Amie's Adventures in Education

This week, in my free time, I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix. I stumbled upon a show “Emily in Paris,” and I thought it would be fun to watch. Little did I know, they would be speaking a lot of French in the show, so I thought it would be perfect to use for my learning project.

There would be translations of the French that was spoken on the screen. Some words came up more than other words. I watched the show with my family and even they picked up on some French words, which I thought was cool! I also looked at this site to review some of the phrases I have learned from the show.

Here’s a few of the phrases I picked up:

You’re welcome=vous etes les bienvenus

Je Tiens A Toi= I care about you

Je suis fier de toi=I’m proud of you

La plouc=hillbilly (lol) Emily was called this a lot in the show.

Overall, using Emily in Paris to learn French was a fun and humbling experience. The show was interesting to watch to see what life in France is like and to indulge in the romance of it. It was humbling because of knowing how much work it takes to fluently learn French. I don’t think I’ll be fluent in French by the end of this 🙁 but I’ll definitely know some more phrases that I haven’t before!!

This week, I used Learning with French Pod 101 on YouTube to learn new French words and also iMovie to edit a video of showing you my progress with the language.

I originally tried to use the YouTube video editor to edit my video, but it wasn’t coming up. So, I thought that iMovie was my next best option to edit my video. I found it helpful to have the words on the screen, so that my viewers can follow along with what I’m saying. It helped me to see it as well!

I learned a few new common French words to help aid in my conversation in French. The videos from Learning with French Pod 101 were helpful. The facilitator sounds the word multiple times, so that we had the chance to practice the word and also used the word in a sentence. I recommend this channel to anybody that is beginning to learn French.

I tried adding music to my video as well, but I found that the music was too loud and overpowered my voice. I’m not sure if you can tone down the volume of the music or not. (Hey, I’m a beginner). I found that adding the subtitles was sufficient enough for the length of the video. But, one day, I hope to be a pro video editor like some of the videos that I see on YouTube!!

This week, I tried out Duolingo Super to practice learning French. Every time I was practicing, the app kept asking me to try out a free trial of Duolingo Super for fourteen days, so I decided to try it to see if it would be any different than the regular, ordinary Duolingo. There are a few differences that I have noticed.

For starters, with Duolingo Pro, you have an unlimited number of “hearts,” which means you can make as many mistakes as you want, and still be able to continue with the lesson. I like this feature because it doesn’t boot you from the lesson and make you wait longer to continue practicing.

With Duolingo Pro, you also have “ranks,” which means you can compete against other app users and earn “XP” (or experience points) to level up in your rank from completing lessons. There is a bronze league, a silver league and a gold league. I think this is pretty cool because it makes me motivated to continue learning more French and to see if I can level up higher against other participants.

I noticed myself skipping around different units this week because the “introducing myself” unit seemed too easy for me. I learned a few new things from that unit, but most of the other things I knew. I skipped to the “use the present tense” unit and it seemed to be at the right difficulty level for me. I learned how to say where I live, that I’m a student studying in a certain place,  how to ask others where they’re from where they’re studying, where I work, where I live, what languages I speak,  and even commands for my dog!

All and all, Duolingo Super is nice but I don’t think it’s worth $119/year. The few differences such as having unlimited “hearts” and ranks is not worth it to me. I’m okay with waiting if I run out of “hearts” for a little while to complete a lesson and not to see my position in ranks, although it does make learning more motivational. In the end, I won’t be using Duolingo Super but it was nice to try it out for a bit.

This week, I used Duolingo to practice learning French. I initially started my learning at the second section because I have a small background in French but I found that too difficult. I didn’t know how to translate the phrases that were being given, so I started at section 1. Section 2 was too advanced for my level I found.

There are five different time frames that you can choose to practice throughout the day. This includes anywhere from 2-20 minutes. I decided to go with 20 minutes as I want to be committed to learning as much French as possible in the upcoming weeks. Along with the twenty minutes each day, I would do extra practice sections to ensure my comprehension in what I had just practiced.

I found Duolingo to be quite fun because the app is like a game. With each section, you earn XP which then “levels you up” to the next module. You can also earn a streak which motivates you to keep practicing each day. If you don’t practice each day, you will lose your streak.

The only downfall about Duolingo is if you want to practice extra, then you have to have enough “hearts” to continue on. If you make a mistake, you lose a “heart.”  To gain more “hearts,” you have to wait an hour or longer or pay for Duolingo Pro which is $119/year which is out of a lot of people’s budgets.

All in all, I enjoyed Duolingo to practice learning French. It’s very motivating and fun with how you can “level up” to different modules and have an on-going streak. But, I don’t like that you have to pay for Duolingo Pro to get extra “hearts” if I want to practice extra.

Week 1 Practicing French

For my learning project, it was between journaling, cooking and learning French. At the end of it all, I decided to learn French. I ultimately decided on French because the only language I know fluently is English and although I may not be fluent in French by the end of this, I want to be able to speak and write a little more in the French language.

I do have a bit of background in French from being in French classes in elementary school and from taking French 100 at the university (but that was a long time ago). So, I want to refresh my mind on what I already know and to learn how to be able to have a conversation with someone in French. My background knowledge in French includes:

• the months of the year
• the days of the week
• the colours
• the seasons
• some numbers
• basic sayings such as “My name is…”

I will eventually be teaching French to my students potentially, so I want to know a bit of how to converse in French and be confident that I know it off hand instead of having to look it up. One  of the resources that I plan on using is Duolingo.

Another resource that I plan on using is different YouTube channels to help me walk through speaking and writing in French. I am very excited but also nervous to begin because learning a new language takes A LOT of motivation & practice. But, I am looking forward to being able to speak and write a bit in French by the end of this! I wish everyone good luck on their learning projects going forward!

Sincerely,

Amie