Make connections

This takes two meanings:

1. When being stuck, and you know you know the word but it's not coming back to you. Here's my trick for you: think of the word in another context.

For example, imagine you want to say « at least » in French. Best way to tackle this is to ask yourself: what’s « less »? And if you can’t remember that, then dig deeper into it and try to remember what the opposite of « less » is. That’s okay if you can’t think of what it could be. We will dig deeper. What’s another way to say « more » in English? If you still can’t remember, that’s okay. Hopefully, you’ll have remembered that « more » is also in maths referred to as « plus »  right? Like « two + two ». Then you'll make the connection with the opposite of « plus »: « minus », which in French is « moins ». And what’s left is to know how to say « at ».

Now I appreciate that this sounds like a super long way to go to translate two little words in French and you’re right. But I promise that that’s the kind of reflections that will help you think French and make progress faster when learning French. It’s basically a matter of putting in place some automatism and if you are an overthinker like me, you’ll have a great time digging into ways to say what you want. Thinking French will make the difference.

2. This is about connecting sounds that you hear with words that you know. This is always a difficult task, even more so when you’re a complete beginner in learning the language because you will be limited in the amount of possibilities that the words you heard could be. Add to that the liaisons and the level of complexity is such that you feel like you’ve entered the Matrix trying to figure out what’s happening.

Solution: this is when having the transcript or the lyrics or the subtitles whilst listening makes a difference and becomes very helpful.

Let’s take a moment to think of those people who make videos about song lyrics where they hear something entirely different than what is said. This is is exactly how far we could misunderstand a real life situation.

Watch this:

⁠https://www.instagram.com/reel/C12dHq6KeLk/?igsh=MTIzdHk0aDN0MXVwMA==⁠, or this ⁠https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2zlCkvraIm/?igsh=NWp1amxsanVybWho⁠⁠, https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy1IQ6AIhlR/?igsh=MW1wbnh6bG03MThhOA== ⁠ (Merci @coxy.official and @taytay_eras13).

Funny moments aside, I was catching up with a student in French the other day and I was speaking at a normal pace when he looked confused because what I said was [pteht] which my student didn’t understand. Fair enough. I repeated myself and spoke slower to say [puh tehtr] and then he understood that I meant “maybe” (peut-être). That was a case of collapsing syllables that made it sound like one. Tricky. SO do get out of there and read transcripts whenever possible! It help you with the listening and pronunciation at the same time.

Remember to "Learn French, Think French" :)