Hi Heidi,

I started learning French three months ago. I was moved by French ye-ye music (sixties French pop, mostly sung by women) and decided to learn the language.

I spent the first two months listening to songs with lyric sheets, drilling on Barron's flashcard decks and researching methods for language acquisition.

A month ago I discovered Steve Kaufmann's videos and Lingq, which settled my quest for a learning method. (Lingq is one of the best educational apps I've ever encountered. Most ed software IMO is terrible and I've programmed commercial ed software.) I immediately jumped to reading real content, starting with "The Little Prince."

Now I'm about 10% through the first Harry Potter book in French, which I admit is probably more of a jump than a sensible person would make, but it's really not too bad with Lingq. Granted, it takes me two hours to get through 5-6 minutes of the French audiobook from Audible.

(Sadly the audiobook has the most unpleasant narration I've ever heard. Plus I do wonder about the French book translation.)

So, best of luck, I think you've found the best place to learn a language. Once you get some vocabulary and a feel for French sentences, you may be reading Harry Potter sooner than you think. Just pay attention to what works for you and keeps you motivated.

Welcome and good luck heidicowan!

For you and anyone else:

Watching lingosteve videos in general will give you a good sense of what to do an expect.

But..

A particular hidden gem and ancient classic is the first and original 90 day challenge, that The Steve did in Korean, where he reported every day and explains many many nuggets and tips in a more organic, real way than the structured and prepared videos. In there you have the whole LingQ advice compendium added up.

January 15th - April 15th 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJbn9Z60hTw&list=PLiFB-yYuG2himozgz6ljjbTKKc7UJ2few

The length of it may seem time inefficient, but I found it especially good.

Hopefully it will help heidicowan with the French, rather than unwittingly learning more Korean. And her motivation won't be distracted towards Korean, like Steve's motivation got partially sucked into Russian and Ukrainian during that challenge :P

Hi Heidi,

I also learned French three years ago from the scratch.

As a beginner, I found Alice Ayel mini-stories very helpful.

In the "baby-stage-phase" she repeats sentences and words more often and she draws her stories, which helps me to remember well.

You learn french "like a child" with a lot of fun.

She once created her storytelling by drawing the "human actors" and animals.

She took over the basics ("comprehensible input") from the wellknown american linguist Stephen Krashen.

Now, I am already able to listen to her french podcasts.

Like some experts say, learning a new language is not a sprint , it's a marathon.

Greetings from Germany

I started Italian on LingQ pretty much from scratch.

For the Mini Stories I had the following workflow:

1. Read and look up/lingQ every word you don't know

2. Reread the lesson with the audio playing

3. Reread while listening

4. Listen to the same audio while washing the dishes, walking, doing chores, standing in line at the supermarket, etc.

5. Listen

...

15. Listen

I think I ended up listening to each Mini Story about 15x in total. I would read one or two or a few new lessons each day and then just listen to my playlist whenever I had 'dead time'.

I did this workflow for many months, slowly going through other beginner material. At the start, honestly, it's kind of a grind. The stories are often not too interesting, but you just have to build up your vocabulary.

Personally, the only grammar I've really studied, was reading the LingQ Grammar Guide. In my opinion, this is not enough. If I were to go back, I would study a bit more grammar in the beginner phase. Not a lot, just more than an hour. Maybe a few hours. Like maybe one small chapter, section or concept per week.

"And when would I be able to read or listen to a big novel like Harry Potter or something in my target language?"

Technically, you could do this straight away, but it's really not a good idea. It will be so slow and so frustrating that you risk burnout. It's a much better idea to progress in the difficulty of your material. If you do this, with at least an hour or so per day, you are probably looking at a year or two before you read Harry Potter. Reading Harry Potter is more challenging than, say, being able to watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts.

Do:

-Read and listen to the lessons a couple times

-Save words, even if you used to know it or think you kind of know it

-Read and listen to things that interest you as much as possible at your current level

-Listen to shorter lessons (five-ish minutes) when you're starting out

Don't:

-Try to understand everything perfectly

-Read things that are just totally beyond your level. These will often frustrate you

-Stick on a single lesson forever until you have it perfect

The key to the LingQ method is that you'll see a word, learn it, forget it, see it again, relearn it, and so on until it's stuck and you know it. It's not about flash cards and rote memorization, it's about repeated exposure over time (in new lessons, as words will repeat eventually) to material that interests you in a language that you are interested in. You'll see words in natural context and learn the words better than you ever could with flashcards, and you'll learn them much faster.

Best of luck!

I had some basics already down by the time I settled in with LingQ...I did the "A!" course with memrise which probably put me in the vicinity of 1500 "LingQ" words.

When I first started LingQ, I imported each lesson of Assimil along with the audio. I listened and read each a lesson over the course of a day or so, spacing time in between re-reads. I also would play the audio for the lessons for 10 or so minutes of my commute on repeat. I did not try to get ever word down (well, initially I might have). However, I think after several repeats you kind of have the lesson memorized anyway so I felt it lost its effect and would move on.

One key thing I like to point out is do NOT stay stuck on the same lesson trying to KNOW every single word. First of all don't even worry about trying to know the word to a level where you think you could use it. And move on to the next lesson after several re-reads (or don't re-read at all). There will be words that will frustrate the heck out of you and you'll feel like you never will learn them. Or you will learn them and then forget them the next day. Don't worry about it. Move on after several readings of a lesson if you decide to re-read. There are many words that you will learn easier than others. Don't know why, but that's the way it goes. Don't let yourself get stuck on these as you could have learned 10 new words in the meantime.

