Just why are we so bad??

[Patchninja]

Perhaps you should teach language - I've never met anyone who could master a language enough to communicate in 2 weeks before. I'd really love to know some more of your ideas.

[organic]

Pay a lot of attention and speak only that language all day, every day whether you are working, in social situations or muttering/talking to yourself and it comes pretty fast.

I wouldn't say I'd mastered it in 2 weeks, but I could certainly get by on the bar and my conversational French improved steadily from that point. Grammar improved over time and is still doing so now - even though I've still not studied that side of it formally since I was 14 years old (and can't remember a single thing about it beyond the "he/she/it" heading at the top of one of the tables).

[organic]

Patch - I just ran a few numbers and here's how it breaks down.

Per day...
9 hours of muttering/talking to self/internal dialogue while snowboarding and using French when stopping to discuss which route to take or talking on the lifts
8 hours of working in French
and sometimes a further
3 to 5 hours in a social situation (late night drinking) with locals who knew I wanted to learn French.

Call it 2 hours of actually using and hearing French before work and that's 10 to 15 hours per day.
50 to 60 hours per week.

100 to 120 hours in the space of those 2 weeks.

Taking a 4 hours of French class per week that'd be what? 6 months of lessons? Maybe 7?

...and that's ignoring the fact that you learn quicker in immersion than you do when the learning is broken up into 1 or 2 hour slots over time.

I don't think it's all that unusual to be honest. Not among people who get so deeply involved in the language like that anyway.

[Patchninja]

oh, it is, Organic, it is. Experts would say that it takes on average 7 years in a country to become really bi-lingual.
It takes about 120 hours on average to improve by 1 level - think Cambridge University Examination Board ELT levels, or TESOL levels.
How do you mutter to yourself /think in a language that you don't yet speak? The reality is that you can't.
You can pay attention until you're blue in the face but if you don't understand a word of what's being said, it will get you no-where. This suggests that you spoke enough French before you arrived here to at least understand.

I'm being difficult because I think it's VERY hard to learn a foreign language. You'll have read the posts of the other French grapes.

Certainly motivation is know to be the most important factor. A beautiful example is Mr TK who loves listening to his wife speaking French. AAAAAHHH!
It's always the couples who have the most difficulty in getting to grips with the language because they are less motivated. They have each other to talk to.

It's also well demonstrated that if you have learned one foreign language, it's psychologically easier to learn others.

It's a scientifically very complicated thing to do. Your brain won't retain many things it doesn't deem important! The brain finds it very difficult to use newly-learned vocabulary. It needs time for it to "settle down".
Without the skeleton of French grammar, how do you know what tense someone is using?
I'm agog!

I'm also off for my dinner!

[organic]

I did French for the first three years of highschool and didn't do well as I found the teaching methods used impossible to follow.

When I got off the train in town I didn't know anyone, didn't know where my gite was and couldn't remember so much as "bonjour".
Every single word of French that I speak now, I learned after getting off that train. The first came when I asked someone how to say "Do you speak English?" in French. By the time I got the job I'd progressed as far as learning the numbers "merci, au revoir" and such useful words as "pitcher", "half", "pint" and "beer" - I didn't know the word for "glass".

At the end of my meeting with the manager he asked "oh, by they way, how's your French?"
I replied "Bonjour, parlez vous Anglais. But I'm a quick learner." I am a quick learner, but until then had never been quick at learning languages, I said that just to at least get a chance at the job.


On to what the experts say... I've never said I'm truly bi-lingual. I said I can have conversations and work a bar without needing to speak English. Entirely different.

Are those 120 hours to progress a single level 120 hours packed in back to back? Or are they spread out over the space of months and generally not using the language in between like most people learn?

I wasn't thinking entirely in French, right from the off - but every word of French I knew was running through my head, thinking about and concentrating on what I had learned as losing that job meant a return to England and I had no plans to leave and no money for a flight.

Without the grammar it's really hard to just listen to a bit of French conversation, but when you've got context the chances are you already KNOW the tense... even more so when you hear words like "depuis" or "prochaine" to give other clues.
At first it's an exercise in taking context and the bits you understood and filling in the gaps. Eventually the gaps get smaller and smaller and you understand more and more as they say it.

Paying attention alone won't do much... but when you've got context, a few words given to you, helpful natives who'll explain things so you understand them next time and so on things are very different.

Or maybe I'm mistaken.

Maybe I didn't get a job in a bar without anything that could realistically be called "French" and 2 weeks later have enough of the language to keep working there without anyone to translate for me.
Maybe I didn't keep working there for a good while and upon my return to the UK greet people and order drinks at a bar in French. Heck I even asked one bar if they had any jobs going - in French! (I got the job there too)

I could be mistaken, I suppose.

[pigletwillie]

It took me from age 6 to age 16 to learn to read, write and speak English proper like? I can get by in France but be blowed if I can understand more than a smattering when they speak fast. To make matters worse they speak differently oop north than down sarf and as we go to both that really throws the spanner in the works. I try, they like it that I do, secretly enjoy correcting me and thats what I love

The whys, how and wherefores are different for everybody and one size of learning does not fit all. I thought only one person was born perfect but I had better see my vicar about a second coming

[bobleponge]

I was thinking to myself earlier (in English), I learnt my French in Lebanon.
I had schoolboy French, nothing more, and hadnt used it since leaving school in the 3rd year of senior school, before spending a bit of time in various government establishments.

