D
Deleted member 1006777
Guest
Hi all,
Given IRCC's inconsistency with implementing the new system, and a perpetually increasing mean CRS, I anticipate more and more people will start learning french to boost their scores. I've gotten many DMs regarding this in the past, so I thought I'd post my thoughts separately in a fresh post. Part of this post is me copy pasting a bunch of responses I gave in DMs, so some contecxt may be missing.
Note: Do not send me DMs if you have any questions. Instead just post the questions here, and I will update the main post to make it more comprehensive.
A lot of people think there's some secret sauce to learning a new language. And there is, it's just a lot less interesting than you think. Here it is: Time and consistency. That's it. Put in work every single day, (no weekends, no holidays) for enough time, and you'll get good enough to pass the exam. Simple.
Let's talk about time and consistency first.
- Time refers to the number of hours you put in. Example, 7 hours/week. CEFR estimates that you need 500-600 hours to get to a B2 level in French. If you do the math, you need to put in 2 hours/day everyday to get to B2 in 10 months.
- Consistency means you distribute these 14 hours/week as evenly as possible. 2 hours/day everyday will be significantly more useful than 7 hours/day on the weekends, even though they both equal 14 hours/week.
- There is no Nathaniel Drew or Johnny Harris BS of learning a language in 7 days. That's nonsense that's meant to sell their mediocre courses. Ignore completely.
Now where do you start? (A1-A2)
- Just to get this out of the way, you can skip Duolingo. It's probably not going to help you except in one specific way which I will talk about later in the post.
- The best way to start imo is to look for intensive classes. For me this was A1 level classes at my local Alliance Francaise (AF). They had an A1 intensive at the time that was 3 hours/day for 4 days/week. I did this while working a fulltime job and studying to change my fields. There are people on this forum who have done so in significantly worse situations than mine, so I am not interested in any excuses. The issue is that often, AF will not have intensive courses and will only have 1 hour/day for 3 days/week courses. If you have absolutely no options, these can be fine, but I would avoid them. They are too low frequency to be useful imo.
- If this is not a possibility for you, then you can look up private tutoring. This can either be local individuals who are willing to teach you, or you could look for teachers on iTalki. After my A1 intensive, I used both of these. Private tutoring for 1 hr/day 5 days a week, and an exam specific tutor for 1 hr/day, 2-3 days a week. Note that if it's expensive and you're trying to be economical, exam specific tutoring can wait until you're well into B1 or B2.
- Regardless of what method you choose, you should be following a French textbook. eg. Cosmopolite, Alter Ego, Echo etc. They're all pretty much the same, and one isn't better than the other. You can use the DELF/DALF textbooks as a supplement, but not as the primary resource.
Resources for this stage
- Start making Anki flashcards. Look up Anki on youtube or google it. There's an Android app and a desktop app that you can sync. Do not use pre-made flashcards. Make your own. Here's how. Start this when you're about halfway through your A1 book. You'll have a decent idea of what words should go into flashcards and what shouldn't. Whenever you encounter a new word, make a new flashcard, word + gender if applicable on the front. English translation and an example sentence in the back.
Here's an example:
Prompt: le chantier
Reverse side:
site
(La surveillance du chantier est assurée par deux gardes)
'works' (eg. in the works)
(Trois nouveaux projets de quotidien gratuit sont en chantier)
I would make flashcards for each level to keep things organized, but that's up to you.
- Next, and perhaps the most useful thing to me. Start listening to InnerFrench podcast as soon as possible. Listen to every episode twice. The first time listen to it as carefully as possible, rewind as much as needed. It doesn't matter if you don't understand anything. Keep at it. The second time, listen to it with the transcription (NOT the translation) that is available for free on the InnerFrench website. Once again, make Anki Flashcards for all new words, and use the sentences in the podcast as examples.
I did this at the rate of 3-4 episodes a week. But as much as possible, do the two listens of each episode on the same day. You will be shocked at how quickly you will be able to understand 50-60% of each episode.
