With a new year comes new year’s resolutions and I figured that I should come up with one myself. I didn’t want to go with the typical choice like going to the gym or giving up junk food — no, I needed something attainable. On top of that, I wanted to start my year off by doing something new and exciting. Taking this criteria into consideration, I chose to learn a language and threw in a one-week time limit as an extra challenge.
Now that my resolution was settled, I had to do some research. I knew I wanted to focus on a Romance language since I wouldn’t have to learn an entirely new alphabet and the similarities to English would make it easier to absorb. I ruled out Spanish because I had prior experience with it, which left me with Italian, Portuguese, or French. Portuguese and Italian didn’t have as many easily accessible online learning resources as French so I settled on French.
I started off by setting realistic goals and expectations for myself to reach by the end of the week. My primary focus was to understand simple written sentences since I didn’t have anyone to verify my pronunciation. I decided to spend at least an hour, or two, when I had the time, studying from language-learning websites and reviewing notes I took on the previous day.
For the first two days, I learned about the different accented letters in French, present tense verb conjugations, and how to count to 30. Using websites such as Lingolia Français and Lawless French, I was able to take notes on basic grammar rules. Although the subject matter isn’t what someone typically thinks of when they think of “fun”, I enjoyed delving into French for two hours and felt the thrill of starting something new.
As I approached day three, however, I started facing issues with time management as my homework started catching up with me. It was hard to fulfill two whole hours of studying, and for one day I only managed to complete 30 minutes. Despite this setback, I tried my best to focus on accumulating vocabulary words using Lawless French’s extensive vocabulary lists for the next three days. I started each study session by writing the date out in French and describing a few activities I did that day in choppy sentences to help reinforce the vocabulary I learned the day prior. The initial feeling of excitement that I felt on day one started to wane, but I was determined to stay motivated and finish the week off strong.
By the time I reached day six and seven, I was able to write and understand very simple sentences, introduce myself, identify the date, and conjugate regular and irregular verbs in the present tense. Reviewing what I learned the previous day helped me achieve my goal by the end of the week because it allowed me to ingrain vocab words and grammar rules in my mind. Being able to speak English and my native language Telugu, as well as having experience learning Spanish for over three years, also aided my journey with French since I was able to apply similar learning techniques and draw comparisons between the three languages.
Although it was tedious, and I felt a lot of pressure taking on such a challenge, I also had a lot of fun learning something new and forming connections between French and other languages I’ve learned.
If I had to do one thing differently, I might consume more media such as music and television shows in order to understand colloquial French and set even more clear-cut daily goals.
Perhaps, you are wondering if I’ll continue learning French? It’s only fitting to say, “Oui!”