Ca c'est parfois Base 2 😀 14 mois? They should have mentioned long ago that when we use "since" in English, (depuis) we indeed use a present perfect (I have used/I have been using) which you are translating by a Passe Compose. "J’ai utilisé ". In actual fact, you must use the present tense in French. J'utilise Lingoda depuis 14 mois. As I mention in the video, it's not so much the source of learning that is the problem. But rather if it matches your ambition to learn French. That's my view on it. Lingoda is probably great. Depends what we want to accomplish. I won't insist on "peu cher" because that doesn't come into the context of a lesson but rather things we pick up. I don't consider it a "real mistake". ("un peu cher" was the way to say it) I'm on the fence regarding using pronouns "le " to replace Lingoda. But I trust that they have a lesson on the use of pronouns.
Thanks for the video, I enjoyed it. At 60, after three years of haphazard self learning every single day, I have no idea where I am. What I do know is that I am on journey that doesn’t have an endpoint. And although I am enjoying the journey, I often feel like I’m spinning my wheels. My New Year’s resolution is to study smarter, but first I have to figure out what that is. I will definitely check out your program.
That's most kind of you thanks a lot for the comment! Best thing is to book a free trial lesson. You'll see I do actually have a smile 😀 as well as extensive learning resources. I'm not a natural "youtuber" let's say. Much more dynamic in real life. You perfectly grasped the 2 points of this video and the challenge of many a learner. "Where am I and where am I going?" Studying smarter is what it's all about. What are the battles I can win? Which are the ones I should win? How do I separate what's necessary or not? We have to think about it almost like an army general. Combine best use of time and skill. I hope to meet you soon - thanks for the comment !
The "D Word" method seems to teach a pupil such useful skills as learning how to say: "Why does the cat keep playing the piano?", and similar inanities...
😀 I should have used that line at university ! 😃 The actual answer to the question is that long tedious videos brings in many clever students. Edit: I can't resist adding that the word "tedious" actually disappeared from French vocabulary long ago. Interesting isn't it? There used to be the word "tedieux" but it seems that there is no longer a need to express this feeling in French. Maybe because fewer things are considered uninteresting due to a more philosophical frame of mind? I have no idea. In this we see perhaps a glimpse into the psyche of English VS French speakers. In French we also learn such interesting things as figurative speech. Anyway, come back any time!)
Salut Chris, j'ai écouté le vidéo et lu ton commentaire ici, et je suis d'accord avec le sentiment d'avoir un état d'esprit philosophique et le adoration pour le figuratif. Pour cet raison je chercher le bon chemin pour comprendre meilleur le langue Français. Les francophones actuels n’utilisent probablement pas non plus le mot fastidieux? Le mot anglais apparenté est également un mot rarement entendu dans le discours quotidien au 21e siècle.
@@airmat9 C'est vrai ! Les mots peuvent etre un indicateur des priorites culturelles. En anglais, les choses sont "safe" ou "nice" - mais pas en francais. On parle aussi toujours des "cuffs" sur la chemise. Mais jamais en francais. J'adore ces differences!
Great video! I’m on Base 3 here :-). I’ve looked into your courses, and I think they’re great. However, I believe the presentation of how your system works could be improved. It took me quite a while to understand it (possibly because I’m not a native English speaker). Is this correct? : You buy the course. You get access to the videos and PDFs. You read the PDFs, watch the videos, and do the exercises. If you get stuck, you schedule a 20-minute call/lesson with a tutor (I assume that’s you) to clarify things you don’t understand or want to learn more about. Then, you continue working through the PDFs and videos until you’ve either completed everything or reached the limit of 20 calls. Is that how it works?
Ah base 3 !!! That's great. You are theoretically one base away from phoning me. Hahah! Thanks for the advice. I work daily on trying to simplify the info.
An adult can learn new languages by using similarities with the languages he already knows. I can partially understand French by using my fourth English. The similarities aren't good when a person has two similar languages in his brain. These languages might have behaved like untaimed animals. My third German was tried to suffocate my English for many years.
