My speaking ability improved more in three months than it did in my five years at French
immersion school.
皆んなさんこんにちは、アリビアです!
たくさんの人は「日本語で話してほしい」と言われました。そのために、少しだけ日本語を話します。
私は話すことより読むことや聞くことが好きなので、話す練習はあまりしていません。
でも、たくさんの学習者は、最も話したいと思っています。
That is why today I want to sit down and talk about how I learned french and how I'm using
what I learned from that experience to help me with my Japanese.
because surprisingly it's not as easy as just practicing your speaking every day.
I did that for five years at my french immersion school and as the years went by I didn't see
any significant improvement.
I didn't feel like I could properly speak the language and that I sounded really unnatural
and I just felt really limited in the way that I could express myself in the language
even though I had gone to a french immersion school for five years and was practicing it
every day.
Mais maintenant je suis a le niveau donc que je peux parler en français sans penser à
ce que je parle.
Je ne dois pas faire des traductions dans ma tête.
Mais je n'ai pas parlé en français depuis des années, alors je sais que mon accent
n'est plus là et je suis sûre que je fais des fautes.
Mais c'est encore assez bon donc que je puisse m'exprimer et je peux me faire comprendre.
But when I was at the peak of my French and I was practicing it very actively, my proudest
moment was when I was talking to someone from Quebec one day and they only spoke French
and they actually asked me what region of France I was from.
Maybe they were just being nice but I like to believe that at one point my French was
good enough that someone actually mistook me as a francophone from france.
So hopefully my story will help you in your language learning because my speaking ability
improved more in three months than it did in my five years at French immersion school
and now I get to apply what I learned from that to learning japanese from home.
I started learning French when I was 10 years old completely from scratch.
My parents didn't speak French I never really heard French at all in my life before.
but from the very first day our teachers only spoke to us in French and we are expected
to also only speak in French.
At first, it was pretty confusing but we could still understand what our teacher wanted from
us or what she was saying because she'd be very repetitive and use lots of props so that
we'd understand.
so even if we didn't understand the words that she was saying we could understand her
intent.
It didn't take too long to pick up on really common words and phrases and within the first
month we were actually learning our regular curriculum fully in French.
so we were learning our math in French, our history in French, our science and French,
and we actually understood enough to learn that new content in a new language.
In the first month, we were also expected to speak in French so even though it was very
basic and very broken French we were good enough that we could talk to our teacher whenever
we needed to.
As the months went by our vocabularies got bigger and we could talk without taking as
many pauses but we still talked at a very novice level.
The way we spoke was still very choppy and unnatural and we are very limited in the ways
that we could express ourselves when talking in French.
This continued with each new year of French immersion.
I'd learn new words, maybe learn some new grammar structures, some new verb conjugations.
but it never really all came together in a way that made me feel that I could fully articulate
my thoughts in French.
I knew a lot of things about the French language but I didn't feel like I knew French.
In fact in my third year of French immersion, we took a school trip to Quebec City and many
of us had trouble understanding the locals and being able to talk to them.
Even though our teachers spoke to us in French every day and we were expected to speak French
every day in our classes, it was a very simplified version of French and on top of that a lot
of our teachers weren't native French speakers.
They had learned French as a second language in a French immersion school and then they
decided to become French immersion teachers so their French was good enough to be French
teachers but the way that they spoke was not the same as a native speaker.
It was very controlled and simplified.
That was my experience in French immersion school.
I spoke French and heard French every day for five years but I still didn't feel confident
that I could actually speak French.
But then in high school, I had the opportunity to go on exchange in France and don't worry,
the advice for this video is not to pack up your life and go to another country.
That is not very useful advice.
Most people can't do that.
but during my time in france my language skills jumped so much more in those three months
than in my entire five years at French immersion school.
When I came back from my trip I had to do a presentation for my class and that's when
I really noticed how much my speaking ability improved.
Before when I did presentations in class I would usually have to figure out what I wanted
to say and then how I was going to say that in French and really think about all the different
words and phrases that I wanted to use in my presentation and practice a lot.
But for this presentation, I literally just put a few photos on a slideshow, put them
up on the board and just started talking about my trip.
I never felt so at ease when I was speaking I didn't have to be thinking in the back of
my mind, "hey how am I going to say this next sentence.
is it going to make sense if I use this verb or this conjugation?
