Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Drinking the Kool-aid: Reviving My French
On French Study
Our company often works with European partners. As a result, proficiency in French is becoming a valued skill, with managers all being given the chance to study. Few in our group can work with it at all, it seems, so I have set myself the task of resurrecting my command of it. I've been analyzing the task. I studied French in school, but since then have overlaid it with Chinese, Russian, Classical Chinese, and Nepali. At first, there wasn't much to start with.
Challenges. Besides the natural memory erosion over a period of 25 years, my task is complicated by all the subsequent languages I have studied, mainly Russian and Chinese. Often when I am thinking of a question to pose in French, I want to complete it in Chinese, just to get it out. Add to this the paucity of materials suitable for studying professional and IT French, as opposed to conversational, belletristic French, and you can see the scale of difficulty. And whereas ESL enjoys a vast realm of materials, with many exactly focused on the needs of business professionals, no such resources seem to exist for FSL. Quel bien dommage!
Materials and Approach. Fortunately, since I never throw out anything, I have some good materials to work with, ranging from the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) French series, to an ALM text and a couple of basic/intermediate conversational texts, to some Usenet-sourced audio materials, to a couple of books from the newsweekly L’Express. Listening comprehension is a major skill for this, and I have been looking for French podcasts, with very little success. For this aspect of skills development, then, I have been using the FSI tapes. On this dull, durable foundation, I will build to the Audio-Forum Business French series; if the latter is too difficult, I’ll use the French in Action series for audio support. With these done, I’ll acquire French in Business (0340846925 for the book and 0340846992 for the tape or $35 and $55 respectively). That’s at least three major French language texts; I should be able to carry my weight thereafter.
Writing. Naturally one must also write in this world of ours, and for models in this, I am saving examples of French prose from our colleagues. Once I have enough, I might try to consciously organize them into function areas:
Our company often works with European partners. As a result, proficiency in French is becoming a valued skill, with managers all being given the chance to study. Few in our group can work with it at all, it seems, so I have set myself the task of resurrecting my command of it. I've been analyzing the task. I studied French in school, but since then have overlaid it with Chinese, Russian, Classical Chinese, and Nepali. At first, there wasn't much to start with.
Challenges. Besides the natural memory erosion over a period of 25 years, my task is complicated by all the subsequent languages I have studied, mainly Russian and Chinese. Often when I am thinking of a question to pose in French, I want to complete it in Chinese, just to get it out. Add to this the paucity of materials suitable for studying professional and IT French, as opposed to conversational, belletristic French, and you can see the scale of difficulty. And whereas ESL enjoys a vast realm of materials, with many exactly focused on the needs of business professionals, no such resources seem to exist for FSL. Quel bien dommage!
Materials and Approach. Fortunately, since I never throw out anything, I have some good materials to work with, ranging from the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) French series, to an ALM text and a couple of basic/intermediate conversational texts, to some Usenet-sourced audio materials, to a couple of books from the newsweekly L’Express. Listening comprehension is a major skill for this, and I have been looking for French podcasts, with very little success. For this aspect of skills development, then, I have been using the FSI tapes. On this dull, durable foundation, I will build to the Audio-Forum Business French series; if the latter is too difficult, I’ll use the French in Action series for audio support. With these done, I’ll acquire French in Business (0340846925 for the book and 0340846992 for the tape or $35 and $55 respectively). That’s at least three major French language texts; I should be able to carry my weight thereafter.
Writing. Naturally one must also write in this world of ours, and for models in this, I am saving examples of French prose from our colleagues. Once I have enough, I might try to consciously organize them into function areas:
- Requests for help (pouvez-vous prendre en charge de cette demande do XX…, pouvez-vous verifier..)
- Standard openings (pour votre info, je reviens vers vous…
- Analysis (je pense qu’il s’agit…)
- Vocabulary. This also necessary: common items such as account, permissions, adjust, open a port on a firewall, log on as administrator, global group, etc.
Listening Is The Foundation. I have been planning to start with the FSI stuff, because it is very systematic. Also, since it has 12 tapes, I can work with it in the car going to and from work for three weeks or so. After that it will be Business French mp3s. Then, LearnFrenchByPodcast’s materials. This and subsequent audio materials will form the architecture, on which vocabulary acquisition and writing will be based.
The plan seems sound, as long as perspicacity is not in short supply.