Thankyou. I happened on your video. Interesting. The website 'Dreaming Spanish', has a roadmap showing, in very simple terms, how to acquire Spanish. Before I learned of this, I used the same approach to learn French. It boils down to; '...it takes a long time, a lot of patience and a big commitment.' It took me a couple of years of hard work until I reached the point where French folk told me I could speak French. It took me another 1-2 years before I thought my French was / is adequate. I still make lots of mistakes and I'm still learning and improving. I'm over 60. It can be done. But do not underestimate the time and effort required and do not rely on just one, or two, or even three 'tools'. Listen, listen, listen, listen more...read, read, read, read more... Speak, speak, speak, speak more... The internet makes this accessible and, in some ways, it is easier for older folk in that we (at least some of us) have more time and patience to devote to what is, let's be honest, a formidable task. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the comment ! I didn't know of Dreaming Spanish but it shows they know what they are doing. I'm dumbfounded by the millions of people who "collect prizes" on "gamefied" language platforms, without the slightest clue where they are going, or even if there is a finishing line at all. I have the same grief with podcasts. It's all well and good, but where does this sit within the language and the skills I need as a learner? Yours is in any case a very inspiring story. The roadmap to a language is actually quite simple but it's important to have one. There are key verbs, key points of grammar, key sounds and a minimum number of nouns. Then next to this we have the "soft skills" - meaning "when will I be able to understand any native speaker?" or "When will I be able to adapt my French according to age group or circumstance?". These are harder to predict. As you point out "listen more", "read more". Though of course not everyone has the time to do this. All the more reason to go with a program that has some sort of end in sight. Thanks for the comment and the positive vibes! Bravo to your success!
@@ouicommunicate Thankyou. You know, as well as I do, that there is no finishing line. Improving is a life-long process and languages are enormous. It is, however, important to have a goal, and this needn't be overly complicated: mine was to be able to go into a bar and to be able to have a drink with, and to shoot the breeze with, the locals. So, having said that, and on a week-to-week basis, concentrate on your process, not on your goal. If you keep going, and you follow your roadmap, you will get there. Rusty roller skates, and the help of a seasoned traveller, are useful, even powerful, images. Thanks again, and to all your subscribers, keep going 👍
Étant moi-même professeur de français, je tenais à vous remercier pour des prises de position, devenues courageuses par les temps qui courent. Ainsi donc... merci.
Congrats! You went from base 4 to base 1 for myself in less than 3 months. As far as a hierarchy, so far, the sounds seem equally important if you intend to be fully understood. I feel that quick gratification (short attention span)with commercial learning apps takes away from the real process of slowing down and enjoying the journey to your destination!
En août, cela fera six ans que j'apprends le français. J'aime observer les nouveaux profs car chaque point de vue est différent. Nouveaux apprenants, il vous a donné, sans aucun doute, deux excellents conseils.
I haven't heard you talk about comprehensible input. I agree that having a good understanding of the way the language works is beneficial, but we need thousands of hours listening and speaking to become proficient in the language. Unless your goal is only to just read books.
Hi ! Thanks for the comment. My own teaching is a lot more targeted. Its' all about winning the battles we can and must win. i.e. mastering the most important tools of French. To me , becoming proficient isn't a goal as such because it is not actionable in terms of a plan. I would argue that exposing ourselves to thousands of hours of listening in order to learn is not a fact. I would NEVER tell a student to do that. That strategy is wrong in my view because we focus on others and not on ourselves. We worry about what other speakers are saying. My advice is to build up your knowledge of French and you will recognize your own knowledge in other people. It also has the advantage of being targeted, strategic as well as being quantifiable. That's also why I don't endorse podcasts. Speaking is not the tool BY WHICH we learn. It is the vocal manifestation of things we have learned prior. There also we do not need hundreds or thousands of hours. My purpose is not to dismantle the argumentation here. Just to share what I know with respect. Thanks for the comment, I always appreciate different views from my own.
