Learning words in pairs (French)

Factual Questions
1

I’m going to try to study some French on my own this summer (they aren’t offering any classes at my level) so that this fall I will feel more comfortable in the French literature class.

As I’ve said in previous threads, my main problem with spoken French is searching for the right word (well, duh). I mean, I don’t have an issue with verb conjugation or sentence syntax, or even pronunciation. The moment I struggle to find the right word, however, all sense flies out the window and my social anxiety kicks in and I can no longer speak. It’s really frustrating and holding me back.

Being comfortable with my classmates and professor isn’t an issue- French is not a popular subject down here so I know most of the kids in my class, and my teacher(s) is/are really nice. I don’t have an issue speaking in class when it’s planned- I did a presentation on the French Revolution for my conversation class and didn’t have any more of an issue with it than I would in any other public-speaking thing. I had note cards with minimal notes and the words that I would be most likely to forget and I did all right. After the presentation, though, when my class mates asked questions, it was horrible. Someone asked if Marie Antionette really said “Let them eat cake” and I wanted to answer, “No, it’s just a myth. There’s no proof she said anything of the sort,” but I don’t know the word for myth and just stuttered, “Non, c’est… euh… non.” Similar projects where we’d grab a partner and be given a scenario to act out were fine- we’d have 5 minutes to plan so I’d ask about or look up any words I’d need that I didn’t know. So, my vocabulary is the major roadblock to progressing, because I freak out if I don’t know a word or have to search for it. I hate resorting to franglais because of course my teacher frowned upon it, but also felt like an idiot if everyone else knows the word I need but I don’t.

So, I want to build up my vocabulary so that doesn’t happen as frequently, and I might be able to participate in classes more. I am making flash cards and study sheets and was thinking how a single index card seems like such a waste for only one word. I wondered if drawing a line down the middle of the card, and having two related words would help me learn them better. For instance, having the words for “gear shift” and “steering wheel” together or, I dunno, something like that.

I saved a lot of my old textbooks, and I’m sure you know how each chapter often has a theme with vocabulary related to it. I, being the terrible student I am, don’t know all the vocab from every book, so I thought perhaps taking each chapter’s specialized vocabulary and making flash cards in pairs might make it easier.

Would that be too confusing? At this point, even if I said gear shift when I meant steering wheel would be a huge improvement over saying nothing at all. Seriously, there’s nothing more frustrating than remembering the word for stained-glass window but forgetting both the words for spill and spot when attempting to describe spilling ketchup on yourself.

Oh, and just thought I’d add- my memory is really good, I dunno if that makes a difference. But of course, the volume of things to remember when learning a new language is huge, so it becomes more difficult the less you use it. I don’t want to get to a point where I give up, because I need to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language to get into grad school. I’m just brainstorming ways to improve my French skills so I can take that literature class in the fall.

2

What people do around here is substitute the word in their own language. The hearer will often know enough to supply it anyway. If your teacher thinks that it is bettter to be tongue-tied than to gain fluency by just barging ahead wtih, “Non, c’est un myth” he is a mighty poor educator. After you are fluent you can build your vocbulary.

My next door neighbor speaks English much better than I speak French, so we generally speak English together. But he will sub the French word (which I would usually know passively) when he cannot find the English.

My wife used to teach French in NJ. She says that the most important thing is to get the kids past the self-concious stage where they can’t say anything.

3

No experience with what you are trying to do. But if I were you, and were thinking of making up flash cards with pairs of words, I’d look for words that were a little more closely related than “gear shift” and “steering wheel”. I might put “brother” and “sister” on a card, but I think I’d focus a lot on opposites --“easy” and “difficult” , “hard” and “soft”, “remember” and “forget”.

4

It is my entirely unresearched opinion that fluency in a language comes from learning a large amount of stock phrases which people then string together. When you think in English, I seriously doubt you construct your sentences one word at a time. Right there I used three common phrases ‘I seriously doubt’ ‘construct a sentence’ and ‘one word at a time’. So you may be even further ahead to learn phrases.

