thanks for the nice words. I would definitely go for ASSIMIL, it is one of the best series for getting started in language learning. If you have any other question on how to best use it and how to progress, feel free to drop me a line at my blog (www.thepolyglotdream.com)

Good luck with your studies! :-)

Luca

I’ve really been inspired by your videos. I’m 50 and living in Montreal, Quebec as you may know is a French province in Canada. I’m embarrassed to say that I am not bilingual. I’ve lived and worked in the “english ghetto” so I have been lazy with learning french. But I am getting more pressure at work and I truly desire to learn but all the courses I’ve taken have gone in one ear and out the other because I have been very shy to speak. I’m afraid of making mistakes and sounding stupid. I believe in your method because I always found if I wrote things down I retained the information better. Now I need your advice: you have mentioned Assimil and Teach Yourself. Which one do you recommend I start with? I already have a basic vocabulary but I have to learn how to form proper sentences and increase my vocabulary and build my confidence. I have plenty of opportunity to practice…shame on me! When I first saw one of your videos I thought you were American! It was only when I read more that I discovered you were Italian! I felt if you can learn 9+ languages I can at least learn French!!! What you said about grammar is true…it just scares people (like me). I look forward to your advice and thank you for sharing your knowledge with all of us.

Cathy

Let’s suppose that I myself am a native English speaker in the process of learning French. I would do the following:

Day X: read dialogue 4 (let’s suppose that you are currently dealing the fourth lesson) in French (L2) by confronting it with the English version. Read and listen, highlight, try to UNDERSTAND everything. In the same day, you’ll review lesson 2 and 3

Day X+1: read dialogue 4 again and listen to it again. Read lesson 5 (you don’t need to study a new lesson every day, if you feel like you are going too fast, stop and review the preceding lesson) and rievew dialogue 2 and the 2

Day x+2: write down lesson 4 (handwriting or on a .doc file) in ENGLISH (not in French!): you have to look at the French text and write down the corresponding version in your L1. The goal here is to NOTICE and UNDERSTAND. If you translate a whole text from one language into the other (and there is no reason why you shouldn’t succeed, given that you have both texts at your disposal), it should be adamant that you have understood the whole text. By doing so, you will notice quite a few things that eluded you when simply approaching the text by simple reading and listening

From this point you can keep listening to the text of lesson 4 (as well as the preeding lessons)as much as you can. Just stop doing that (that is, stop reviewing the lesson) and wait for 4-5 more days before moving on the SYNTHESIS. I suggest you not wait for 3 weeks until you retranslate it BACK INTO FRENCH. The technique DOES NOT IMPLY ACTIVE MEMORIZATION of a text. That is the secret! The goal of the technique is to show you the bricks and how to put them together. If you don’t remember a word, it doesn’t matter, the most important thing is that you are learning a language ACTIVELY, figuring out its fabric (how the “bricks” (words) are put together)

You wrote:

At the moment with Assimil I’m doing the daily lesson, writing the French out by hand, shadowing and or reading the preceeding 5-6 lessons, typing in French the lesson from two weeks previously and using the French to re-type in English three weeks later. This means today I completed lesson 45, reviewed 38-44, typed in French 31 and translated 10 from French to English. Next week I will commence translating the English back to French. This all takes me around one hour.

Yeah, the technique implies multiple operations performed every day. I suggest you make the schedule a little shorter though (10-14 days instead of 3 weeks should be the time span between the first reading of a text and its synthesis)

> As you can see it is the same as what you recommend but drawn out over a longer period. I decided to do it this way to help improve my retention. I will begin to see whether my method is successful next week when I begin translating back into French. Would you recommend that I continue the way I’m going or do the translating backwards and forwards immediately?

> I am using FSI French Basic and I’ve completed 4 lessons. I am finding it very good for retention because of repetition. Should I stop using the FSI or continue using it when I have the time?

I don’t know the FSI, but if you like it, go for it :-) Start using just ONE language course at the very beginning. You can always integrate it with other materials later

> One final thing, I read recently that it could be a good idea to use one foreign language to learn another. By doing this you are practicing one while learning another. I speak a little bit of Italian but it is quite rusty so I have ordered Assimil’s ‘Il Francese Senza Sforzo’ and ‘Perfezionamento del Francese’ for later. Do you thing this is a good idea or not? Have you done this yourself?

It is an excellent idea, provived that you speak the other language rather well. Otherwise, I suggest you stick to your mother tongue (L1) to help yourself learng a L2

Hope this helps :-)

If you have any other question, feel free to ask them directly on my blog: http://www.thepolyglotdream.com

Luca

Thanks for your videos on youtube and your website. I only discovered you, so to speak, this evening and thought I must write to thank you and to ask you a couple of things. Your recommendations on how to study a language are very similar to what I’m currently doing with French.

At the moment with Assimil I’m doing the daily lesson, writing the French out by hand, shadowing and or reading the preceeding 5-6 lessons, typing in French the lesson from two weeks previously and using the French to re-type in English three weeks later. This means today I completed lesson 45, reviewed 38-44, typed in French 31 and translated 10 from French to English. Next week I will commence translating the English back to French. This all takes me around one hour.

As you can see it is the same as what you recommend but drawn out over a longer period. I decided to do it this way to help improve my retention. I will begin to see whether my method is successful next week when I begin translating back into French. Would you recommend that I continue the way I’m going or do the translating backwards and forwards immediately?

I am using FSI French Basic and I’ve completed 4 lessons. I am finding it very good for retention because of repetition. Should I stop using the FSI or continue using it when I have the time?

One final thing, I read recently that it could be a good idea to use one foreign language to learn another. By doing this you are practicing one while learning another. I speak a little bit of Italian but it is quite rusty so I have ordered Assimil’s ‘Il Francese Senza Sforzo’ and ‘Perfezionamento del Francese’ for later. Do you thing this is a good idea or not? Have you done this yourself?

Thanks for your time and keep up the good work. Vielen Dank, merci e mille grazie. Tu (d’accordo?) sei un personaggio molto interessante e mi piacerebbe visitarti a Roma. Devo fare un po’ di pratica con mio italiano!