I have controversial thoughts about this comprehensible input. I have a second language that I have been listening to in a similar way to my native, because I have had these languages both from early childhood. But if the language hadn't started in early childhood, or if I hadn't lived in that country in my childhood. There would be many unfamiliar words in a language with two opportunities to wait until I start to hear them or look at subtitles. Which choice is faster? The problem is the level of my languages compared to native speakers of that language.
As a professor of phonetics, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the relative importance of certain sounds over others, which naturally I find fascinating!
Oh my, I am coming up in the world ! 😀 Professors now??? I suppose I'll have to give the answer 😀In all seriousness, thanks for the comment. We can make the case that some French sounds are more highly tied to information than others. Mispronouncing the sound for "o" (or letter in this case / I don't have access to my IPA sheet for the squiggly symbols) is not an issue. But mispronouncing sounds tied to tenses and number is commonly underestimated. This leads to miscommunication. So in my classes in consider some sounds more important than others.
@@ouicommunicate I'm retired now, so pretty harmless 🤣 It makes sense that the most important sounds to pronounce correctly are the ones that encode grammatical distinctions. Also, I would add that vowels in general are so salient that if you seriously mispronounce them it can make just basic comprehension difficult. And of course, incorrect stress placement can throw off the whole utterance... I particularly notice this in the other direction, i.e. French pronunciation of English, but it happens between all languages with differing stress rules.
@sarahnd Yes, I particularly had in mind the French equivalent to a Schwa which distinguishes between the present tense and the two past tenses. And other sounds that distinguish between future / conditional. And of course plural/singular. As far as stress goes, French is pretty easy since it always falls in the same place. Comparatively little "subtext" also in French as opposed to English. (not what you say but "how" you say it) As I see it, the pronunciation of English as a second language remains on the level of the factual message. Extremely hard for a learner to pierce the secrets of the subtext as used by natives. By the way, I know someone personally who had a severe brain injury and speaks English as a native. This person has forgotten the ability to do this very subtext: modulate the message in view of adding meaning to it. Have you ever worked with such cases?
@@ouicommunicate As a university professor I certainly read about such cases, but never came in personal contact with such. I'm assuming it was the right hemisphere that was damaged? At least that would fit with the general idea of how language works in the brain. But people are individuals and don't always conform to the "rules."
@sarahnd It was a case of an accident, the person ended up in a coma, had to re-learn how to speak even. But the intonation part completely vanished. I'm not sure which hemisphere was damaged.
I’ve watched a number of your videos & have an increased my interest in the French language n the last couple of years because my 🇫🇷 husband and I may retire there. I get your point about studying one-on-one with a professor in order to maximize one’s progress. But, I do like certain channels because I get to hear the posters speak French. Guillaume Posé, The French Club, Learn French with Alexa & others instantly teach students, especially intermediate students, in the French language. Hearing the language, particularly when it’s discussed in French is a bit of an immersion experience which likely encourages students to sign up for the paying classes they offer. Just my thoughts.
Thank you for the compliment! I find it wonderful that TH-cam offers the possibility of checking out different channels and styles. I always say prospective students; "I offer a LOT of French on my website but never claim to be ALL the French." A very important point was underlined by one of my teachers during my PGCE year to become a teacher and that was to know what the exact benefit of each class was. For this reason, I don't do the spoken French format, either by podcast or other. Simply because I would find it hard to give each of these a purpose other than "whatever the student walks away with". And as you pointed out, other people are already doing that format and probably better than I ever could. My philosophy is all about maximizing time. If a learner has 2 hours a week to dedicate to French, is their best bet to listen to someone speak or rather learn a new quantifiable French skill? If it was me, I'd rather give an hour to learn a new German skill that answers a precise question. I do listen to the occasional German recording but I can't say I walk away with any active understanding of anything. It's sort of like "can you learn the violin by watching someone else play?" Another reason I don't do podcasts is that if I ever get 2 hours in my week, I'd rather that time go back to paying students in the form of a new video or exercise on the OuiCommunicate website. Ok, sorry for the long answer ! I hope to meet you one day for French classes. 😀
I hear you & I can understand your approach, but that being said, I don’t think I really understand what you do. I woke up at 4 a.m. & watched/listened to a Le French Club podcast about President Macron’s interest in requiring school uniforms. It was probably 30 minutes long & I had to pause to look up the definition of 10 or so words. I like the immersion. That approach reminds me of when our US-French son was a baby & in later years. I had been in a school system which required 5 days per week French instruction from age 8-16. Our teachers were all French. I married a French man & we decided to try to have our son be bilingual, so he went to the Lycée Rochambeau until HS. I remember how difficult 100% immersion was for him, but he’s now fluent. Why can’t that work for adults)
@@ariannewdnotbe 4 AM, now that's commitment! Indeed, the fact of pausing to look up words is a common "problem" that I speak about in my video on this. If you have an interest I'm giving you the link here then you can hear all my arguments at once about learning by immersion. th-cam.com/video/ijiQfAhCEeA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Brxii3AseLvNHBuD I would know better if I heard you spoke French if your approach works or not. By all means, book a free class or phone me. This is not intended as a challenge!
