It’s been about 6 days since I started learning French. Actually, today would be the 8th day, but I haven’t been able to cope up with my tight mental and emotional states. Not that I haven’t tried my best. There’s a home to manage, a business to run, and some things in between. But then, today I found a few minutes to revise my notes and build from there.
So, I was on YouTube as usual, and I found something interesting. I stumbled upon Jeff Brown, and my mind is completely taken over by his ideas. First, here’s the video I watched, where he says that learning a language through grammar is not natural. Instead, the language should be acquired, like a child. Although I already cracked this concept on my own, while I was taking to Merelin on the first day of my 30 days challenge, I am convinced that Jeff has been doing this for over two decades, and he knows better.
He discusses two concepts to learn acquire a language naturally.
- The Natural Approach – A book by Stephen Krashen, an American linguist, and Tracy Terrell. I’ll try to find this book and read it first, before going into the details of it. However, Jeff himself seems much more comfortable and impressed by the second approach.
- The TPRS (Total Physical Response and Story Telling) Approach – Two things, story telling, and comprehensible input. You turn yourself into a child and
learnacquire a language like a child does. It’s easier but you need to be patient and playful. You are literally trying to program your subconscious from scratch, without any conscious effort.
I haven’t been able to write a blog post after my 5th day because I have stopped learning French through grammar and videos. I am no longer approaching French from a learner’s point of view. I am trying to influence my subconscious with the language. However, I have a 30 day challenge to keep, so I will be posting my updates daily, and of course, I will be learning new words, and adding them to my vocabulary.
Here’s the revised plan. I will write 5 sentences every day, and decipher it. The paragraph will contain my day to day life. I will write about myself, Merelin, Ahmedabad, and whatever comes to my mind in general, that I would usually talk about, and turn it into French, and comprehensible input for others.
The best way to learn a new language is not to be to connected to comprehension in the beginning. A child might not comprehend a word until 3-5 months. But the program and structure builds up from people talking to them, around them. That’s the new plan.
To go a little faster in learning, I will do the 5 sentences thing. Let’s see how this goes. One one hand, I am trying to understand what is being told, and on the other hand, I am trying to explain in French, something that I can easily explain in Hindi or English. Let’s see how that goes.