I managed to get a job in Lebanon, working in a team of 11 Frenchies and me. The boss was French, the language in the office was French, the tv in my all too rare spare time was either French or Arabic.
On day 2 the entire team went out for a meal, I sat in silence listening to 11 Frenchies chatting away without understanding a word. Not a thing.
I did a full month working with a French team, not muttering away to myself but having to actually understand what people were saying to me and replying to them, as lives really did depend on it.
A month later I got on a plane to come home for some leave and realised that, despite all my best intentions, I really hadnt progressed very far at all. I still couldnt hold an in depth conversation, and at that time I hadnt ever spoken to the boss (even though he spoke perfect English I only wanted to speak French), so I didnt work directly with him. I had had one month of total and utter immersion in the language, didnt speak a word of English in 30 days.
I had a month at home in France where my friends had noticed my improvement, but I knew that I was nowhere near fluent, absolutely nowhere near.
I then went back and did a 3 month stretch in the same conditions, working 16 hours a day 7 days a week with always at least 1 other Frenchie with me, and at the end of each working day I beasted myself with at least an hours homework before sleep.
At the end of my first 3 months stretch I started to realise that my French had improved enough to hold conversations.
I did a year all told in that job, not muttering away to myself, just really talking to other people, finally ending up dreaming in French (at which point I told the boss that I had been there too long and had to change jobs), and am now very comfortable in the language.
I am very lucky in that I have an aptitude for languages, its not a bigheaded thing, I'm very very aware of how lucky I am, but I am in awe of your 2 week learning curve Organic, very impressive indeed.

[digthatchick]

My next door neighbour's little boy (he's 4) speaks very good English and French, though both his parents are English. They speak both languages themselves and thought it will help him later on in life. I think it will.

By the way ... I speak three languages English, French and Rubbish --- two fairly well one excellent!

[annacruachan]

I learned French at school to GCE O level with a very good teacher. We held conversations in class, and out of it, on all sorts of subjects and I found spoken French quite easy and beautiful. The grammar was another matter; okay up to a point, but rules about subjunctives and genders and so on just would not stick in my brain.
Thirty years later I travelled through France on my own for two weeks. I was really amazed at how quickly it all came back. It was like putting on an old coat. I conversed with people in bars about everything under the sun, my trusty Harrap's dictionary on the bar beside me, was shown holiday photos and dinosaur bones, had informal lessons on grammar and vocabulary from the patron of one of the small hotels I stayed at, and asked the name of everything I didn't know. Most people were pleased that I wanted to speak their language and keen to help. It was wonderful and my accent improved immensely.....
but, I already loved the language and the culture. This did not happen with the German I also learned at school and gave up after two years. Perhaps there is an inbuilt facility in some people for a particular language; its sounds fit the tongue, maybe. It would be interesting to know if anyone else has had this experience.

[SarzWix]

I did Latin, French, German and Italian at school, then Spanish in evening classes when I was managing the import of tiles from Spain. I got on well with Latin, Italian and Spanish, okay with French, and never really got on with German. I'm starting a beginners Welsh course in October, really hoping I can get my tongue round it... I find language fascinating, and I wish I had learned more when I was younger. I'm fairly confident that I could get by in most of those languages if I needed to though, with a dictionary to hand.
The most useful phrase I learned in Spain was 'hablar mas despacio, por favor' which is 'Please speak more slowly'

[organic]

Sarz "please speak more slowly" is on the list of phrases I always learn right at the start of learning a new language. It's guaranteed that you'll need it at some point so it makes sense to get it out of the way.



I've been thinking about this discussion a bit this evening and I think some of us have very different things in mind when we talk about having a good enough grasp of a language to work in it, to converse in it and to have a social life in it.

Those who actually teach languages probably hold themselves to a MUCH higher standard before they consider themselves capable in a language than I hold myself to. I've got a much more functional view of getting by than a fluent one.

If I can understand what people are saying, make myself understood without resorting to English or sign language and everyone is happy with the result I consider that a good start and enough to get by. That most certanly isn't anything even close to "fluent" though... I suspect you, Patchninja, have a much higher standard than that for "a good start" and "enough to get by".

I think I did pretty well to keep that job and have plenty of natives among my friends (some of whom barely spoke a word of English) but it's probably not as astounding as you imagine.

[alan in cordoba]

Why not learn Spanish (or any other language) the same way as I did. Every possible occasion visit a Spanish(French, Italian etc) bar, preferably away from the costas. Drink enough to loose your British inhibitions and in a short period of time you will be able to communicate although if you are above a certain age you will never speak Spanish perfectly.

I was 50 + when I started, I am now a 72 year old Spanish speaking alcoholic.

[bobleponge]

Perfect!!!!!!
Extra exclam's because reply too short.

[Hilary B]

ENGLISH is not really the international language, AMERICAN is (just me being a bit pedantic about the difference again, only in a joking manner).
I find it easier to read a foreign language than to understand it when spoken. I can manage menus in French, Spanish and Catalan, and (if armed with my trusty dictionary) get the general gist of a newspaper story. Spoken is much harder.
When it comes to shopping, I know numbers, 'please' and 'thank you' (and a fair few items I buy often) and for the rest I often rely on pointing.
We only spend about 6 weeks a year in Catalunya, and a couple of days in France, so I reckon to be making good progress!

[coreopsis]

I find some languages more difficult,some easier.I wouldn't be able to learn French without any help but I got a book for Spanish and going to try.I was looking for something on ebay,couldn't find it on UK site so went to German-I was shocked when words started to spring from my memory(last time I had anything to do with German was 15 years ago).