You seem well intentioned but the problem I have with your videos id that I want to improve my French which means I don’t want to hear a lot of bla bla bla in English.
I understand the problem. It actually reminds me of the time I walked into a shoe shop holding an umbrella. I said "I don't like this umbrella". They told me I would best be served if I chose the correct shop.
J’ai utilisé Lingoda depuis 14 mois. C’est peu cher mais je le trouve très bien.
Ca c'est parfois Base 2 😀 14 mois? They should have mentioned long ago that when we use "since" in English, (depuis) we indeed use a present perfect (I have used/I have been using) which you are translating by a Passe Compose. "J’ai utilisé ". In actual fact, you must use the present tense in French. J'utilise Lingoda depuis 14 mois.
As I mention in the video, it's not so much the source of learning that is the problem. But rather if it matches your ambition to learn French. That's my view on it. Lingoda is probably great. Depends what we want to accomplish.
I won't insist on "peu cher" because that doesn't come into the context of a lesson but rather things we pick up. I don't consider it a "real mistake". ("un peu cher" was the way to say it)
I'm on the fence regarding using pronouns "le " to replace Lingoda. But I trust that they have a lesson on the use of pronouns.
@@ouicommunicatedo you have any comment about the use of utiliser versus se servir de in this context?
Thanks for the video, I enjoyed it. At 60, after three years of haphazard self learning every single day, I have no idea where I am. What I do know is that I am on journey that doesn’t have an endpoint. And although I am enjoying the journey, I often feel like I’m spinning my wheels. My New Year’s resolution is to study smarter, but first I have to figure out what that is. I will definitely check out your program.
That's most kind of you thanks a lot for the comment! Best thing is to book a free trial lesson. You'll see I do actually have a smile 😀 as well as extensive learning resources. I'm not a natural "youtuber" let's say. Much more dynamic in real life.
You perfectly grasped the 2 points of this video and the challenge of many a learner. "Where am I and where am I going?" Studying smarter is what it's all about. What are the battles I can win? Which are the ones I should win? How do I separate what's necessary or not? We have to think about it almost like an army general. Combine best use of time and skill.
I hope to meet you soon - thanks for the comment !
Do not start learning French. Do not retire in France. You do not know what you are in for.
Don't do anything, essentially. 😃 But I do recommend to stay hydrated!
The "D Word" method seems to teach a pupil such useful skills as learning how to say: "Why does the cat keep playing the piano?", and similar inanities...
It taught me to say many variants of "the spider and the cow are eating a strawberry" in Danish. It was wonderful.
Why use a few words when you can use thousands, eh? Tedious. Don't use roller skates to learn French, very useful advice.
😀 I should have used that line at university ! 😃 The actual answer to the question is that long tedious videos brings in many clever students. Edit: I can't resist adding that the word "tedious" actually disappeared from French vocabulary long ago. Interesting isn't it? There used to be the word "tedieux" but it seems that there is no longer a need to express this feeling in French. Maybe because fewer things are considered uninteresting due to a more philosophical frame of mind? I have no idea. In this we see perhaps a glimpse into the psyche of English VS French speakers. In French we also learn such interesting things as figurative speech. Anyway, come back any time!)
