I Need a Simple Goal

When a task is too large, people get overwhelmed and give up. I was reading about this recently in The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.

The particular change I'm looking for right now is social in its way. I want to learn French.

Except French is a whole LANGUAGE, for goodness sake. And I admit I lose heart again and again with the trying.

After thinking about the issue of goals and simplicity, I decided that instead of trying to "learn French," I will aim to fill a whole notebook with French in a matter of weeks.

That also seemed like a really big task, so I broke it down further. I will copy one chapter of the French bible per day into my notebook. I won't bother to look up words I don't understand, unless I really, really want to know the meaning. (I wanted to know the meaning of foules and was mildly tickled at the thought that it meant crowds and it sounds something like... um, fools :)

The simple goal is working. I'm starting to think in French (a real feat for someone who can hardly choke out merci at the baguette counter). I believe the volume of French per day, written down, is serving like an immersion experience.

Either that, or I am channeling Edith Piaf as I sing-song the New Testament in French each day. (Yes, I say the words as I copy them down. French can even make suffering and sacrifice sound romantic).

Anyway.

I needed a simple goal. And I found une. :)

French on Fridays: Going on a Bear Hunt

The greater the complexity, the greater the learning.

This counterintuitive assertion from John Medina, author of Brain Rules, seems to go against Heath & Heath's first rule of "stickiness": simplicity. After all, Medina notes that learning is increased through complication. Elaborate experiences trump simple ones.

Though this appears to contradict the rule of simplicity, it is good to remember that simplicity is just one of six stickiness factors (simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, stories). Add up the six, and you've got a fairly elaborate experience.

On a practical level, this suggests that optimal learning might be nurtured by providing elaborate experiences focused on a simple concept.

This is what I love about using children's books to learn French. On the one hand we have simplicity: a single story with a straightforward plot. On the other hand, we have complexity: pictures; playful rhymes; new words couched amidst familiar words; the cadence of voice (if we read aloud). If it's a good story, we might also react emotionally.

All this adds up to better learning. So let's go on a chasse à l'ours (bear hunt) and see what French we can bring home...

La Chasse à L'ours (Going on a Bear Hunt, by Helen Oxenbury)

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French Learners: Type any English word here and get a translation into French.

French on Fridays: Top 10 French Music

As adults, we're sometimes afraid to learn like children. But when it comes to absorbing a language, I'm convinced we need to remember how kids first find their way to linguistic comprehension, speech, and later to reading and writing.

It all begins with sound— not textbooks, or tests, or flash cards (can you imagine mom and dad welcoming the newborn with an "I love you" flash card in the labor room? :)

Adults have the advantage of being able to use multiple kinds of materials, even flash cards if they have a penchant for them. So of course I use texts, poems that I translate, kids books, and Frenchpod.com.

But because sound is so foundational, I try to give myself a good dose of French music each day. Here's my Top-10 French Music Playlist (okay, with a bonus 10, which brings it to 20. I am still working on counting in French.)


Top-10 French Music Playlist

1. Amelie les Crayons
2. Jeanne Cherhal
3. Emilie Simon
4. France Gall
5. Mireille Mathieu
6. Olivia Ruiz
7. Keren Ann
8. Claire Denamur
9. Ariane Moffatt
10. Anais


Bonus 10

1. Vanessa Paradis
2. Camille
3. Emily Loizeau
4. Little
5. Loane
6. Pauline Croze
7. Julie Delpy (this is a single; I wish I could find more of hers in French)
8. Stromae
9. Zaho
10. Carla Bruni


Well, okay, if you insist. One more...

1. Sandrine Kiberlain

Amelie les Crayons photo, by L.L. Barkat.

French on Fridays: Learn in Your Sleep

Want to optimize your learning? Go to sleep. That's what John Medina suggests in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School.

I particularly love how Medina discusses differences in sleep patterns. Some of us are larks, some of us owls, and others a mix. If you're a lark, your best learning and working time will be in the morning. By nine o'clock p.m. you're going to want to turn in for the night (and forget about joining a late-night study group).

Owls, on the other hand, begin to heat up around 6 p.m. Bedtime before 3 a.m. is unappealing. Flex people like me can manage morning and night fairly equally (though we are generally up for a 2 p.m. nap :). For me, it's catch as catch can. If I feel inspired to study, I should. Though it couldn't hurt to study in the evening, since dreams might solidify learning.

