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[frenchy]

Technically, I can speak French.  But not really.  In my particular field, however, people generally possess a level of fluency far beyond what I have, and it tends to make me very anxious.

I can't afford - and don't really have time - to do an intensive program like Middlebury.  Any suggestions?

[galactic_hedgehog]

Any French-speaking friends you can get together with for coffee and français-ing?

[dept_geek]

The search engine, while cranky, is your friend. This is a pretty recent topic

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,51158.0.html


Welcome, BTW.

[frenchy]

Thanks galactic hedgehog.  Here's the deal: Any opportunities for language practice are almost certainly centered around my campus and colleagues.  But I'm hesitant to admit my lack of fluency for fear of looking like a total fraud. 

Thanks for the links, dept geek.  I think listening to some tapes and watching some movies/news in French would help my comprehension, but it's primarily my speaking skills that concern me.  And for that, there's no substitute for regular conversation.

Perhaps I will just have to suck it up, admit the problem, and get the practice.

[galactic_hedgehog]

Any chance your colleagues feel the same way?

[antiphon1]

Sounds like time for a research trip to France.  Durn ya'. 

One of my former colleagues spent about a month in France every year to keep her conversational skills sharp.  One year she took classes at a university and stayed in the dorms.  The next year she worked at a theater. 

I wish my language was French.

[baka_janai]

I think listening to some tapes and watching some movies/news in French would help my comprehension, but it's primarily my speaking skills that concern me.  And for that, there's no substitute for regular conversation.

First of all, I think you'd be shocked to see an actual transcript of conversation in French (or any other language).  It's very different "stuff" from the sort of language most people seem to want to learn.

As far as expanding your repertoire of conversational language, movies can be great (as can soap operas) -- it all depends on what you do with them.  If all you do is "watch" them, then you're right that this will only work on your listening comprehension.  On the other hand, if you listen AND WRITE DOWN "chunks" of conversational language you will soon find yourself recycling some of those chunks in your own language use. 

The main difference between novice and expert speakers of a language is that experts have access to a much larger repertoire of "stock phrases," while the novice tries (often in vain) to generate utterances based on a grammatical scaffolding.  In contrast, experts are primarily cutting and pasting from prior experience.

I regularly have my "false beginner" language students watch movies and record "chunks" in a journal.  What is amazing is how different the chunks they write down are from anything they would generate themselves.

BTW, here are a couple of my favorite quotes (which I will leave unattributed because I suspect that this would please the writers):

'It has been noted before that to a very considerable extent everyday language is built up out of combinations of such prefabricated parts. Language is, in other words, to be viewed as a kind of pastiche, pasted together in an improvised way out of ready-made elements.”

“And I repeat my own prior words, not just those of others.  I reshape what I hear and read, make it my own, and use it over and over again, reshaping as I go.  My competence is in reshaping.  I accumulate a repertoire of prior texts which are evoked when I read or hear an Other, and out of that changing accumulation I speak and write and understand.  None of us can plumb the depths of our plagiarism.”

[baka_janai]

Another good unacknowledged quote:

“…speaking is more similar to remembering procedures and things than it is to following rules.”

[pandora]

Two little exercises I do to try to keep a bit of my "ear":  listening to RFI here, and reading / listening to DVDs with either French subtitles or with French voiceover.  "Sex & the City" is pretty entertaining in French, too -- plus you get to pick up some coarse language (not all of it, though!).  You're likely to find both subtitles and voiceover on many films and television series.  And I just recently figured out the short-cut to changing both through the little controller strip at the bottom of the computer screen, rather than going through the menu of special features on a DVD, which can be frustrating or confusing.  Not a perfect substitute for conversing with an actual person, but very easy to do on a daily basis.

[ideagirl]

Go to your library (university or public) and see if they can get the Pimsleur French CDs in on interlibrary loan. I mean the big, expensive Pimsleur program, not the little 8-hour CD programs for tourists. My guess is you probably want at least the level II, given that you already have semidecent proficiency in French. There are 3 levels, each of which normally costs about $300, which is why I'm suggesting the library (I have seen Pimsleur programs in libraries).

This is my advice as a fluent French speaker, former Berlitz teacher of French,* and frequent user of Pimsleur CDs in other languages... I also saw Pimsleur French work wonders for a woman I was tutoring.

* The reason I'm not recommending Berlitz is because it sounds like you only need to brush up your speaking/listening abilities, not your written ability; Pimsleur is all-oral, totally focused on speaking/listening.

[frenchy]

Thanks for all these great suggestions!  Pandora, I listened to a few exercises on RFI just now and I can tell it will be really helpful (I just lose my ear for French if I go months or years without hearing it regularly).  Ideagirl, I'm going to look into these Pimsleur CDs. 

And then I will just have to find some partners for conversation. 

[llanfair]

If you're near enough to Québec to pick up the French-language radio and TV stations, they can be very useful as well.

Bonne chance!