Can Finn Learn French?

Fulfilling a childhood dream – not fluent, not fast, just finally beginning.

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  • And Here Come The Language Learning Doubts, Right On Time

    And Here Come The Language Learning Doubts, Right On Time

    I’m sitting there in my study. Thoughts are running around my head. Am I sure I want to do this? What for? I’m probably not going to live in France, am I? Do I need this?

    It’s been just over two weeks since I started my first French lesson. The shock has made my brain want to do the bolt. There seems like a lot to know. Pronunciation, new sounds to know and make, so many silent letters, spelling, masculine vs feminine rules, formal vs informal rules, the different numbering system. That’s just the start.

    We have a great teacher. She speaks four languages and has the right personality. She’s very friendly and open and gets the class involved. From the start I was put on the spot to pronounce some new phonics we just learned. It’s engaging and fun but challenging.

    I’ve watched our class shrink with each lesson. Most of the guys I spoke with were studying French as an elective. That’s got to be tuff to stick at. I mean, it seems like saying “I am going to learn the piano as an elective”. It doesn’t seem like something you could do it for a bit of fun, to try out. There seem to be many people who already speak at least two languages. They at least have some experience learning another language.

    It’s been challenging, right from the start. It’s not just theoretical. It’s not just lectures. You must do something straight away. I’ve felt like a numpty, many times, when those sounds are not coming out right. Don’t get me started on the French R sound. The teacher was getting me to do it in front of the class. All that came out of my mouth was something like a dog’s growl. I’ve been practising but I think it will take a while for me.

    What Do I Do Then?

    Well, nothing. By that I mean – change nothing. Stay on course. Remind myself not to panic. Yes, it’s a shock. Yes, it’s new. Yes, it seems impossible. Yes, all those fears and doubts I have already identified have started screaming at me. Let them come and keep breathing. They will pass on soon enough.

    I felt like I also needed to review why I started this in the first place. I already saw this coming and wrote a post about it. I preemptively wrote that post for this moment. I knew these doubts and fears would come. I knew I would want to run. So, I reviewed the reasons why and it helped calm me down. The doubts were still screaming but they no longer had a microphone. It gave me some grounding and connected me to the reasons I already found when I was calm.

    Surviving VS Thriving?

    I think the main issue is a difference between doing something out of necessity versus doing something from choice. It’s a lot easier to do something because it’s pressing on you. Bills to pay, food to eat, sleep etc are all happening to you. They still are stressful but they are self-motivating. You must do them if you want your basic needs taken care of.

    I think the harder motivation is to grow in something that you choose to do. I isn’t pressing on you in a survival way. Maybe on a deeper, spiritual level it is. But in the physical world it’s doing the opposite to pressing on me. It’s trying to pull me away. Why are we wasting energy here on this superfluous thing? It’s not urgent, it’s not necessary for physical survival.

    A Little Reminder

    So, I reviewed my initial posts. I felt that I needed to make myself an easy to access reminder for when these doubts come up. Something quick that can remind me of the reasons I started this path in the first place. Something to acknowledge that it isn’t about survival and that it still matters anyway. Here it is:

    I’m not learning French to be useful.

    I’m learning it because I like the way it sounds. 

    Because I want to make those sounds. 

    Because something about it feels right.

    I love the photos of France –

    Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, André Kertész. 

    The light, texture, quiet moments. 

    That’s something I admire.

    I imagine living in France –  

    Not soon but in my future.

    When the timing is right.

    I’m drawn to the food, the art, the architecture,

    And want to immerse myself in the culture.

    Enjoying the movies, music, philosophy – expressed in French.

    I want to share this language with others. 

    To speak it with people who live in it. 

    To connect through something beautiful.

    Learning French is a way to believe in beauty. 

    To live for something more than production or survival.

    It’s not about fluency – though that would be amazing.

    It’s about believing in something that matters.

    Human things only live because people make them so. 

    I’ll keep on learning this language because I want it to live, to grow.