These days, I try to study French at both ends of the day. A morning dip into my French text (hey, I just finished French One! :) and an evening dip into a French children's book or poem. French music is my mid-day companion.

This week, I thought it quite fitting to compose a little poem based on the French saying, "Who has a good neighbor, has a good morning." I do think that the neighbor might be better or worse depending on how he's honoring his particular sleep patterns.


Qui a, Who Has

Qui a bon
voisin, who has
a good neighbor,
qui a bon matin,
has a good morning.

Qui a bon matin,
may, after nibbling
raisins and cinnamon,
coffee and cream,
be that sweet neighbor

who brings your
sweet morning in.

For more on sleep and learning, check out Brain Rules: sleep.

Apricot Peach Tea (doesn't keep me up at night) photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food, family stories). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

French on Fridays: After the Rain

I listened, as she told her son in French, "Here are your shoes." I lost the rest, focused on those few words I understood.

And each time I hear a French song, my mind picks out little things I've come to know... tomorrow, I love you, doll, don't leave me. I try to cherish moments of understanding, lose myself in the music, forget to be afraid of all I still don't know.

Today, the words of novelist Anthony Trollope echo my hopes for me and French. "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules." Yes, yes. I want this to be true. And so I whisper to my French, Tomorrow, I love you, doll, don't leave me.

Here is another phrase I am tucking away, part of my small daily task of study. I will keep it, to whisper as I need...

Après la pluie, le beau temps. After the rain, good weather.


Après la pluie,
le beau temps

After the rain,
après la pluie. After.
Après the weight of grey,
words that stray, slant,
sending swallows
(hirondelles) to hemlock
arms— sway,
spring, sway. After
the rain, après.
Le beau temps come.
Good weather hurries in,
on heels of wind. So
they say.

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Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

French on Fridays: Clusters, Macbeth and Thunder

Use clustering to learn.

This is one suggestion in Harary and Weintraub's Right Brain Learning In 30 Days. There are other suggestions, many having to do with the use of dreams (hey, Gordon! :)

Today I am focusing on the idea of clusters.

Mostly, Harary and Weintraub suggest writing anything and everything you can think of regarding the subject you're trying to learn. I'm modifying this a bit by using my daughter's graphic play (above) as a starting place, then trying to cluster in French. This may not be what H&W had in mind, but it's my cluster. So! :)



Clusters lead naturally to poetry (I also tend to use them before I begin a new chapter when writing a book). I'm not going to claim that clusters always lead to good poetry, but they are an excellent way to free the mind and, if H&W are correct, to learn.

Le Temps

Did Macbeth raise his eyes to
le temps, the weather urging him
on. Did he hear le tonnerre, thunder
of threat, in witches' voices and

les èclairs (lightning-surge of
his heart). Did he feel le vent, swirling
wind, which would sweep his soul
to nuage and brouillard. A storm (l'orage)

stirred greying heath, la pluie (the rain)
bid tragedy's start.


nuage - cloud
brouillard - fog

Macbeth Graphic Play, by Sara, 13. Used with permission.

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Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

French on Fridays: Make Me Laugh

Do you have something you want to learn? Try having fun with it.

Harary and Weintraub, authors of Right Brain Learning In 30 Days have a cool idea about the function of humor in learning. They say...

It is our opinion...that there is a kind of humor barrier that must be traversed before learning can become truly instinctive and intuitive on every level.... It is almost as though it is okay to learn, once it becomes okay to laugh.

The authors then suggest finding cartoons that relate to your field of study. Or making up silly sayings. Or bantering with fellow learners.

In this spirit, here's one of my new favorite funny French songs, Foux du FaFa. Like Jeanne Damoff says, anyone who took high school French will totally appreciate it. If you didn't take high school French, no worries. It's still good for a chuckle.



Foux du FaFa Lyrics

Scrabble photo by L.L. Barkat.

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Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

French on Fridays: One Swallow

Copying French by hand (and I do this with Spanish now too) is the perfect way to learn. This makes sense, and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. After all, it is a common home-education practice to have children engage in "copy work" as a way to teach them proper English.

