Hey readers,

Over the week of reading week I spent much of it driving. A buddy and I hopped into a car, drove to Fernie to meet with a couple other buddies, and then we all went to Calgary, and then back to Fernie, and then my buddy and I made our way back home. If you were wondering, yes, I am sick of driving. If you are also wondering what this has to do with my learning project, let me explain!

For the 9+ hour trips to Fernie and back to Saskatchewan, I did do a little bit of DuoLingo… My friend kept laughing at my attempts to speak French whenever prompted, and he was driving so I did not want to annoy him the whole way.

The solutions I came up with to get around this were:

A) Use Headphones

and

B) Try something other than DuoLingo!

And with that, I set off on trying to find some YouTube videos… In my previous blog posts I have not included many links, so I thought it would be something new to incorporate some more links to my blog of the videos I viewed, and additionally, give my opinion on how effective some of these videos were for me.

1. 100 Easy French Phrases to Learn

I thought that this was a great video. I like that it cuts to the chase; often times the videos I watched tend to ramble on for the first few minutes, which I find disengaging. It includes many phrases I was familiar with, and many that I had not learned yet. It was a bit slow-paced, so I put it on 1.25x playback speed and listened to it a couple times. I also learned a great new phrase which summed up most of my trip:

Je m’ennuie, which means “I’m bored”.

2. French Greetings (And other videos by this creator!)

This was another great video that I found, and I actually recommend this entire channel. I have watched a few of her videos, and they are extremely helpful in supplement of the DuoLingo app. On DuoLingo, I have been learning many greetings in my “beginning” phases of the app, so this video specifically catered to what I have been learning quite nicely.

3. Learn French in 25 Minutes.

At first, I was not a fan of this video… I’m not sure why, I think maybe the ad at the beginning of the channel trying to sell me something had something to do with it. But I gave it a second chance, since it is literally the first video that popped up when I searched “french for beginners” on YouTube. I really liked this video. It explains some of the nuances of French language that I have been finding really tricky! For example, casual language/formal language and feminine/masculine nouns are explained in this video. Feminine and masculine nouns have been giving me serious grief!!!

I am not much of a visual learner, particularly when it comes to watching videos, so this experience was something a little bit out of my “educational wheelhouse”, however I really enjoyed doing this. I think I might have needed something other than DuoLingo, as I found that trying something else in addition to DuoLingo really remotivated me to continue learning! I am now at 27 days straight of using DuoLingo, and am branching off into other methods of learning. I plan on making flash cards for many of the words I have been finding to be tricky, however I am open to any suggestions on any other methods I should try!

Thanks for reading! Au revoir!