Salut Chris, j'ai écouté le vidéo et lu ton commentaire ici, et je suis d'accord avec le sentiment d'avoir un état d'esprit philosophique et le adoration pour le figuratif. Pour cet raison je chercher le bon chemin pour comprendre meilleur le langue Français.
Les francophones actuels n’utilisent probablement pas non plus le mot fastidieux? Le mot anglais apparenté est également un mot rarement entendu dans le discours quotidien au 21e siècle.
@@airmat9 C'est vrai ! Les mots peuvent etre un indicateur des priorites culturelles. En anglais, les choses sont "safe" ou "nice" - mais pas en francais. On parle aussi toujours des "cuffs" sur la chemise. Mais jamais en francais. J'adore ces differences!
Great video! I’m on Base 3 here :-). I’ve looked into your courses, and I think they’re great. However, I believe the presentation of how your system works could be improved. It took me quite a while to understand it (possibly because I’m not a native English speaker).
Is this correct? :
You buy the course.
You get access to the videos and PDFs.
You read the PDFs, watch the videos, and do the exercises.
If you get stuck, you schedule a 20-minute call/lesson with a tutor (I assume that’s you) to clarify things you don’t understand or want to learn more about.
Then, you continue working through the PDFs and videos until you’ve either completed everything or reached the limit of 20 calls.
Is that how it works?
Ah base 3 !!! That's great. You are theoretically one base away from phoning me. Hahah! Thanks for the advice. I work daily on trying to simplify the info.
An adult can learn new languages by using similarities with the languages he already knows. I can partially understand French by using my fourth English.
The similarities aren't good when a person has two similar languages in his brain. These languages might have behaved like untaimed animals. My third German was tried to suffocate my English for many years.
That's so true !
Thankyou. I happened on your video. Interesting. The website 'Dreaming Spanish', has a roadmap showing, in very simple terms, how to acquire Spanish. Before I learned of this, I used the same approach to learn French. It boils down to; '...it takes a long time, a lot of patience and a big commitment.' It took me a couple of years of hard work until I reached the point where French folk told me I could speak French. It took me another 1-2 years before I thought my French was / is adequate. I still make lots of mistakes and I'm still learning and improving. I'm over 60. It can be done. But do not underestimate the time and effort required and do not rely on just one, or two, or even three 'tools'. Listen, listen, listen, listen more...read, read, read, read more... Speak, speak, speak, speak more... The internet makes this accessible and, in some ways, it is easier for older folk in that we (at least some of us) have more time and patience to devote to what is, let's be honest, a formidable task. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the comment ! I didn't know of Dreaming Spanish but it shows they know what they are doing. I'm dumbfounded by the millions of people who "collect prizes" on "gamefied" language platforms, without the slightest clue where they are going, or even if there is a finishing line at all. I have the same grief with podcasts. It's all well and good, but where does this sit within the language and the skills I need as a learner?
Yours is in any case a very inspiring story. The roadmap to a language is actually quite simple but it's important to have one. There are key verbs, key points of grammar, key sounds and a minimum number of nouns. Then next to this we have the "soft skills" - meaning "when will I be able to understand any native speaker?" or "When will I be able to adapt my French according to age group or circumstance?". These are harder to predict. As you point out "listen more", "read more". Though of course not everyone has the time to do this. All the more reason to go with a program that has some sort of end in sight.
Thanks for the comment and the positive vibes! Bravo to your success!
@@ouicommunicate Thankyou. You know, as well as I do, that there is no finishing line. Improving is a life-long process and languages are enormous. It is, however, important to have a goal, and this needn't be overly complicated: mine was to be able to go into a bar and to be able to have a drink with, and to shoot the breeze with, the locals. So, having said that, and on a week-to-week basis, concentrate on your process, not on your goal. If you keep going, and you follow your roadmap, you will get there. Rusty roller skates, and the help of a seasoned traveller, are useful, even powerful, images. Thanks again, and to all your subscribers, keep going 👍
@@johnmcphillimy1056 So true ! Thanks for the insight.