- When you're done with A1 and starting A2, you can (optional) start doing Duolingo Stories. They're a cute little passtime, and you'll get some value out of these. The regular tree based lessons are essentially meaningless.
Where to go next? (B1-B2)
- As always, keep following whatever textbook you are using, and keep making more Anki flashcards. Do Anki every single day. No breaks. For any reason.
- At this stage, InnerFrench is probably getting a lot more comfortable. You can start listening to otehr podcasts if you like, but I would keep up with InnerFrench. If it is too easy, you can increase the speed to 1.2x (not more) to artificially increase the difficulty. While this isn't the same as listening to someone talking in native speed, it will still give your brain less time to think and force you to adapt to the higher words/minute. (PS. if you're ever low on confidence at any point, go listen to one of the earlier episodes that you listened to during A1 or A2. Feel free to be impressed with how much easier it seems than when you first started.)
- You also need to start reading. I used https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/ but you can use whatever website you want. And you know what I'm going to say. Anki.
- A very useful resource at this stage is the app 'TV5 Monde'. It's a little boring, but if you stick with the exercises there, I guarantee you will see an improvement by the time you have to give your exam. Note that I'm specifically talking about the app, NOT the website. The app is far superior.
- Now here's where a bit of luck comes in. You need to practise speaking ASAP. Download the app Tandem, and find a language partner. It is very difficult to find a compatible language partner, and honestly I got very lucky here. If you do find one, regularly practise speaking as frequently as possible throughout the week. I still keep in touch with mine, and we have become friends. Don't be a creep. If you aren't able to find one, your next best option is to find a tutor on iTalki and take conversation based classes.
- Another great resource is the Lingoda Sprint marathon that they have a couple of times a year. Essentially, you pay $1000 to take one class every day for 90 days. If you don't miss a single day, you get a 100% refund. I personally only did this when I was doing my B2 material, but you can do it anytime you want. It is a quick and technically free way to get lessons. Also an easy way to add 90 hours to that 600 hour baseline.
Given IRCC's inconsistency with implementing the new system, and a perpetually increasing mean CRS, I anticipate more and more people will start learning french to boost their scores. I've gotten many DMs regarding this in the past, so I thought I'd post my thoughts separately in a fresh post. Part of this post is me copy pasting a bunch of responses I gave in DMs, so some contecxt may be missing.
Note: Do not send me DMs if you have any questions. Instead just post the questions here, and I will update the main post to make it more comprehensive.
A lot of people think there's some secret sauce to learning a new language. And there is, it's just a lot less interesting than you think. Here it is: Time and consistency. That's it. Put in work every single day, (no weekends, no holidays) for enough time, and you'll get good enough to pass the exam. Simple.
Let's talk about time and consistency first.
- Time refers to the number of hours you put in. Example, 7 hours/week. CEFR estimates that you need 500-600 hours to get to a B2 level in French. If you do the math, you need to put in 2 hours/day everyday to get to B2 in 10 months.
- Consistency means you distribute these 14 hours/week as evenly as possible. 2 hours/day everyday will be significantly more useful than 7 hours/day on the weekends, even though they both equal 14 hours/week.
- There is no Nathaniel Drew or Johnny Harris BS of learning a language in 7 days. That's nonsense that's meant to sell their mediocre courses. Ignore completely.
Now where do you start? (A1-A2)
- Just to get this out of the way, you can skip Duolingo. It's probably not going to help you except in one specific way which I will talk about later in the post.
- The best way to start imo is to look for intensive classes. For me this was A1 level classes at my local Alliance Francaise (AF). They had an A1 intensive at the time that was 3 hours/day for 4 days/week. I did this while working a fulltime job and studying to change my fields. There are people on this forum who have done so in significantly worse situations than mine, so I am not interested in any excuses. The issue is that often, AF will not have intensive courses and will only have 1 hour/day for 3 days/week courses. If you have absolutely no options, these can be fine, but I would avoid them. They are too low frequency to be useful imo.