    I can remind myself about the benefits of a second language:

    Improved attention span –

    How it can improve your native tongue.

    Who doesn’t want that? 

    But I didn’t know about those before I started. 

    I’ve wanted to learn a second language since I was young. 

    I don’t know why. 

    It’s irrational.

    It’s a deeper, unexplainable pull.

    Listen to that and follow.

    That is enough.

    Restez à l’écoute…

  • Understanding Why I Might Fail Learning a Language: So I Can Do Something About It

    I have started heaps of new projects before. Most of the things that I have dreamt of doing, I have had a go at them. I’m a doer. I don’t mind stepping out of my comfort zone and having a go. I have left a huge wake personal projects in my path: visual arts, musical instruments, intellectual study and physical pursuits. I am constantly learning and challenging myself in something. So why is this any different? Why have I put learning a second language off for so long?

    Practically speaking, the time, effort, commitment and finances seem about the same as these other pursuits. I am also quite confident now that I can pick up the basic’s of most things pretty fast. Getting starting and making a dent isn’t the problem. It’s staying on the path long enough to go past the basics that I struggle with.

    Here are 2 reasons I can see myself wanting to quit later on. But I have found 2 benefits to help me stay on track.

    Two Barriers

    1. Native Language Learning

    I can easily tell you my most despised class at school – English. How I dreaded that class. I had to do remedial reading because I was behind. I had trouble with comprehending what I even said when I read aloud. Please don’t ask me to interpret anything that just came out of my mouth! I would lose track of what teachers were saying and miss the rest of the lesson. Then there is the mumbling speech (still a slight problem to this day). The only joy I got from any writing was my goal of making my writing look neat.

    Deep down this creates are simple question: if you struggled so hard to learn your native language, then what makes you think you can learn another? This hurdle has already stopped my from starting for so long. When I studied psychology, I learned a theory. It suggests that language is best learned at a young age. Well, I think my struggle with ADHD and a low socioeconomic status during childhood got in the way of that. But should I really not make an attempt because that happened?

    “A little trick I have learned is to doubt the doubts, by asking them some questions back.”

    Hello doubts. Have I not worked very hard in my adult life to develop these weaknesses? Shouldn’t that have taught me strategies and skills that I could use in learning another language? Wouldn’t that make for a more insightful experiment – say if someone was writing a blog about learning a language – then if it had of just ‘got it’?

    2. The Issue of Sustaining Things

    So, I have already mentioned that I am confident in taking on projects. I also mentioned a ‘huge list’ of pursuits. Well if the list is huge, then how does one fit all that in? Well, you must give up one to do another. So, how do you get deep learning that way if you put it down? Well – you don’t. You learn the fundamentals and become better than the average person at many things. But, you don’t reach the level of those who focus on that thing for the long term. So, how is this project any different?

    The answer has to do with ‘why’. A lot of those projects were out of interest but they lost their shine once things got repetitive and boring. I think because I didn’t really know why I was doing it, only that I wanted to. I thought by just starting, the answer would appear. But I would reach a point where I felt I had had enough. Then, I would move on. It wasn’t that simple for me emotionally because I couldn’t describe it to others in words. I just knew I was done with it. I felt like I was being judged as a failure when people would comment how I would change things. In reality, where is the finish line anyway? My history tells me that this could just happen again.

    Two Motivators

    I have read that there are many benefits to learning a second language. Which I only after I decided to do it by the way. So I may as well use these to my advantage. Two of them stand out to me the most. The first is that it can improve your first language. The second is that it can slow down cognitive decline. To explain how I can use these to motivate myself, we need to take a detour.

    1. Improving my first language

    Poetry

    One pursuit that has stuck with me since I was thirteen, is poetry. It was another dreaded day heading to the English classroom. Lets get this over with. The teacher introduces us to some techniques of how to write poetry. Something stirred in me. There was just something about it that allowed me to express myself. It felt freeing. Like I somehow got it. Those 2 weeks in high school were the only 2 weeks that I ever enjoyed English class at school.