Étant moi-même professeur de français, je tenais à vous remercier pour des prises de position, devenues courageuses par les temps qui courent. Ainsi donc... merci.
Merci ! Tel un Jean Pierre Coffe, je m'insurge et crie "Mais c'est de la m.....!" 😀 (Ouh, la vieille reference!)
Éh ! bien... voilà une référence qui plaira à quelqu'un ayant grandi dans le Sud-Ouest !@@ouicommunicate
@@jonhvidsten2407 Haha ! Un phenomene celui-la!
Congrats! You went from base 4 to base 1 for myself in less than 3 months. As far as a hierarchy, so far, the sounds seem equally important if you intend to be fully understood. I feel that quick gratification (short attention span)with commercial learning apps takes away from the real process of slowing down and enjoying the journey to your destination!
Haha! I had to work out the "base 4 to base 1" comment for a while. But I'm happy to have done this. 😀
En août, cela fera six ans que j'apprends le français. J'aime observer les nouveaux profs car chaque point de vue est différent. Nouveaux apprenants, il vous a donné, sans aucun doute, deux excellents conseils.
Merci ! 😃 Between two "ad hominem " hate messages, the positive ones shine like the sun !
I loved your video on the subjunctive!
Thank you !!!! There is yet hope for me ! 😀
I haven't heard you talk about comprehensible input. I agree that having a good understanding of the way the language works is beneficial, but we need thousands of hours listening and speaking to become proficient in the language. Unless your goal is only to just read books.
Hi ! Thanks for the comment. My own teaching is a lot more targeted. Its' all about winning the battles we can and must win. i.e. mastering the most important tools of French. To me , becoming proficient isn't a goal as such because it is not actionable in terms of a plan.
I would argue that exposing ourselves to thousands of hours of listening in order to learn is not a fact. I would NEVER tell a student to do that. That strategy is wrong in my view because we focus on others and not on ourselves. We worry about what other speakers are saying. My advice is to build up your knowledge of French and you will recognize your own knowledge in other people. It also has the advantage of being targeted, strategic as well as being quantifiable. That's also why I don't endorse podcasts.
Speaking is not the tool BY WHICH we learn. It is the vocal manifestation of things we have learned prior. There also we do not need hundreds or thousands of hours.
My purpose is not to dismantle the argumentation here. Just to share what I know with respect.
Thanks for the comment, I always appreciate different views from my own.
I have controversial thoughts about this comprehensible input. I have a second language that I have been listening to in a similar way to my native, because I have had these languages both from early childhood. But if the language hadn't started in early childhood, or if I hadn't lived in that country in my childhood. There would be many unfamiliar words in a language with two opportunities to wait until I start to hear them or look at subtitles.
Which choice is faster? The problem is the level of my languages compared to native speakers of that language.
As a professor of phonetics, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the relative importance of certain sounds over others, which naturally I find fascinating!
Oh my, I am coming up in the world ! 😀 Professors now??? I suppose I'll have to give the answer 😀In all seriousness, thanks for the comment. We can make the case that some French sounds are more highly tied to information than others. Mispronouncing the sound for "o" (or letter in this case / I don't have access to my IPA sheet for the squiggly symbols) is not an issue. But mispronouncing sounds tied to tenses and number is commonly underestimated. This leads to miscommunication. So in my classes in consider some sounds more important than others.
@@ouicommunicate I'm retired now, so pretty harmless 🤣 It makes sense that the most important sounds to pronounce correctly are the ones that encode grammatical distinctions. Also, I would add that vowels in general are so salient that if you seriously mispronounce them it can make just basic comprehension difficult. And of course, incorrect stress placement can throw off the whole utterance... I particularly notice this in the other direction, i.e. French pronunciation of English, but it happens between all languages with differing stress rules.
