Baraka_Guru

As someone who went through the Ontarian public school system, I was exposed to extensive French-language education. Unless I'm mistaken, I think we started to learn the language as soon as grade one, and we continued up to high school, where you needed one or two French credits for a diploma. In grades 7 and 8, I was a part of a French immersion program, where every subject was taught in the language, with the exception of English, of course.

I think due to my natural ability for language, I tended to enjoy French despite being a slacker, generally. In high school, although I could have stopped studying French in grade 10, I took it up until "grade 13" (aka, the Ontario Academic Credit). I technically failed the OAC (as I was at the height of my slackdom at the time) and that was the end of my French studies.

Recently, I have been thinking of dusting off my French. I'm doing this for two reasons: 1) For the love of the language (I want to read French classics in the original, etc.) and 2) To expand my earning/career potential (It's quite wonderful to be bilingual in Canada in terms of job availability/work, especially in Toronto/Ontario).

Last year, I bought an excellent "advanced" French book/CD resource that will do well for me technically, but what I'm lacking is an "immersion" component, which I think is very important. I want your ideas, recommendations, and advice in this respect.

Please, feed me your ideas for listening, reading, watching French in action. I have the film Amelie on DVD, so that's start. So what else would you recommend? I could put French dub on many DVDs available in Canada, but original French works would be better in my view. So...what books, radio stations/shows, newspapers/sites, plays, films, etc. would you recommend I partake in to reach my goal of awakening the French that lies dormant in my noggin? What other recommendations do you have to immerse myself?

Just bear in mind that I'm going to be quite rusty, so more basic French is ideal at this point. Also bear in mind the differences between Quebecois and Parisian French. The former would be more valuable to me than the latter in terms of functional uses (and given that that's what I learned throughout school), but I am open to anything in terms of enjoying the classic side of the language.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

guyy

For print, i'd say le Monde diplomatique. For Canadian/Quebec news, the Catholic lens through which le Devoir is projected sometimes makes for interesting reading and there's always the Journal de Montreal for crime & accidents & petit bourgeois outrage. La Presse is boring & superfiicial. However, looking at a bit of all 3 sure beats the Gazoon.

TV is good for language learning because it gives visual clues. The news can be a bit daunting if you are really rust. The problem is that it assumes knowledge of background info necessary for comprehension. Shows that you already know in English is OK -- good in fact.

You need to use the language actively. Moving your mouth to French sounds will help your ears pick up more French. You can refresh/expand vocabulary through reading, but at some point you need to use those words.

roachboy

i read alot in french, but haven't had much opportunity to speak or write for a while--so it's always a bit dicey when i'm put in a position of speaking again for a while. so i'd follow guyy's advice about emphasizing active ways of interacting with the language.

i read le monde diplo monthly when it comes out, between times via the various on-line things they have---le monde and libération most days---and i've rigged things up in my day gig that i spent at least part of every day cruising around various journals. but philo and other academic-ish things use a restricted vocabulary. novels are more specific and can be difficult--i still remember hitting the farmhouse wall in madame bovary and being forced to look over a collection of tack and 19th century farm implements and having to look up almost every noun...which i suppose happens.

read alot.
radio is good too--there's lots of stream--radio libértaire is a parisian anarchist station that talks talks talks and can be interesting to drop into.
i would expect it's easy enough to find folk who are maybe french and working on english via the alliance française or some such. that'd be good. cheap too.

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it make you sick.

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inBOIL

Children's shows are a good idea. If the language they use is too basic, move on to a show meant for a slightly older audience.

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genuinegirly

*Cringes at the idea of someone purposefully learning Quebecois*

Tune into a montreal-based news or talk radio station online.

Set a timer. Spend 5 minutes turning off the rest of the world, and focus on imitating the sounds of the phrases spoken by the news show. Pick up words when you can, meaning when you can, but focus on getting your mouth and mind to remember the sounds. You should be exhausted at the end of 5 minutes if you're doing this right. My brother taught me this trick and it works incredibly well. The point of the exercise is to feel comfortable with the sound and rhythm of the language. You'll find your recall of phrases improves drastically when you're not struggling over how it should sound. (This trick came in handy last year when I needed to brush up on my French and become comfortable the differences in meter between the French spoken in Paris vs. French Polynesia. After a couple of weeks of these sessions, I was able to translate comfortably when I arrived in French Polynesia).

Keep the Quebecois station on as background noise while doing dishes and other mindless work.

Find a weekend immersion program and enjoy.

It comes back quicker than you realize. Once you need it, it shows up.
The real problem comes with getting that blasted French out of your mind when you need to communicate in English.


