As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm going back to France. As such, I want to make sure that I can stubble my way through a conversation with retailers and other salespeople well enough so that they don't get pissed at me. In the end, if they have pity and speak English, at least it won't be b/c they hate me for refusing to try.
With five years of formal French classes (8th to 12th grade) in secondary education, 2 semesters + one 8-week year review course at Iowa, plus a semester of oral French skills at Iowa I should be able to pick it up rather quickly, right? That's the hope anyway. I was thinking of getting one of those "Learn French in 3 days" magic CD sets to force me to dive head first into la langue de francaise. I also looked at Rocket French and Rosetta Stone. Rocket French is much cheaper, so a bonus point to Rocket French. I tried the Rosetta Stone demo and it wasn't too bad. I jumped right into French 201, just so I wasn't learning the words for boy and girl. (Not that I remember much French vocabulary) At the end of my 30 min lesson I learned the verbs for tying, lock, unlock, zip, unzip, freefalling, and leave through picture and sound association. I don't know how the full versions teach grammar and conjugation, but the picture association works well. It helps to know the pronouns for he and she to be certain.
I also tried the Arabic demo. I am seriously considering shelling out the $340 for Arabic vol 1 and 2. I need to learn it over the next year and private tutoring wasn't working - by no fault of my tutor, she was great. It wasn't creating an environment or schedule that was conducive to diligent studying on my part. My only fear with Rosetta Stone based on the demo, is that it won't teach me grammar or the conjugation forms/stems of the words. I need to read Arabic more than I need to speak it at this point in my "academic" career. I'm torn on what to do. C'est la vie, n'est pas?
August 9 - "L.T.'s Theory of Pets"
14 years ago
1 comment:
I've been meaning to refresh my French as well. A long time ago I purchased a set of CD's to help with that. It's six discs from Pimsleur. I've listened to the first and it seems set up to do just the basics - teach you what you need for those basic interactions. I also still have my text book and workbook from the French II class I was going to take at Grand View until it was cancelled.
I think the soonest I might get to France would be next summer. Hopefully I'll have a job during the fall and spring to pay for such a trip. It just means that I'll have a year to get fluent.
I actually plan to get some French books on CD. I think listening to the books while reading along would do a lot to help me learn. I can still read French pretty darn well. It's just the tenses and speaking and doing it all on the fly that messes me up.
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