Coucou les French learners,
Are you feeling overwhelmed with French?
Many of my learners want to travel to France and/ or be ready for a French examination. At one point they do feel overwhelmed. They want to know certain grammar points or to be able to pronounce some difficult words in French. I also do feel overwhelmed with German and Portuguese too.
However, the answer is simple: #inputaloneissufficient
The conditions to acquire a language
How does language acquisition take place? Research over the last four decades has shown that:
1. We acquire language when we understand what we hear and read, that is, when we get “comprehensible input.”
2. We need to receive a massive amount of rich compelling (highly interesting) comprehensible language input in order to make good progress in acquiring a language.
3. Second language learners go through similar stages as first language acquirers.
4. Acquiring a language and learning about the language are not the same thing.
5. Consciously learned rules of the language are not helpful in real communication; they are only helpful when we take a written grammar or vocabulary test, and sometimes in editing our writing.
6. We should not feel defensive, anxious and threatened in a language classroom.
Source: Beniko Mason
When wanting to be ready in French or in any other languages, listen and read everyday. #trustheprocess
Jean de La Fontaine
For the second episode of season #4, I am sharing another fable of great fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. He is one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He published 240 fables in total. In his fables, Jean de La Fontaine used animals to mock the King, Louis XIV and his court making them funny to read.
Jean de La Fontaine had an interesting life and he truly reinvented the genre of the fables. You can watch the film, Jean de La Fontaine, le défi to learn more about him.
Les fables de La Fontaine avec l’exemple du Corbeau et du Renard.
Reading the authentic fables of La Fontaine is challenging, even for French natives. That is why I would rather tell you the story of the fable in a comprehensible way so that later on you can read and comprehend the authentic text.
Recently, I purchased a collection of fables level A1 books from the book company CIDEB which are written comprehensibly.
I intend to tell you more interesting fables in the near future!
Here is the latest one about a lion (who would be King Louis XIV) and a mouse or a rat (who would be a poor subject of the King). Enjoy!
For more fables by Jean de La Fontaine, watch season #3 Le corbeau et le renard and then listen to me reading the fable.
Also watch Le rat des villes et le rat des champs and listen to me reading the fable.
Merci du fond du coeur, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your encouraging and inspiring comments on my videos. They always make my days!
Happy French acquisition!
P.S. Got friends, family, colleagues or clients who want to become fluent in French? Share this with them, they’ll thank you for it 🙂