Be cautious of this one. You do not want to pick up a childlike vocabulary if you are learning the language for professional purposes.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Baraka_Guru

Thanks (merci) for all the advice. I'm going to take it all under consideration.

roachboy, that one tip about Alliance Française is especially appreciated. I didn't know about it until now. And right here in Toronto (Alliance Française de Toronto). For $50/year, I can have access to French-language arts events and a library. Maybe I'll check it out. As far as their lessons go, however, I don't know yet. General courses are $300 for 24 hours (12 sessions). It sounds good, but I'm not sure what I'd want to get from that environment.

They do have conversation classes and "press & coffee" and "press & lunch" sessions for a bit more than that. They even have one called "Maîtrise du discours en public."

All in all, it looks like they offer a bit of everything. Maybe I should pay them a visit and get a tour. And their main campus is even located a bit north of a subway station in the area where I work. That's kinda convenient.

EDIT: I'm going to start with a handful of news/current-events podcasts (shows) from CBC Radio-Canada (That's: /rad'jo/, not /ray'dee'oe/). Mainly because they're easy to grab, and I have an iPod...and a 1-hour commute each day. I'll try to read some of the websites for those news sources you've given me over my lunch breaks.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

bg---glad i could help.

i'm wary of actual lessons via the af. they tend to be expensive and a bit on the bourgeois nimrod side--you know, lots of "francophiles" wanting to know about the usual cooking, fashion and the other stuff that you can imagine if you want to think of france as a giant mall.

that said, i think the alliance is a great resource that may well have the information you're looking for to plug back into speaking.
if they maintain a library, ask the librarians rather than the folk at the front desk.

other possibilities:

the thing maybe to do is find out about the english-french conversation exchange arrangements, which they might mediate, or which they might know of (if they're mediate elsewhere)...if you look at france-usa contacts (fusac) sometime--and i'm not sure how one gets that here, but in paris at least it's easy to find as is a central source for expat housing and/or service exchanges--you can get names of organizations in france and perhaps work backward from there.

i found this for example:
Conversation Exchange - Search result

checking with the french departments at universities or with exchange programs that shuttle folk into and out of france might also be good.


another idea is the french cultural services sector of the consulate, which handles among other things fellowships and such and is maybe another resource to at least call.
this is a links page with other french/francophone listings in toronto. there's other stuff on the main pages as well:

http://www.consulfrance-toronto.org/...hp?rubrique247

==================
more infotainment:

directory of french television streams:

French Internet Television - Watch French online television and video and practice your French!

i like radio more though:

a general netradio directory (these are the usual suspects you'll find on most such):
French Internet Radio - Listen to French online radio news and information and practice your French!

a couple that are interesting but not necessarily on the directories, i dunno why:

chatty anarchist radio:
Radio Libertaire

radio france---france culture.
France Culture

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Ew.

Thanks for the other stuff you've added.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

snowy

Perhaps there are some folks here on the TFP who speak French and are willing to converse with you once in a while via a voice chat or similar? While you probably won't find any native speakers, I can think of at least a couple people around here who speak French. Sometimes it's good to just have someone to practice with/on.

I only have a year of college French under my belt, but I try to keep it from getting completely rusty/worthless by attempting to read French tabloids. You'll probably do better following roachboy's reading recommendations.

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SabrinaFair

Whenever I want to brush up on my second language (Italian), I watch movies that feature the language, or movies with subtitles in the language. It doesn't do much for my pronunciation (which was never very good to begin with), but it helps a lot with understanding it in spoken form. I try to use the subtitles as a guide to understand what is being said rather than considering them a verbatim translation. I also listen to Italian rap--but that's more for giggles. :-)

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guyy

Watching movies can help, especially if you follow along with the dialogue when you can. Watch it once with the subtitles if necessary, but after that first viewing, you know the story, so zap the subtitles and zero in on the sounds. I know some very good non-native speakers who have used this type of strategy to learn English. Singing is also good practice.

Nisses

As far as your education goes, pretty much the same thing happens here in our little bilingual country.

Don't you have DVDs you can rent that have a french audio track? Might be the simplest way to get some contemporary french stuff.
Easy movies that I've watched lately were: Tais-toi, Brice de Nice, RRRrrr & Taxi (1-2-3). --> None of them are particularly complicated movies

You could also try looking for some anime. There's alot of French-dubbed anime around, if you like anime that is.

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Iliftrocks

Just did a quick search, thinking online chat might be cool. Haven't looked into the possibility of voice chat....... hmmmm


Chat Rooms: Online International Chatrooms

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