WHY IS FRENCH SO DARN HARD?

Bonjour mes enfants! Over the past few weeks, I've really seen a lot of people struggling with all aspects of learning French: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Spelling is really hard too! The accent seems impossible to master. Why is French so hard?

Let's think about language. We all grew up hearing a language from the moment we were born; for most of us, it was English. We heard nothing but this language from our parents and others around us, and we didn't even have to try to speak it for at least a year - that's one year of nothing but LISTENING. 

Then we began to try to speak. Did we begin speaking in complete, correct sentences?  No. We began with single words, like 'cup' and 'go' and 'blankie'. Concrete things. We progressed with time; it took us years as children to learn to speak in complete, comprehensible sentences, but we don't remember this. We are now at a point in our lives where we speak without thinking - something occurs to us and we simply say it, just as I am typing this without a dictionary and thesaurus in front of me.

Learning French, or any language, is hard for many reasons. One, in America we should really begin language instruction before the age of 10 - the younger we are, the more plastic and malleable our brains our, especially when it comes to language. There is a special region of our brain dedicated to language! Second, when we begin to learn French, we have to remind ourselves that the spelling is different, the word order is different, and the pronunciation is really hard. We have to train ourselves to make new sounds that don't exist in English. 

Speaking English (or whatever your mother tongue is) is automatic and natural.  It is easy because you've been hearing and speaking it since you were literally born. Learning another language is really hard. You know what you want to say, but you can't say it. It feels like you have to look up every single word, every single conjugation. You think you know what you want to say to someone, and then you try to speak and you realize you can't remember half the words you want to say.

YOU JUST HAVE TO KEEP TRYING. YOU HAVE TO KEEP WORKING. LEARNING FRENCH IS WORK.

There is no other way.  Keep studying.  Keep reading.  Keep listening. Keep writing. If you do a little bit every day, even 15 minutes, you realize after a while that some things are getting easier. Suddenly you don't have to look up how to say "it was". You remember how to talk about the weather. You can write about your favorite book. You can read a magazine article and get the gist of it. You can watch a TV show in French, and you understand a good amount of it.  And if you keep working hard, it will eventually get a little easier.  And a little easier. 

You will always have to work at it. But with practice and dedication, it will get easier. I promise. I still have to look up words. I still question how to say things. I still can't understand all of the news on the TV. But I'm working because I love it and it is exciting.

So just keep swimming.  ;-)