MY WEEKLY ROUTINE FOR MAINTAINING FRENCH

My French learning journey

I started learning French in the summer of 2021, right after graduating from high school. The decision to choose this language was an easy one, as I had always found it very beautiful, and I thought that my knowledge of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese could give me some advantage. In addition, I went on a roadtrip across France with my family that summer. I signed up for an intensive online French course, which meant 9 hours of classes a week for 2 months. Immediately after the first class, I was able to start speaking (simple sentences) to people in France. I remember I really learned a lot during this course. Later, I studied French for a while at my university, where I had the opportunity to learn more business, marketing and economic vocabulary. The following summer, I enrolled in an intensive online course again and traveled with my family to Brussels and Paris for a week, where I was able to practice French a lot. Then I continued to study the language at university.

Taking a break

During my exchange semester in Rome, I rarely had the opportunity to speak French. I didn't have any classes in this language, and I spoke mostly English with people from France (we didn't want to exclude people in the group who didn't understand French). I met a good friend from Bordeaux there, but I spoke with her more often in Italian than in French, because we both studied in that language and wanted to practice it as often as we could. As a result, my learning was limited to only writing in a journal once a month and occasionally listening to podcasts (it was a very intense period in my life anyway).

Getting back on track

After taking a break from learning French for several months, I noticed I had some deficiencies in my vocabulary, difficulty understanding native speakers and trouble expressing my thoughts. I decided it was time to start recalling what I had forgotten and go back to having contact with French on a daily basis. I will admit that a 3-day trip to Paris for a conference, where I had plenty of opportunities to speak French, helped me a lot. However, for the moment it’s enough for me to maintain my study of this language on my own, without taking any courses. Anyway, I believe there are 4 main language skills that need to be practiced in order to actually learn a language: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

How I maintain my French

Listening

Apart from French music, I like to listen to French podcasts at an intermediate and advanced level. Some of my favorites are InnerFrench, Duolingo French Podcast and My Polyglot Life - En Francais. I usually listen to podcasts while doing something that doesn't require thinking, such as painting my nails, cleaning the apartment or cooking dinner. As a pretty busy person, I appreciate being able to do other things while listening to podcasts (multitasking is a lifesaver). Plus, I find it relaxing and I like the fact that it doesn't require staring at a screen, which I already do a lot anyway.

Reading

I’m currently reading Nos étoiles contraires (The Fault in Our Stars) by John Green, which was one of my favorite novels when I was a teenager. Many people recommend children's books for learning languages, but in my opinion they usually tend to have quite strange and not very useful vocabulary. Instead, I would advise choosing a book that you have already read in your native language, so you will already know the story and be able to guess the meaning of many vocabulary words without having to look everything up in a dictionary. I try to read at least 10 pages a day; sometimes I manage to read as many as 80, but there are also days when I just don't have time to read more than 10, and that's ok.

Writing

Twice a week I open my notebook and write a page or two in French, sometimes looking up some words I've forgotten and searching for synonyms to add more variety to my text. I don't write about anything specific, I usually just pour my thoughts, feelings, plans, dreams or reflections about life onto paper. This helps me recall the vocabulary related to things that interest me and that I often think about, which later comes in handy for the conversations I have in French.

Speaking

When it comes to speaking, I don’t really have a particular routine. Every week I try to attend 2-3 online meetings for polyglots on Meetup and that’s when I usually practice French among other languages. I also noticed that I recently started thinking and talking to myself in French more often. I'm considering starting to record myself speaking French so that I can more easily count time and record my progress, but I'll have to see if I can squeeze it into my schedule first!

Additional tips for maintaining French

What I do when I come across an unfamiliar word several times while reading or I can't recall a particular word while writing in a journal is I create flashcards with these words on the Quizlet app. Then I go through them when I have a free moment during the day. I try to go back to them the following week and the following month in accordance with the principle of spaced repetition.

Another cool way to maintain a language is to watch movies and TV shows. A weekly French movie night might be fun. I personally enjoy watching French TV shows with subtitles in the original language and I’m currently watching the Lupin series available on Netflix:) Some of my other ideas include consuming French content, reading articles in French or finding a language learning partner.

PS. Remember that passive learning (based on input) won't have the same effect as active learning (based on output), and that's why it might be a good idea to do quite a few different activities instead of limiting yourself to just reading a book, for example. Also, the key is to practice French daily, even if just a little bit. I hope my weekly routine for maintaining French inspired you in some way and gave you ideas to create your own study routine:)

I wish you all the best with your French learning!