    I have been writing poetry on and off ever since. But I’ve had this idea most of my life that I suck at English and felt frustrated. When I think about it, I realize I have been trying to replicate that freedom. I tried to capture it in my visual arts and music projects. Maybe to run away from this frustration. It didn’t work. But from the amount of people I have seen cry from my poetry, there is clearly something in the words. Maybe my poetry can also grow from this project?

    It’s already a habit I’ve built

    In reality, I have been trying to improve my first language for decades. I have a go at respelling incorrect words before checking spellcheck. I plan what I will say in advance to make sure I get out the things I want to say. I listen and apply feedback when someone tells me I have said something incorrectly etc.

    This project then is different then the others I usually take on. Usually I am starting something completely new. A new set of habits to build. But this is just building on what I have already do quite casually and informally. Learning another language seems like an extension of all that. I can just add on to the habit I have already set. In theory anyway.

    2. Staying sharp into old age

    Its not like I have put down every pursuit I have started. When I was quite young, I noticed something about elderly people. There were some men I noticed that needed assistance to walk while others walked on their own. This really hit my young mind. I still remember clearly thinking that I was going to do everything I could to be one of the latter. Throughout my whole life I have lived up to that by doing multiple forms of exercise. In this instance, I knew the ‘why’ – to stay as mobile for as long as possible into old age.

    A common thread

    So what is happening with the language-visual arts-music pursuits? The obvious conclusion might be that this jumping around is from ADHD but lets dig deeper. I have read that some of the same parts of the brain are activated when people engage in language, art or music. In other words, these activities that I have been pursuing and putting down for decades share some of the same neural regions.

    Was my brain just trying to create and strengthen those neural pathways? These same pathways that I struggled to develop when leaning language as a child? Was it finding its own way to catch up despite reaching adulthood with these deficits? At first glance it looks like I’ve done a lot of things. But if you zoom out, they have a common thread. Listening, recognising, processing, interpreting and responding. These are complex ways of interacting with the world.

    The ‘Why’

    I will go further to say that it’s my way of trying to be and stay mentally sharp throughout my life. Just like how the desire to stay physically mobile and healthy in life is to be apart of it. Improving my writing, writing poetry, speaking more clearly, choosing my words more carefully, learning another language etc. are all ways to communicate more meaningfully with others. To make meaningful connections and have healthy relationships with people. I feel like this is the underlying ‘why’ and motivator for this project and why it matters to me.

    What’s next?

    So there are the 2 ways I think I will fail and 2 motivators to keep my going. I’ve started my first French class this week. I will make a post about the experience of my first 2 weeks in a short while.

    Restez à l’écoute…

  • Let’s Begin: My Journey in Learning French

    Let’s Begin: My Journey in Learning French

    There I am in my study, reaching for a unwrapped Moleskine notebook. I’ve been told that writing about the experience of learning something helps you to learn it better. I break through the plastic wrapping and find my way to the first page. I start writing. The next thing I know, I’ve started a new online blog. What the? This isn’t the first time I have taken my thoughts for a walk online. I use to publish my photographs and write about them. I use to also write about my endeavors running in fun runs for different charities.

    So, welcome to my blog. What is this all about then anyway? Writing about learning what? Well I am going back to university next week. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for me because I have studied many things. But it’s a little bit different this time. I’m starting a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Writing and French. What’s so different? Well, its more out of interest, for fun, then trying to ‘get somewhere’. Plus, I hated English at school. It was the class I wanted to avoid the most, just a bit more than science. So, wouldn’t I hate learning another language? Do I just want to punish myself or something?

    Why did I hate it so much? Well, probably because I sucked at it. It was difficult. I felt so self conscious about it. I still do when the words I want to say just don’t come. Your native language isn’t something you can really avoid either. It’s not like those people who sucked at sports. Easy, I’m just not going to kick a soccer ball on a field with a bunch of people again. Done! You can’t hide like that. Plus, I seem to have a strong drive to express myself most through words. I’ve gone down the path of visual arts and music but all roads lead back to words.