@sarahnd Yes, I particularly had in mind the French equivalent to a Schwa which distinguishes between the present tense and the two past tenses. And other sounds that distinguish between future / conditional. And of course plural/singular. As far as stress goes, French is pretty easy since it always falls in the same place. Comparatively little "subtext" also in French as opposed to English. (not what you say but "how" you say it) As I see it, the pronunciation of English as a second language remains on the level of the factual message. Extremely hard for a learner to pierce the secrets of the subtext as used by natives. By the way, I know someone personally who had a severe brain injury and speaks English as a native. This person has forgotten the ability to do this very subtext: modulate the message in view of adding meaning to it. Have you ever worked with such cases?
@@ouicommunicate As a university professor I certainly read about such cases, but never came in personal contact with such. I'm assuming it was the right hemisphere that was damaged? At least that would fit with the general idea of how language works in the brain. But people are individuals and don't always conform to the "rules."
@sarahnd It was a case of an accident, the person ended up in a coma, had to re-learn how to speak even. But the intonation part completely vanished. I'm not sure which hemisphere was damaged.
I’ve watched a number of your videos & have an increased my interest in the French language n the last couple of years because my 🇫🇷 husband and I may retire there.
I get your point about studying one-on-one with a professor in order to maximize one’s progress. But, I do like certain channels because I get to hear the posters speak French.
Guillaume Posé, The French Club, Learn French with Alexa & others instantly teach students, especially intermediate students, in the French language. Hearing the language, particularly when it’s discussed in French is a bit of an immersion experience which likely encourages students to sign up for the paying classes they offer.
Just my thoughts.
Thank you for the compliment! I find it wonderful that TH-cam offers the possibility of checking out different channels and styles. I always say prospective students; "I offer a LOT of French on my website but never claim to be ALL the French." A very important point was underlined by one of my teachers during my PGCE year to become a teacher and that was to know what the exact benefit of each class was. For this reason, I don't do the spoken French format, either by podcast or other. Simply because I would find it hard to give each of these a purpose other than "whatever the student walks away with". And as you pointed out, other people are already doing that format and probably better than I ever could. My philosophy is all about maximizing time. If a learner has 2 hours a week to dedicate to French, is their best bet to listen to someone speak or rather learn a new quantifiable French skill? If it was me, I'd rather give an hour to learn a new German skill that answers a precise question. I do listen to the occasional German recording but I can't say I walk away with any active understanding of anything. It's sort of like "can you learn the violin by watching someone else play?" Another reason I don't do podcasts is that if I ever get 2 hours in my week, I'd rather that time go back to paying students in the form of a new video or exercise on the OuiCommunicate website. Ok, sorry for the long answer ! I hope to meet you one day for French classes. 😀
I hear you & I can understand your approach, but that being said, I don’t think I really understand what you do.
I woke up at 4 a.m. & watched/listened to a Le French Club podcast about President Macron’s interest in requiring school uniforms. It was probably 30 minutes long & I had to pause to look up the definition of 10 or so words. I like the immersion.
That approach reminds me of when our US-French son was a baby & in later years. I had been in a school system which required 5 days per week French instruction from age 8-16. Our teachers were all French. I married a French man & we decided to try to have our son be bilingual, so he went to the Lycée Rochambeau until HS. I remember how difficult 100% immersion was for him, but he’s now fluent.
Why can’t that work for adults)
@@ariannewdnotbe 4 AM, now that's commitment! Indeed, the fact of pausing to look up words is a common "problem" that I speak about in my video on this. If you have an interest I'm giving you the link here then you can hear all my arguments at once about learning by immersion. th-cam.com/video/ijiQfAhCEeA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Brxii3AseLvNHBuD
I would know better if I heard you spoke French if your approach works or not. By all means, book a free class or phone me. This is not intended as a challenge!
You seem well intentioned but the problem I have with your videos id that I want to improve my French which means I don’t want to hear a lot of bla bla bla in English.
I understand the problem. It actually reminds me of the time I walked into a shoe shop holding an umbrella. I said "I don't like this umbrella". They told me I would best be served if I chose the correct shop.
MDR!