5

I’d echo that. In some ways it’s more useful to get a phrase book, and learn phrases wholesale. Then you can swap out individual words as needed. So from “Pardon me, can you tell me where the train station is?” you can get “Pardon me, can you tell me where the loo/Mona Lisa/Eiffel Tower is?”

Plus, I recommend just reading books – start with something easy, like kids’ books – and just look up the words you don’t know. But let your emphasis be on learning whole phrases – sentences, even – or expressions of more than one word.

6

I tutor college students in Spanish. Often, when they have the problem it sounds like you are describing, they are trying to translate too closely from English. In your example, you were looking for the fairly uncommon word “myth.” You probably could have done better with, “Non, non est vrai” (pardon my French if that’s not correct, like I said I tutor students in Spanish…). Or define the uncommon term from simpler words “a story that is not true.” Stick to using the words and phrases you know. Build your dialog in French, don’t build it in English first then translate it. Such is the path to much bad franglais, since translating word for word can easily lead to phrases no French person would use.

I won’t deny that it’s frustrating as you wait for your vocabulary to grow, but it will. To the advice above about reading I will add–listen to music in French. This will help embed French phrases in your brain for easy retrieval, so you won’t be as tempted to fish around in English.

7

“Non, çe n’est pas vrai”.

The unfortunate thing in the given example, though, is that the French word for “myth” is mythe

I’m kind of in the same boat… I grew up in Québec, speaking French, but I did all my schooling in English and spent 6 years in Ontario, so I’ve lost a LOT of vocabulary! It’s slowly coming back, but it can be very frustrating. The worst is a work, since I studied the field I work in in English, I had never had to learn the French terms, so I had a lot of catching up to do when I started working here!

8

I kind of suspected it was “mythe” but that is irrelevant. Certainly, it is good to learn phrases, but you may know the set phrase but not the word you want to substitute. You doubtless learned, say, “C’est un stylo” but now you want to replace pen by myth and you don’t know the word. Go on, and when the hearer hears the word in English, it may well trigger his memory. It happens to me in the other direction regularly.

9

“Non, ce n’est pas vrai” actually. :wink: The ‘c’ already makes a soft sound in front of the ‘e’, so you don’t need to add the cedilla.

10

I’m a native French speaker and learned English at a young age. However, I did study Spanish and Japanese later in my life. I have become quite fluent in the later, and the amount of new vocabulary I had to learn to achieve that is frightening (in retrospect).

I used flash cards a lot, they’re useful, but only to a certain extent. Association is key, in my view, to learning vocabulary and making it stick. When you over-use flash cards, you will tend to associate the words on them with… flash cards. Words always have a context and vocabulary lists effectively removes that.

Working in pairs might not be totally useless, but I would say that in my experience, creating strong visual images and associations helps a lot. When you learn a new word, try to think of where that word comes up in your daily life. “Livre”… I have a bookshelf full of books next to my desk at work… Every time I see it I think of the word “livre”, I even mouth it or say it out loud. Actually, I don’t need to do that, as I’m a native speaker but you get the drift.

It’s easy for common objects such as books or chairs. However, even abstract concepts have certain situations that you would associate with. In the event that these aren’t the sort of situations you face regularly, use the flash cards but be very careful to image yourself as vividly as possible in a situation where you would use that word.

Making up stories with inter-linguistic puns and associations also helped me sometimes. Here’s a not so good one I just made up: cat -> persian cat -> Persia -> Iran -> shah -> chat. (“Cat” and “chat” are almost the same, so that’s not a particularly good example, but if I create an image of a Persian ruler with a cat on his lap, all I need to do to remember the French word for “cat” is ask myself who this man is.) Sometimes you put so much effort into making those images or stories that when you’re finished, you’ve already learned the word.

11

You know, I typed that really quickly without the cedilla, backspace, put it in, backspace, took it out, put it back in and left it. I knew something was wrong but for some reason, it didn’t seem like that was it! Gaudere, right?

12

Hari, I have the exact same problem with language-learning. I pick up grammar and pronunciation quite well, at a normal rate if not more than the average student. But I have a terrible time with remembering vocabulary. It just never sticks, and I’ve tried a lot of things. Of course, the best way is come across a word in a natural setting a number of times, and then it will stick, but that can’t really be arranged.

