Bonjour!

I started the lesson by practicing the key words. It was a well structured lesson, as I have the assistance of pronounciation before using the phrases in long sentences.  This was the second time I’ve attempted this lesson, however I had problems with my pronounciation last time. Therefore I reattempted it by first practicing key words. I prefer practicing via the ‘key words’ rather than the actual lesson, as there are audio files with both French and English shown.

I’m still a bit confused with the pronounciation. For instance, to ask ‘for how many?’, it’s ‘Pour combine de personnes?’, I don’t understand why the ‘de’ is silent. This lesson was interesting for me, as I was exposed to different ways of speaking at a restaurant. It has met my objectives for the course, however it will be better if there was food names as well.

This lesson I did the ‘Guess the words’ activity for stage 1, which was really interesting and helpful with my learning. There were key words and phrases, which aims to help fix the pronounciations in my memory. I had to match the most correct answer to the audios and word.  I did have some errors, but it got better as I reattempted the activities and look back at the old exercises. I find these activities effective in evaluating my learning.

During this lesson, I went through the slide shows, with French words, English words and audio files to support the lesson. It was a fulfilling experience, as it was part of my expectation, to have pictures, French and English words as well as audio files. Another advantage is that there are key words and pronounciation tips links to assist the lesson, which I find very supportive to the lesson. As I am able to focus on key words I don’t know. Also, problems which I’ve always find irritating was solved during these lessons. That is, each time I change in between French and English words, the audio file is played. This saves me the hassle of clicking the audio button, and at the same time constantly repeating the phrases which helps me to remember it.

However, there are two main weak points about the lesson is that both English and French is unable to be shown at the same time, which is annoying for me to switch between different languages. As I’d like to know what the French word means in English, and I’d also like to know how is it written in French while I’m reading English. Another weak point is that audios are played too fast for a beginner, they should consider playing it slower, and stress on the words.

Overall, I am very pleased with the lesson, as it meets my objectives in knowing the basic phrases like taking a taxi, asking for directions, getting tickets, buying presents and getting a snack. These are all the essentials that are needed during a stay at France.

La Liason covers the linking of consonants and vowels between words. At first I had difficulty understanding what they meant by a liaison. I realize French is not easy to learn, and a disadvantage about online learning is that there a live teacher around for you to ask questions. The grammar is much more complicated than English, cause with vowels in English, we will use ‘an’ instead of ‘a’. However, with French there are ‘deux’, ‘huit’, ‘trois’, ‘six’ and ‘dix’.

Overall, the lessons on pronunciation have met my expectations of this course. This part of the lesson has assisted me in my troubles with earlier lessons of ‘Quick fix’. I am able to understand the pronounciation of different words and vowels. I’m pretty sure the pronounciation part of the course will help me meet my objectives in being able to speak a bit of French clearly, so people can understand.

I have now completed stage 1 of the course

This lesson I was able to access to other links without a problem. So I decided to skip the quick fix and work on my pronunciation. This lesson I chose the ‘Pronunciation-the basics’, to emphasize French words. I now realize that French words require a slight emphasis on the last syllable.

Another tip I’ve learnt during this lesson was leaving the‘s’ out, when they’re at the end of some place names. This was my favourite lesson, as all my confusion was solved. It is interesting to know that French is so similar to English, which is an advantage. So it was great to know these pronounciation tips. I now only need to remember the pronounciation for singular words, as it is identical with the plural, only changing the ‘the’, with a silent ‘s’. This lesson was really interesting for me, knowing the rules of French compared to English.

Finally I’m on to the next lesson to learn how pronounce food and drink related phrases. I spent especially more time in these phrases, simply because I have more chance entering into a French restaurant than going to France (not that the staffs there can’t speak English but I’d like to know what others are saying when they’re speaking French hehehe). So far after three lessons, I realize ‘Vous avez’ is used whenever a question is asked, like ‘do you have’? or ‘Have you’, and ‘un’ means coffee, and ‘au’ means with. However I’m still not sure when to use ‘un’ and when to use ‘une’ for them word ‘a’. There were a total of 15 phrases in this lesson, so it took me a bit longer, as these phrases were much more difficult than before.

This is my first time doing an online course (that I can recall), and at the moment for the second lesson I’m quite pleased. I am able to work at my own pace, I can wonder around the room and come back to work and eat in front of the monitor. One important point is that I am able to repeat the audio files as many times as I wish, until I’m satisfied with my pronunciation.  I still need some practice until I can meet my objectives.  However, some pronunciations were a bit fast, so I had to repeat a few times until I can try to pronounce it myself. In the second lesson I am learning some basic ‘accommodation’ phrases. Similar to the first lesson, I get tongue twist in pronouncing phrases that ends with ‘s’ or ‘e’. At the moment I am still learning short phrases and single terms, so hopefully a few lessons later I’d be able to gather these words to complete the puzzle- sentence. There were 9 phrases, and I spent almost 5 minutes for each one, obviously Spent less than 5 minutes for the ones that were easy, like ‘double’ and ‘single’.

One of the main problem with doing an online course is the Internet! It takes long to load, even though I’ve got broadband cable, it is still a problem. I had to waited more than 5 minutes to load the ‘French beginner’s course’, this also repeated as I click through the links. I try reading the user guide before I started the lesson however after waiting for ten minutes, the following message appeared ‘service not available’. That also occurred when I tried to start the course. I’ll prefer to be taught by the very basics, such as knowing when to use ‘un’ instead of ‘une’.

Quick Fix- Essential holiday phrases.

The Quick Fix basics have 8 basic common phrases- that are essential for holiday use. The phrases are written in French as well as in English with an audio MP3 file attached to it that can be downloaded. I am now able to say ‘hello’, ‘please’, ‘no’, ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’ without a problem as these are the common phrases I’ll hear in movies. However, I have problem pronouncing ‘good bye’ as it is difficult to pronounce ‘revoir’ I get a tongue twist when I try to pronounce it. I’m happy with the quick fix lesson, as these are the phrases I’d like to learn, and is considered as the ‘basics’.

 NB: Because of copy right issues I won’t attach the audio files with this post and future ones, however I have included in my ‘Links’ folder so you can download the audio files yourself =)