Immersion: Day Un

Immersion in a language is essential if you want to learn it. It's difficult when you work a full time job and write articles freelance on the side, as you're constantly speaking and writing in English, so this blog will hopefully be a conscious effort to write and think in Francais.

I know, I know, this is another post in English but it's kind of like day one now and I'm not quite ready to write a tout au Francais. I don't even know if that sentence makes sense!

So what am I doing to kick this off?

• Peppering my sentences with French words. Whenever I learn un mot nouveau I try to use it in my English sentences. This builds up my confidence and helps me to get flowing.
• I've changed my Facebook language to Francais. So far I've learned that j'aime means "like" j'aime non plus means "unlike" and peut-etre means "maybe". 
• I've changed my Chrome language to Francais. Nouvel Onglet means "new tab" and traduire means "translate"
• I've changed my phone language to Francais. This has impacted all of my apps. I haven't learned much from that yet but we'll get there soon.
• I've also changed LinkedIn to Francais. I use that a lot for work so hopefully soon I'll learn a few more career related words.

My next task is learning some filler phrases: things like "exactly right" "funny you should ask" and "no you're completely wrong". I've already remembered a few easy ones: bon idee, c'est tres interessant, and I've realised that mais means but.

So next time one of you sees me in the pub, achete moi un boisson sil vous plais! Vin rouge. ;)

My Language Goals

Hello! I'm Jemma. I'm twenty six and I can only speak English. I've lived in Edinburgh my whole life, so the miniscule amount of French I learned as a child and the German I learned at high school are pretty much a distant memory.

At the last election I said  "If David Cameron becomes Prime Minister, I'm leaving the country." Sadly, he did, and although I was jesting I don't think I can sit here any longer watching him carve up the NHS and throwing low income families to the dogs.

So I've decided to learn French. Sure the French government isn't perfect either, but at least I'll have access to good wine and cheese and sunshine. The easiest way to learn a language is to throw yourself in at the deep end, so I've started this blog so that I can practice. This will be one of very few blog posts in English.

According to Benny the Irish polyglot, the first thing I need to do is set myself some precise objectives of where I would like to be at the end of this project. So here we go.

By 1st August 2012, I want to be able to have a conversation with a French native without them looking at me as though I'm mental and without having to whip out my phone to search for words on Google Translate. I want to be able to converse freely about the kind of things that I normally talk about at home, in English, to people that I've just met.

Topics that I would normally discuss are my work history and ambitions, my food and travel blog, my other hobbies such as yoga and reading, and why I decided to move to France. I don't just want to be able to order my dinner in a restaurant: I want to be able to understand recipes to discover authentic French cuisine, and be able to share my own favourite Scottish recipes with my new French friends. If I'm living over there I'd also need to be able to engage in conversation with shop assistants ("how are you?" "lovely weather", "do you have correct change?", all that jazz) and taxi drivers ("to the nearest bar, my man!" that kind of thing).

It would also be nice to say things like "I like your dress, where did you buy it?" "How much was your scarf?" "That eyeshadow is gorgeous!". You know, girl talk.

I don't think that's too generic an ambition, is it? Perhaps, perhaps not. But on the path to learning how to converse I'll hopefully be doing lots of fun (but taxing) things. I've already started watching French films so would love to be able to do so without subtitles, before I go. I've also kind of started reading The Little Prince, with a lot of help from Google Translate. I want to be able to read something like Harry Potter.

Well, that's my objective set out. Let's see how I get on...