- If this is not a possibility for you, then you can look up private tutoring. This can either be local individuals who are willing to teach you, or you could look for teachers on iTalki. After my A1 intensive, I used both of these. Private tutoring for 1 hr/day 5 days a week, and an exam specific tutor for 1 hr/day, 2-3 days a week. Note that if it's expensive and you're trying to be economical, exam specific tutoring can wait until you're well into B1 or B2.
- Regardless of what method you choose, you should be following a French textbook. eg. Cosmopolite, Alter Ego, Echo etc. They're all pretty much the same, and one isn't better than the other. You can use the DELF/DALF textbooks as a supplement, but not as the primary resource.
Resources for this stage
- Start making Anki flashcards. Look up Anki on youtube or google it. There's an Android app and a desktop app that you can sync. Do not use pre-made flashcards. Make your own. Here's how. Start this when you're about halfway through your A1 book. You'll have a decent idea of what words should go into flashcards and what shouldn't. Whenever you encounter a new word, make a new flashcard, word + gender if applicable on the front. English translation and an example sentence in the back.
Here's an example:
Prompt: le chantier
Reverse side:
site
(La surveillance du chantier est assurée par deux gardes)
'works' (eg. in the works)
(Trois nouveaux projets de quotidien gratuit sont en chantier)
I would make flashcards for each level to keep things organized, but that's up to you.
- Next, and perhaps the most useful thing to me. Start listening to InnerFrench podcast as soon as possible. Listen to every episode twice. The first time listen to it as carefully as possible, rewind as much as needed. It doesn't matter if you don't understand anything. Keep at it. The second time, listen to it with the transcription (NOT the translation) that is available for free on the InnerFrench website. Once again, make Anki Flashcards for all new words, and use the sentences in the podcast as examples.
I did this at the rate of 3-4 episodes a week. But as much as possible, do the two listens of each episode on the same day. You will be shocked at how quickly you will be able to understand 50-60% of each episode.
- When you're done with A1 and starting A2, you can (optional) start doing Duolingo Stories. They're a cute little passtime, and you'll get some value out of these. The regular tree based lessons are essentially meaningless.
Where to go next? (B1-B2)
- As always, keep following whatever textbook you are using, and keep making more Anki flashcards. Do Anki every single day. No breaks. For any reason.
- At this stage, InnerFrench is probably getting a lot more comfortable. You can start listening to otehr podcasts if you like, but I would keep up with InnerFrench. If it is too easy, you can increase the speed to 1.2x (not more) to artificially increase the difficulty. While this isn't the same as listening to someone talking in native speed, it will still give your brain less time to think and force you to adapt to the higher words/minute. (PS. if you're ever low on confidence at any point, go listen to one of the earlier episodes that you listened to during A1 or A2. Feel free to be impressed with how much easier it seems than when you first started.)
- You also need to start reading. I used https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/ but you can use whatever website you want. And you know what I'm going to say. Anki.
- A very useful resource at this stage is the app 'TV5 Monde'. It's a little boring, but if you stick with the exercises there, I guarantee you will see an improvement by the time you have to give your exam. Note that I'm specifically talking about the app, NOT the website. The app is far superior.
- Now here's where a bit of luck comes in. You need to practise speaking ASAP. Download the app Tandem, and find a language partner. It is very difficult to find a compatible language partner, and honestly I got very lucky here. If you do find one, regularly practise speaking as frequently as possible throughout the week. I still keep in touch with mine, and we have become friends. Don't be a creep. If you aren't able to find one, your next best option is to find a tutor on iTalki and take conversation based classes.
- Another great resource is the Lingoda Sprint marathon that they have a couple of times a year. Essentially, you pay $1000 to take one class every day for 90 days. If you don't miss a single day, you get a 100% refund. I personally only did this when I was doing my B2 material, but you can do it anytime you want. It is a quick and technically free way to get lessons. Also an easy way to add 90 hours to that 600 hour baseline.
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