I went through the entire Assimil book...Mini-stories will suffice for this beginner level stuff. I also found a great site with easy German news. It also had the slowly read audio for these short articles. It was awesome. I pretty much used these two sources all the way to roughly 11,000-12,000 LingQ words or so. Oh, I had also found a great series of books for German learners that were roughly the "A2" level (probably similar to LingQ Beginner 2 level). These were very interesting to read. If you could find a similar level of books that might be good. Olly Richards has some books in all the languages that might be interesting reads (he definitely does have French).

I started to read the first Harry Potter book around the 12,000 LingQ word level if I remember correctly. It was a STRUGGLE. One thing that is very helpful that someone mentioned below is SENTENCE MODE. This is great because if you just focus on individual words, they may not make sense in the overall picture of the phrase or sentence. Having that quick sentence view is helpful in getting the correct meaning of the words and to also help you stay engaged with the story. If you are just focusing on the individual words you get lost (and bored). Sometimes you still can get a little lost in this view because it's easy to lose track of who is speaking so sometimes you might pop out to normal view to gain your bearings (and see the indentations).

I don't think I'd recommend Harry Potter earlier than that. You can keep trying and maybe if you know the story already it could be easier to start earlier.

The interesting thing about novels is that towards the end of the book you have really learned much of that author's favorite words, so you will find you have to look up less and less (and you simply are just learning more words along the way).

Usually with each lesson I'll read through in sentence view looking up and lingq'ing the individual words. I usually first try to read the sentence and understand as much as I can by myself. Then I look up each word and or do the sentence view after "attempting" to translate by myself. After reading then sentence translation and the individual word translations I'll usually go back and read the sentence one last time to try and translate it in its entirety myself and then I move to the next sentence. (this gets quicker).

If I'm in normal view I might highlight various phrases in the sentence to make sense of them and the patterns of phrases on longer sentences.

Edit:

A couple of other ideas:

1. TRY to do a little bit with the language every day. Even 5-10 minutes is useful. Trust me...I have done more 5-10 minute days than anyone =D. Progress is slower, but there is progress.

1a. You can find many times during the day to squeeze in a little study. In line at a store, read a lesson or part of a lesson. In the bathroom. Listen to audio while driving to work or to the store. Listen to audio while doing chores.

1b. If you have more time, go for it! You will learn much faster than me. But don't overdue it. You have to want to do it everyday. If you are grinding out 8 hours a day, you probably won't last, unless you really enjoy it.

2. You *can* take breaks from the routine. Sometimes life can take over for *brief* periods. If you are on vacation, don't worry about getting an hour of study in. But if things are quiet, or you're waiting on your SO in the bathroom, maybe pop open a lesson. I've also gone a week or so with little to no study if things are particularly stressful in life, work, school, etc. However, as soon as you can try to get back to the routine of doing at least a little every day. I still will try to read a little something before going to bed.

Hi,

Welcome to Lingq!!

As someone already said, this is a fantastic website to assist in your language learning.

You are absolutely right to start with the beginner course and mini stories. Practice reading in conjunction with listening as much as you can, and you will make progress in no time.

In the early stages, you can also complement your Lingq sessions with another resource/textbook such as Assimil or something similar in order to give you a solid understanding of how French works. Don't try to remember everything, just enjoy the process and you’ll find that the more you’re exposed to your target language, the more it will make sense. It's like assembling pieces of a jigsaw.

Reading books such as Harry Potter will be challenging until you have cleared the beginner stages and are moving towards low-intermediate, but you can start with shorter pieces of fiction such as "Le Petit Prince", which will be more accessible for an upper-beginner student. Children's chapter books are ideal if you want to start reading.

Finally, I just want to say you have chosen a beautiful language, which also happens to be my native tongue.

Good luck on your language learning journey!

Hi! You've stumbled across what is possibly the most effective tool (and method) for acquiring a language :).

The short answer to everything you've said is yes to all of it.

The long answer can get very long.

What I would do if I were you will depend a little bit about how much time you want to commit to learning French.

But as a general roadmap, you can start with the Mini Stories. Do not read them just once, I might start with some combination of reading+listening to 5 each day, and over time rotating between them and how you are using them. (E.g., reading, listening, reading + listening, answering the questions, etc.)

I would also read about French grammar. Do not focus on studying grammar with exercises at this time, but just get an idea of the features that exist even though you won't understand them fully now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_grammar

If you want to start with a YA novel or series you are familiar with, you can but what I would do in that case is:

1. Read slowly and intensively once through each chapter. By intensively, I mean LingQ or lookup every unknown word, and use every unknown LingQ as a flashcard.
2. Read once extensively with the audiobook trying to follow along and "hear" the words as clearly as possible. From what I know of French spelling this may be difficult at first. Home-in on unknown LingQs like a flashcard. If you get it right twice in a row (on different pages) increase the number, if you get it wrong once, lower the number.
3. (Optional) Try listening to the chapter one last time without the text and pick up as much as you can.

The biggest thing, learning a language takes time (hundreds and thousands of hours) and there are no shortcuts. It is not "easy" but it does not have to be "hard". The best thing you can do is enjoy the process.

I use sentence mode to read in my target language with subtitles. I read what interests me (2x Harry Potter books). It's assisted reading in Greek and I choose what's interesting and put up with the high % of words I don't know.

Surely French will have a wide range of texts available so you may find things that are interesting at a level where you understand 95% of words.

Read lots. 1,000s of words a day if you can.

Learn about comprehensible input on you tube.

I think Harry Potter has about 6000 unique words so you may need to know 1000s of words before it makes sense.