Enchantée tout le monde !
Sue in Paris….sounds a bit like Emily in Paris, except that it’s nothing like Emily in Paris :P. Allow me to take you down the memory lane of how I started learning French language and elaborate on my dream: Speak French Like A French.
Language has always piqued my interest right from childhood. Hailing from Calcutta, the old British capital of India, I spoke 3 languages growing up, which is pretty common for an average Indian. Why you ask? Well we have 31 officially recognized languages and if we don’t speak English/Hindi, we would just sound as foreign to our fellows as a French Canadian in Paris :P:P. Je rigole!
2003-2007–I majored in Japanese language and literature at the university. However, I sucked at spoken Japanese due to lack of effort and acute laziness. I slowly picked it up during my 9 years in Japan, to the point where I would often hear Japanese coworkers and friends telling me that if they listened to me eyes closed, they would think I were a Japanese :). And with that came the realisation, with hard work, you can pretty much achieve any goal you set for yourself. Just stop being a lazy bum, work on your projects, work a bit more and don’t let the new age ideas of doing the least to enjoy life the most get too much to your head; that’s all good but there’s no alternative to effort and dedication.
2007-2012– First welcome to the world of reality. I started my career as a Japanese bilingual technical translator/interpreter in an IT behemoth. “A fish out of water” is what I would label my feeling. While I had studied intense Japanese literature and language at the uni, technical jargons were never a part of it. However, with my Japanese counterpart I learnt to create a repertoire of domain based vocabulary, expressions and phrases, understand the nuances of the language and reflect them in my translations and interpretations. However I didnt want to limit my skill to language only and hence I took up several IT based certifications like ISTQB, ITIL, to advance in my career. Today when I look back, I feel glad that I decided to strike a balance between IT and language.
2012-2021-I lived as an expat in Japan- 1 year in Osaka and about 8 in Tokyo. Some of the best years of my life. I started my journey from being an inexperienced Client Service Manager to becoming a Global Service Delivery Manger in 2 of the Fortune 500 companies and it taught me a treasure trove of things! I am excited to share with you the ones I consider the closest to my heart:
1.Developing an eye for perfection tops my list. Don’t misunderstand me here, perfection is certainly a journey and not a destination (I am sure I am quoting it from someone, just don’t remember who exactly, do you know??). I learnt the effort Japanese people put in in order to make a project flawless. Doing your work well and making sure you provide the optimal quality is a great practice!
2.Kaizen– While many of you may have heard of this concept, I have lived it as well and am sure if you share my experience you will know Kaizen or continuous improvement is a business philosophy very evident in Japan. Interestingly, the method was developed by Americans after WW2 to help Japanese industries recover.
The Kaizen approach consists of 5 founding elements :
- teamwork,
- personal discipline,
- improved morale,
- quality circles,
- suggestions for improvement.
A really great way to enforce discipline, be it at work or school or in your personal life 🙂
3.Principles of 5S: This is something I carry close to my heart as it has changed much in me.
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- Sort- Reduce clutter by removing unnecessary items
- Set- Organize in proper order for easy operation.
- Shine- Maintain high standard of cleanliness.
- Standardize- Make the above 3 a norm.
- Sustain- Train and maintain these disciplines
My "Speak French Like A French" Journey
2021– I started learning French in 2021 September after having moved to Paris permanently embarking on my dream journey: to speak French like a French :). I had come with the determination that I will learn French and had already registered for an intensive course for a period of 10 months.
The determination I brought with me was levelled to ground right on day 1 of my school, when I was put with DELF (Diplome d’Études) A2 students by mistake. For the uninitiated, A1.1 is where baby learners like me with no prior knowledge of the language start. While I silently sat through those 4 long hours of excruciatingly painful experience, I had made up my mind to change my class and go for a more appropriate level, preferably A0, but they didn’t have one :P.
However, that night when I was having a calm and fantastique!! (You need to say it the French way, never going back to saying fantastic again, too drab)dinner in my apartment with cheese, charcuterie and wine, I took another decision to stick around at the same level for just one week, challenge myself just a bit and see how it feels.
You won’t believe by the end of the week….. I was still not speaking a word to save my dear frigging life (I guess you were expecting a miracle) but my ears got a tiny bit used to the incessant badgering in French. Well, at that point in my life, the most romantic language in the world sounded like a badgering to my ears.
However, in those 10 months, not only did I reach level C1 (Expert), I cleared DELF (Diplomes d’Etudes en Langue Fraçaise) B2 which is the government certified examination that will get you through pretty much most things in France. My teachers insisted that I directly go for DALF (Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française)C1 but I didn’t have the courage and I wanted to ensure that I at least clear the first ordeal to bolster my confidence. I am currently preparing for my DALF C1 (Update: I cleared C1!!). Here are my two pence worth of advice when learning French:
- Pronunciation: One of the most difficult aspects of this language, at least for me. Hence it is really important to make sure you build a stable base with the phonetics so that as you start adding difficult words to your repertoire, you are not left confused as to how to pronounce them. One of the channels I followed to help me with the pronunciation is this one. Although sometimes the quality of sound is not as great as I would like it to be, but the content is very helpful.
- Read a lot: As a beginner with very limited vocabulary, I naturally didn’t have the capability to dive into the beauty of French literature. Instead, I started with children’s story books :)…the ones with loads of sketches, and trust me it helped develop interest. I then gradually moved to the easy French version of Harry Potter books, as I know the entire series by heart anyway :). I also read them aloud to hear how I sound, which helps with the pronunciation part. Oh another thing, you can also buy bilingual books where one page is in English and the next one has its translation, great support!
- Watching French TV: If you are already not aware, Canal Plus (+) has some great entertainment apart from our regular Netflix and Prime. After a few months of beginning my French lessons, I changed the subtitles to French too and it helped quite a bit. Also, Journal en Français Facile is a great source of listening to the news, and you can even read the transcript. I made it a habit to listen to it for 10 minutes every morning. Definitely recommend language exchange groups on Facebook too. I will be providing a list of useful links (mostly free, some paid) in my Language Resources page.
- Have fun! When I was learning Japanese I was too worried about making mistakes and sounding stupid and hence missed a lot of opportunities to interact. However, that me has changed and right from the onset of my French language journey, I made sure I spoke French no matter how good or bad it sounded. That helped me gain confidence. It was all about changing my perspective. Remember what Dr. Wayne Dyer said: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
