(Learn the pronunciation of all the tenses with Le Génie Verbale)
When I see so many people getting frustrated by how long time it takes to learn French, it breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart when I see how the short 'miracle' programs out there are selling promises of 'bilingual in 3 months', or 'speak French in 5 steps', learn-by-yourself type of programs that give you a CD to play at your leisure or a tape that keeps telling you how great you are doing.
And all these people are disappointed when they see how long it takes to learn French. And any other language.
Not that it takes an extreme amount of time, but when you are educated by society and marketing that you should speak French in a few weeks, then when you see the reality of things you get disappointed.
What if the yoga teachers would say the same thing about yoga? They tell us this: yoga is a lifetime practice. You improve every day - you practice, you will be every day better and better. Until you levitate, there is always room for improvement.
Well, knowing this about yoga, you don't go to the studio expecting to be a yogi in 3 months, or to learn yoga in a week, so most people when they start yoga they keep at it, they don't give up, they know what they are getting themselves into
But with languages it's such a marketing and PR out there, combined with the software programs that promise that they somehow miraculously will change your brain so that, many many people either they don't start or they give up.
Once they give up, they are less probable to restart or to finish what they started.
Are you one of them?
Learning a language is changing you into another person, it's not the same think as learning how to cook a crêpe: ingredients, some good vibes and you are good to go.
When I speak English I'm a different person than when I speak French - that's a reality. I have a different sense of diplomacy, a different quality of my sensitivity, a different kind of humor. Do you want to experience what French brings out in you?
So then I'm wondering, are you one of the people who would start and then give up? Or someone who is looking to learn a few words and verbs and thinks that this is what a foreign language is?
Or are you one of those people who knows that once you have a few words and verbs under your belt - only then is when you start to really learn it. And it's a little by little consistent exercise, it's a lifestyle. An experience.
I've been in an anglophone country for 20 years and I'm still learning English. Even if what I write is published by magazines, I'm perfecting my phrase construction and pronunciation on an ongoing basis.
Well, this could be an example for you. If you want to be at home with French, then you need to do the same thing.
Make learning French a lifestyle, and keep your practice as a lifestyle, don't change it into a curriculum subject that can be discarded at the end of the school year.
Want to know how to become an authentic French speaker and discover who will you become once you are one? Check out J'Ouellette® Intensif, and make French be at home with you and you be at home with French.
Now it is your turn!
Tell us in the comments below, what are your ways to include learning French in your lifestyle?
Don't ever give up on your dream to become bilingual - the world needs your enthusiasm when you go to Paris and fully enjoy it!
Want to learn French on your own terms?
Create a solid foundation for conversation,
master pronunciation with J'Ouellette® Intensif,
and travel the World!
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Llyane Stanfield is a Parisian French language coach, and founder of the J’Ouellette® French Method – an organic method using techniques that are employed by the world’s finest linguists. She travels between Toronto, New York and Paris, while teaching French via Skype in more than 15 countries. She is French language coach for busy traveling professionals, and has produced an unprecedented Intensive Program and French Pronunciation Master Class, as well as other visual and teaching materials. She now spends a large proportion of her time in Paris, where she also organizes an annual Immersion Retreat. Her unique methods produce a quantum leap in confidence and pronunciation, and a short session with her is the perfect start to brush up your French (whatever your level!) at the start of your Paris trip.
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