like i know i need to get back into learning french
but if i wait it's just going to be more expensive oh there's a payment plan there's
a payment plan okay i can do it i can do it i can afford that i can afford that okay
i'm doing it okay i can do this i can do this should i do it i'm literally just
living off of like savings right now for the most part so this just seems really stupid
okay okay okay okay we're doing it we're doing it processing payment we're in we're in
let me catch you up hi i'm melissa i dropped out of french class in high school because i hated it
and it was really difficult but ever since that fateful day of leaving that classroom i've wanted
to learn french so in may of last year i started this channel to document my journey as a beginner
french learner because i felt like most of the language learning content i saw online was by
people who seemed like language learning gods and i just kind of wanted to share the embarrassment
and all of the mistakes and the awkwardness of it all because it's really freaking awkward sometimes
i was pretty consistent with it up until the fall of last year because life but recently i've
been feeling more and more motivated to pick it up again and start getting more serious with learning
french i came to that decision like a week ago and the literal day that i came to that decision a
video drops online yeah one of those people who i was like oh it seems like a language learning god
dropped a french course it was a sign from the universe you can't tell me otherwise
so i guess this is like what season two of my french learning journey
are you ready because i'm not sure if i am but i guess we're going to find out
george clooney
joe hansen
this series is just going to be a fantastic excuse for my inner theater kid to keep slipping out so
i don't know whether to say you're welcome or i'm sorry brad pitt toy story wait
i just figured out how to what i never knew how to write accents on my keyboard
i would always google it and then i would copy and paste i didn't know you could do that thank you so
what is my goal with all of this i mean eventually obviously i would love to become fluent in french
but i think my more short-term goal is i have been planning on taking a trip to paris um it
was going to be september that didn't happen but the short-term goal is that i want to go
to paris and feel comfortable enough to be able to at least try to practice obviously i can't control
how other people will speak to me but at least to have the confidence in myself to try because
so far my confidence in speaking has definitely been the number one thing that's held me back
so that's like number one that's that's what we're working on and how will i achieve this goal here's
my game plan i will be doing damon dominique's intermediate advanced course i will be finding
a teacher on italki that will help me with the conversation side of it hey pals what time is it
you're right it's time to find a teacher so ideally i would love to find a teacher
that would be willing to like let me actually record the lesson i feel like that would be
freaking dope i don't know if i'm gonna find that though the issue is is i want a professional
teacher because i feel like that's what i need but then all of the professional teachers are like
it's so too expensive just a little bit because if i want to be doing it weekly or even maybe
more than once a week i can't be spending 40 dollars for an hour so i found a few options
i'm going to reach out to all of them see if they're if any of them are even comfortable
with being on youtube if none of them are then i'll just kind of go with my favorite um yeah
i'm also going to do listening practice daily i'm going to read at least for like 5 to 10 minutes
daily and then the goal will be to learn about like five new vocabulary words per
day but then i also want to go back through all of the vocabulary words that i learned
last year and really refresh myself for at least like a month or so and then i'll go
to learning more words per day but i just feel like i need to freshen all of that up
one of the reasons i have found it such a pain to learn french is because i'm such a perfectionist
especially when it comes to learning a language if i make literally any mistake in pronunciation
or grammar or whatever it gets me in my head but like i wasn't born perfect at learning languages i
no one was so yeah my accent's gonna slip through i'm gonna make mistakes i'm gonna make plenty of
mistakes i'm gonna royally [ __ ] up pronunciation and i just have to swallow that pill of truth
what i just have to deal with that and i have to learn to live with it don't
be so damn hard on myself i'm always preaching about like not being a perfectionist not being
hard on yourself and i need to listen to my own damn advice cheers to that woo say save party
right is that how yeah right i think
i am going to change everything into french i used to have my phone in french but not anymore
and i've never had my desktop in french but i'm gonna do it beautiful all right there we go
it's done day one
we have officially started
if you've ever tried to learn a language you know you've heard it from everyone you have to stay
consistent if you want to make any improvements if you want to become fluent one day you have to stay
consistent which like yes consistency is a big part of the puzzle but as someone who doesn't live
in a french-speaking area it's not like i'm being forced to use the language every time i leave my
house i don't have to know how to speak french in order to survive so that means i have to create
that environment for myself where i surround myself with the language but that takes effort
and that takes time and that takes motivation so for anyone who doesn't have the resources
so for anyone who doesn't necessarily have the resources to spend time in another country to get
a crash course on the language and the culture and all of that you can still totally learn a
language but you have to stay motivated and you have to create that environment for yourself
and one of the reasons i took a few months off is because i i stopped having fun i stopped
it stopped making me happy and i completely lost my motivation for it um
and like usually i'd be kind of hard on myself for this sort of thing but i feel like since
this last year has been such a [ __ ] show taking a break from something especially if it's just
like a hobby isn't the end of the world it's not a failure to have to take a break from something
whether it's learning a language or literally anything else that thing is always gonna be there
for you to come back to and sometimes what we need is a break so that we can get back into it
and be even better at it and have more motivation and feel more refreshed and more excited to like
really go hard at that thing taking a break isn't the end of the world yeah you might lose
progress yeah you might have to relearn a few things once you get back to it but
whatever you're putting off or whatever you lost your motivation and it's still there i'm still
waiting for you so and now i'm getting back into french and i forgot how much i loved it
and how happy it makes me to learn like just the process of learning
it and the way that my brain feels when i'm learning it like i missed it
distance makes the heart grow fonder i guess and honestly
i am pretty pumped to be getting back into it so there you go don't wanna go outside