    Well since this blog is happening, what am I going to write about? What am I wanting to achieve with it? I’m writing those questions to probe myself and come up with some answers – since I just started this thing. But, here’s 6 ideas that come to mind:

    • They say that language learning is best for the young. So, here’s a middle aged man, having a go at learning a second language – French. This could be interesting…
    • I want to try and figure out why I found it so difficult to learn English. Was it biological? Environmental? Speaking about it (or writing) helps me do that. Hopefully I can get some answers that will make it easier to learn a second language.
    • When you write to reflect on what you are learning, it helps to cement the new information into your brain. Since I am studying both writing and French, it seems like a two for one deal.
    • I’ve started loads of new hobbies and interests only to put them down 6 – 12 months later. Could be the ADHD; could be something else. I’m hoping by making this journey public, it will make me more accountable. With any luck, it might help me get through those periods when motivation is in short supply.
    • It is a place I can track my progress. Then I can come back to see how I have improved over time.
    • It’s just nice to share. Someone else out there may stumble across this blog and possibly learn something for their growth as well. It might also be a way to meet and learn from others on a similar journey.

    Why learn a second language?

    I could sit here and try to convince you about all the benefits of learning a second language. There seems to be quite a few if you look them up online. Helps with cognitive decline, nice. Improves your native language – I could do with that. Improves attention span, that could be useful for ADHD. But I didn’t even know those benefits until a moment ago. Funnily enough, I’ve wanted to learn a second language since I was young. I’m not sure why – since I just told you how much learning the first one sucked! I’ve had a poor try starting on two occasions but they were meek attempts to be honest. I can’t really tell you why. It’s just one of those things. I’m drawn to it. Maybe I’ll uncover more about why as I go along.

    Why French?

    I’ve spent many years asking myself which language to learn. It would be ideal to travel around the world and get a feel for different languages and cultures before deciding. But I haven’t. I plan on it when my kids have grown, so I need to figure it out another way. The three languages that ended up on my shortlist were: French, Italian and Spanish. Practically speaking, I can study any of these languages in my arts degree. Since English is my native language, I also wanted a language that follows the alphabet that I am familiar with. Learning Chinese or Japanese would mean that I would have to learn new characters as well. Maybe not a huge drama but I don’t need any extra hurdles thanks.

    But since I haven’t been to any of these countries, it’s a decision that had to come from the gut. When I tried to use my mind to figure it out, it just gave me this… what if I put in all this effort and then don’t gel with that country when I go visit? How am I going to keep my skills up in a country that doesn’t speak the language? What options are there where I am? Which one seems the easiest to learn?

    “Then came those pesky little pests, called doubts, that surfaced no matter which language I thought about”

    … could I be putting this time and energy into something more productive? Am I too old for this childhood dream? What if I suck at it? What am I even going to do with it anyway? All valid concerns in some way. But man, it’s enough to make you run away and avoid it! Is that why its taken so long to start? So, I needed to bypass the mind and listen to a deeper part of myself. I simply asked myself what language and culture I was drawn to most. Obviously, given the title of my website, it was French.

    I can let my mind try and convince myself, and you, that it came from some rational decision. It’s from the pleasure I have had admiring the works of the French photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Edouard Boubat. Have you seen those photographs of Paris by Andre Kertesz? Maybe its the fact that I regularly seek out French patisseries? Croissants, chocolate eclairs, pain au chocolat – please stop! Or what I have read about the French lifestyle and culture; which seems close to how I like to live. I don’t know for sure. It’s irrational. It’s a deeper, unexplainable pull. This is enough of a motivator for me to make the effort to try it.

    Where to from here?

    Well that’s all I have to say right now. I’m starting my study next week and will make a post about how that goes soon. But I am already working on my next post before that. I’m going to figure out where I might fail. Then I have a chance to do something about it.

    Restez à l’écoute…