thank you

•Au revoir! : Good bye

•À remain! : See you
tomorrow

•Oui : Yes

•Non: No

•Bon journée! : Good day

•Comment Tu ça va?: How are you

•Ça va bien! : I am well.

*Word quiz : French phrase meaning 'Happy journey' and is often used in English also.
(B n V   ag ). Comment if you know the answer.
Answer of last quiz : Convene

Four rules to learn any language

Learning a new language can be very exciting and challenging as well. But remembering all the grammatical rules and vocabulary is very boring. When I started learning French I used to by heart the rules and learnt thousands of words. I thought that this was the only way to learn any language.

But once a group of French students came to my school, I found myself standing awkwardly in front of those students unable to say anything other than ' Bonjour, Je m'appelle Ayan. I even couldn't understood what they were trying to convey. I felt really helpless.

The next day I was determined to speak French fluently. But my efforts failed which led to frustration. Later when I told this to my English teacher she told me the correct way of learning any language. She told me that rather than memorizing vocabulary list and studying obscure grammatical rules , I should focus on that part of French which I need to communicate with the locals. As soon as I followed this rule my French quickly improved and I am proud to say that I speak French fluently and following the same rules to learn Spanish.

I realized that learning that 20% of French that make 80% of conversations is the key to speak French confidently. So I will share the four rules which any person (any age) can follow to learn that 20% of French required to speak confidently. So wait for the next post. Thank you.

*WORD QUIZ: Synonym of assiduous ( means to work diligence) - s d l u 

• Answer of last quiz :Bon voyage

Language - origin and history

Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so; a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

Thee word language find its origin in the Latin word 'Lingua' which means 'tongue' which was modified in French word 'langage' and finally into 'language'.

* WORD QUIZ: What member of vox family begins with c and means to ' call together for a meeting '. Comment if you know the answer.

Answer of previous quiz: PERUSE.

Let's start with etymology itself

Etymology of etymology

Etymology is the study of history and origin of words.
The word etymology has been derived from a French word 'ethimologie' which itself is derived from Latin word 'etymologia' which is borrowed from two Greek words 'etumon' meaning 'true sense' and 'logia' meaning 'study of'.
So the literal meaning of etymology is 'the study of true sense'.

WORD QUIZ: 

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of scrutinize: p _ r _ s _.Answers will be told in next post.

Welcome to my blog

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

Hello! This my first blog and I'm very excited for my first post. I am currently studying in class 12 th. Languages seems very fascinating to me.

 I love learning different languages. Being an Indian, hindi is my mother tongue. I love Hindi. I am also learning English from my childhood. Also I know Sanskrit a little bit. I a learning French from class 10 th . I am looking forward to learn even more languages in future. 

For me the most interesting thing about any language is its etymology. I love tracing the history of words and sharing it with others. So here I am writing this post. I will try to share my knowledge from my next post onwards. Thank you. I hope you will like me.