Also, this morning as I traced the words of Neruda over and again with my finger, in big invisible letters I made right there on his pages, I was reminded of a Memory Theory that suggests the more senses we engage the more we retain (go here for that info, which is called into question by this particular source but I think has a level of accuracy).

In any case, it worked with Neruda this morning. I "wrote," read visually, and spoke the material aloud concurrently. Within minutes I remembered "Allí se estira y arde en la más alta hoguera/mi soledad que da veultas los brazos como un náufrago." (There my loneliness stretches itself and burns upon the tallest bonfire, twisting its arms like a drowning man.)

It might be slow going if you learn French with me by copying one little word at a time. But then you are just here for the fun. Here is my offering for this week. A whole phrase instead of a word!

Une hirondelle
ne fait pas
le printemps

One swallow. One
hirondelle, watercolor
brown. Does not make.
Ne fait pas.The Spring.
Le printemps.

Nor one seed, a field
of rippling golden wheat.
Or one drop of white-blue
rain the weep of April.
But one glance from you—

a flock, a field, a flood.

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Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

Need a little companionship to get the ball rolling? Take your French word over to Tweetspeak Poetry's game page and we can play a leisurely (untimed) poetry game together for a few days. It could make good grist. Also, we'd love to choose a few poems to feature next week at Tweetspeak!

French on Fridays

Bonjour. And welcome to French on Fridays (I understand that today is Thursday, but I wanted to give you a chance to get ready for tomorrow, this being the first time and all.)

Anyhow, French on Fridays is my way of trying to make sure I do a French post every week (or almost every week, except when I get lazy, busy, or forgetful). And if you like croissants, Paris, French movies, or even Edith Piaf, you are welcome to join me and leave your link below. I don't know how much French we'll learn. But we could have fun. And Cassandra might even share a few gateaux (cake) recipes if we're lucky.

Honestly, I have no idea where this is going to go. But by now you know that is a very "me" thing. Cast something to the sky and see where it drifts.

Today I am going to do something very simple and offer a poem-ish thing. I know that French can be very intimidating, but I hope that's not how this goes. I hope you feel free to look at your counter, find an empty wrapper and maybe write something about it using a single French word somewhere in your vignette or poem. Really, the sky's the limit.

Lesson

Jamais means 'never'
and only the French could bring
such softness to a word I would
prefer to close my eyes to as
I lounge upon my chaise. Oh, heck
you don't know French...

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Want to participate but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. If you feel comfortable doing so, you could link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.


Sonia at the Piano at Shakespeare & Co., Paris, photo by L.L. Barkat.

How to Learn French

Sometimes I get these crazy ideas in my head. Things I want to learn, for no particular reason. Studying French qualifies.

That said, I have my reasons...

1. Studying a language wards off senility; I may be a little early on this one, but that's okay

2. French is sexy and that has its appeal (true confession :)

3. When the ballet teacher says renversez, I remember I just learned it means "to spill." This kind of matches what I am supposed to do (bow from the waist, with a flat back and look graceful).

4. If I ever go to France again I can order my croissant in French instead of Spanish. This is a plus.

5. Some day I'll be able to read French poetry (sexy, times two)


This is all well and good, but studying French is one of the hardest things I've ever done (with the possible exception of beginning ballet as an adult.)


Here is what I'm doing to try to smooth the process:

1. Suspend my disbelief (this is hard to do when you've got a whole incomprehensible language before you, but I think it's essential)

2. Listen to French music every day; it helps me get that lilting pronunciation in my head

3. Read children's books. They are repetitive, which is good. I just have to hold back the sense that I can't even understand what the average French-speaking two-year-old can understand. (My current personal favorite is Je Vais Me Sauver)

4. Do one chapter in First Start French I every day. Try not to worry that I already forgot a third of yesterday's lesson.

5. When I'm not too lazy and forgetful, listen to that Frenchpod.com subscription I paid for. It I ever meet the President's wife, I will know how to say a proper hello. And if a friend falls during skiing I will know how to tell him to get back up after he renverse (spills himself not so gracefully).

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For anyone who is interested, here is the basic conjugation of the verb renverser, which means to spill, topple, turn over...

Present
je renverse
tu renverses
il renverse
nous renversons
vous renversez
ils renversent

Future
je renverserai
tu renverseras
il renversera
nous renverserons
vous renverserez
ils renverseront


Marseilles Top of City photo, by L.L. Barkat.