However, based on that premise I came up with an idea today that I’m going to try out on myself in my Hindi studies. Keep in mind this is purely theoretical, and not tested for efficacy yet by me: every time you come across a new word, write a sentence using it composed of all other words you feel extremely comfortable with. The idea behind this is that it will simulate the ‘click’ of finding the word in context. I bet if you use visual imagery in the sentence, it’d help. Anyay, I’m sure this idea isn’t original, but I figured it might be worth something. I’ll try to report back with my success or lack thereof.

edit: oh yeah, and when I say ‘write’, I mean physically write the sentence out, don’t just compose it in your head. If you’re anything like me, the physicality will help reinforce the memory.

13

Reading is a great way to increase your vocabulary. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend looking up all the words you don’t know, though: try using the context to work out what the word means. This may get you thinking more actively about the word, and this may help you remember it better than if you just looked it up, wrote it down, and forgot about it.

And read something easy, but I’m not so sure about kid’s books. They can be boring, and surprisingly complex in terms of language. I’d go for relatively simple books aimed at your age group. Maybe also try a translation of a book you’ve already read in your native language too.

Worked well for me, but of course YMMV.

14

Well, in any case you pronounce it Nepavré… :slight_smile: and when you’re speaking it, nobody can see your misspellings!

The OP is doing something that I’ve seen many people do. What you need to do is not try to memorize the dictionary; when you can’t find the right word, you can indicate you’re having a bit of a problem, un petit probléme, and then:

  • pile words up until the other person understands you (the cool thing about doing this with English is that, because English does this a lot, sometimes you even manage to hit on a right way to say what you wanted! Pity it doesn’t work that way with French)

  • define it. It doesn’t have to be a “dictionary definition”, a dictionary would never define “veal” as “like pork only moo” but people understand it.

  • say the English word and when the other person gives you the French word, repeat it to make sure you got the pronounciation right.

The only people I’ve ever seen laughing at others’ attempts to speak a foreign language were… monolinguals who’d never tried it and had forgotten it took them many years to master their single language. Pitiful, vraiment!

15

Are you close to the Canadian border, such that you’d receive a French-broadcasting channel? When learning Spanish, I’ve found that watching TV helped out a lot. First with closed captions, but soon enough they become unnecessary. Find a soap opera, and watch it daily.

16

Another possibly helpful suggestion. Keep a journal or diary in French. Write a couple of pages every day. Look up words that are useful, but also try the suggestion above of explaining words you don’t know/can’t remember. It’s another way of putting words into cotext.

17

Another detail:

keep in mind that there are many cases where two words which are the correct translation… don’t exactly mean the same. If you’re trying to find “the French word which means exactly the same as this English word in every situation,” you’ll fail repeatedly.

For example: english soil. Translation to Spanish? Suelo (there’s others).

But Suelo also means pavement and floor! It’s simply not a 1-to-1 relationship.

18

A vocabulary game we did once in high school, don’t do it too much because it’ll get old fast, but it’s a good occasional exercise:

  • choose a word in English.
  • write its translation(s) in French.
  • then write words which are related to these other words in either language or through translation, and keep expanding the circles until you run out of paper or get tired.

One of the relationships we had was
rojo (spanish) - the color… red (english)
so net (english) - because in spanish net or web is a red
then clean (english) - because the catalan word net means clean. The teacher had to take my word for this, since I was the only one who knew catalan beyond what you’d use on vacation :slight_smile:
And from there we moved to broom, because you use a broom to clean. We filled the blackboard twice in a 50’ class.

19

reading and speaking are really the only way to competently build vocabulary. To aid in this, I’ve encouraged students to keep a notebook specifically for vocabulary. When you run across a word/phrase you don’t know, find out the definition and write it down in the notebook. Once a week, review the words you’ve written down. Ones that show up more than once are ones you should make a special note of; put them on a separate sheet/card and add them to a daily review.

You will be amazed at how quickly you will pick up the vocabulary, which is really the essential step in learning any language. I’m often amazed at how some students will spend so much time mastering the intricate grammar of the subjunctive and yet fail to automatically identify rather common words; if you want any hope of mastering a language, vocabulary is where you must concentrate your efforts.