Successful

As the title suggests in response to today’s WordPress writing prompt, the one thing burning within me that I would like to achieve, and then I’ll feel  like a success, is to move from conversational/intermediate level in my reading,writing and general comprehension of the French language to  somewhat fluent.

For about two to three years I’ve studied the language, and some might say by now I should be fluent. Maybe so, but I’ve never really been in a rush to be perfect, it’s always been just a general interest of mine. That changed in 2016, something shifted in me and I have a new level of motivation. It could be  as  I have three French  exams in May speaking,listening,reading and writing! I need to pass if I want my language certification, and to feel some kind of success, no one sits an exam and wants to fail or gain a poor grade.

If you’ve ever tried to master a new language you may be able to relate to how I feel, when learning a language for me personally one skill always outweighs my ability to do another. For example my problem is I can read and write so much more better in French. (Well, my French speaking girlfriend and penpal in Paris may disagree with me, she may  laugh her head off at my bad  French in my letters). But I feel that my confidence in the language is via reading and writing, more so than listening to spoken French. It might be all the years of practice I’ve had via writing letters  in French why my skill is better in this area. If someone speaks to me in French quite slowly, I’ll pick up most of it and understand, but maybe not straight away depending on what they say. But if you write it down I will understand straight away. To back this point up even more, I have downloaded some French easy to read young adult books from Amazon and I understand, but when I listen to the audio I have to pause and go back and listen again and so forth. So I have really started to work on my speaking and listening skills. I’ve started to watch some TV shows in French I’ve found on Netflix and You Tube. 

So as they say, slow and steady wins the race right? OK well here I go, I’m preserving with my learning and spending a lot more time on Skype talking  with language partners and listening to French by having general conversations with others, rather than hiding behind my pen and paper to practice. This new way of language mastering is  in hope that by May I can say yes I am successful, I have moved up a notch in my fluency, and no longer need to say  as often” ah can you repeat that for me again, please” so many times, before I understand ! Once this has reduced, I can then say yep I feel much more a success in my language skills.

Have you ever tried to learn a language or new skill? What did you do to master the language? And feel successful in your learning attempts?