" I could just talk like I was talking to my friends about my trip, which is what I
was doing.
this whole experience taught me that there are basically two stages in learning how to
speak a language first stage is all about getting comfortable speaking in your language
at a very basic level this stage is about training your brain to be able to recall basic
words and phrases so that you can string together really simple sentences without having to
translate anything in your head this is the level that I was stuck at school I could technically
speak French but it wasn't very natural and I was very limited in the things that I could
say the second stage is when you actually start to sound like an adult and the more
time that you put into it the better that you will be verb conjugations will come more
naturally to you the way you structure your sentences will sound more fluid and natural
and overall you're just going to feel more confident that you can speak the language.
Now in my experience if you want to reach that second stage it is not enough to just
practice speaking every day my time in france really made me realize that it wasn't speaking
every day that made me a better speaker because I was already doing that at my French immersion
school and wasn't getting any better if you want to speak your target language more naturally
express more complex thoughts and generally just speak more like a native speaker you
have to engage with native speakers during my time at French immersion school I rarely
had any exposure to native French speakers but when I was in france I was always hearing
new words and new expressions and just hearing how people actually spoke the language and
as I heard everyone talking around me I picked up on new words and expressions and my ears
got used to how their accent sounded and I was able to adjust my own pronunciation to
match theirs the verb tenses that i'd been studying for years finally made sense and
I didn't have to think about them when I was talking they would just come out naturally
as if I was speaking in english I didn't have to think about is this going to be future
stamp is this pastel composer is this in parfait I could just talk in the language and express
myself without having to second guess how to say it the best part is I didn't have to
go to france to improve my speaking ability there are so many tools and resources that
you can use at home that will help you improve and simulate the experience of being surrounded
by native speakers at a fraction of the cost you can do this to an extent by using immersion
materials which is something that I talk about a lot on this channel so I won't go too far
into it but they're a great way to simulate being around native speakers and a good source
to pick up on new words and expressions and if you're looking for recommendations for
immersion materials you can check out this playlist and I'll also link it down in the
description box but at some point you're going to have to go beyond immersion materials and
actually speak with a native speaker when you're actually talking with someone you're
going to be so much more engaged you're going to remember more things and you'll get to
pick up on the way that actual people talk and you're going to pick up on all those new
words and phrases and be able to use them in real time the best way to do this in my
opinion especially if you're still in that first stage is by using italki if you're unfamiliar
italki is a platform where you can book online one-on-one sessions with native speakers in
whatever language you're learning you can ask your tutor to help you with whatever it
is you want to improve they could walk through the genki textbook with you they can correct
your exercises they can help you prepare for a language test but the way that I like to
use italki is to simply have conversations with native speakers the tutors are there
to help you learn and are very used to talking to beginner language learners so you don't
have to worry about not knowing enough or feeling shy about talking your tutor will
adjust to match whatever level you're at even if you've never tried speaking before when
I first met my tutor she used a lot of props and drawings to make sure I understood what
she was talking about she was also really good at explaining things in japanese in a
way that was really easy for me to understand and she would also type out new words that
we came across in our conversations in our text chat so that I could look them up later
there are also language exchange apps that you can use to talk to native speakers who
are trying to learn whatever language it is you speak but I really wouldn't recommend
them unless you're firmly in that stage two of speaking because otherwise it's just gonna
be really frustrating for the both of you it's best to start with a native tutor who
knows how to engage with beginner learners and that can lead the conversation while you're
still in that first stage so if you want to try italki out you can check out the link
in my description if you use that link you're going to get 10 free credits to use towards
your italki sessions itaki also has a trial period where your first session with a new
tutor will be at a discounted rate so you can try out a few different tutors and see
which one is the best for you so there's really no risk if you want to try italki out you
can check out the link in the description get 10 free credits and then try out some
tutors and see if it's a good fit for you if you're not sure what to talk about with
your tutor a good topic is to talk about whatever you're currently reading or watching that
way you're going to be able to use any new vocabulary that you picked up and you're not
going to run out of things to say I hope this video was helpful in figuring out how you
can improve your speaking ability in whatever language it is that you're learning and if
you're learning japanese and looking for immersion resources you can check out the playlist on
screen if you liked this video make sure that you like subscribe comment all that good stuff
and that's all I for today and I'll see you soon!