It’s your funeral, my dear — anyone who knows me, knows to never let me start talking, lol. I’m sure you didn’t want a story, or a poorly-executed essay, @fanny_sta, (and yes, this indeed got so horrifically long I had to make it it’s own topic)… But I care about the French course, so these are my many meandering thoughts on their current incarnations (and personal experience with their predecessors). Sorry in advance.
As preliminary apology, here’s a cat snuggling some ducklings.
Here goes:
Well, before I actually get into why I find the old French 1 and 2 courses (hereafter referred to as OF 1 and OF 2) to be gentler an initial introduction into the language, what you have to understand is that I am very bad with Romance languages. For whatever reason, I find acquisition of Germanic languages rather easy, and even the Slavic languages make some innate sense… but French, Spanish, etc. In these, I’m just an embarrassment. Don’t know why — they simply don’t click.
Naturally, I have now and then made attempts at Duo’s French course, but I’ve never got very far at all (from these, I would’ve been lucky to order myself a coffee, to be honest)… No, I never got anywhere until I started the Memrise French courses, which all but hammered the basic rules of the language into me. (Though pronunciation’s still very hit and miss. There’s a strong chance I sound like a dog in its death-throws… A Scottish accent doesn’t mesh very well with French, unfortunately. At least I can read/write the language now — let’s not get greedy.)
That’s all useless information to you, I know. But it tell’s you a little something about me and allows me to say grats for having managed to teach me some usable French — you’re the first to succeed!
My point is, I took OF 1 slowly — casually and generally without much hope of actually picking anything up. So I was, of course, pleasantly surprised when I realised I was starting to see patterns to things in French and actually seemed to be getting somewhere, without ever having consciously noticed it. I then, after a time, completed OF 1 and moved on to French 2… At which point, I thought I may die, because it just seemed so much more difficult! For a moment, I thought perhaps OF 1 had been mocking me, luring me into a false sense of security be being so delightfully simple.
It took me two fustrated days to understand the version of French 2 I had just begun was, in fact, a new version of the course. Upon this discovery, I instantly retreated, seeking out the previous version (which I am now halfway through and of which I am far less terrified), OF 2.
Now, I’m sure I am just particularly dimwitted when it comes to French and, thus, hardly a good yardstick to measure the new French 2’s (and to a lesser degree, the newer French 1 (which I have had little occasion to go through, though it certainly looks tougher than OF 1)) difficulty, but… I was lost as soon as I got into it. (As I noted, without realising I had progressed directly from OF 1 into the new French 2 — a shock to the system.)
I’ve not yet been over the new French 1, beyond a curious glance, and likely won’t until I’ve at least finished my current OF 2.
What really got me, when I hit the new French 2, was the way it dives straight into longer phrases that I couldn’t quite get myself to remember. OF 2 spends a good level’s worth of time drumming the il y a / il n’y a pas and est-ce qu’il y a / qu’est-ce que constructs into learners (of which I, for one, was very appreciative, as I can now form a sentence around these with no fear). Conversely, only about ten-or-so sentences down the first level of new French 2, it hits you with Est-ce qu’il y a un balcon ?
Now, I admit this isn’t too bad a sentence, all in all. I understand it just fine, but… that’s really only after learning the qu’il y a construction in OF 2. Before that, on first sight, to me it was just… well, not Greek (for obvious reasons), but well above my head. (Though I’ve not had much reason to check, I’m sure the new French 1 spends just as long teaching this construction somewhere, which is rather an odd one for an English speaker. Like I said, though, at the time I’d no idea the old course had been replaced.)
I just freaked.
And that simple sentence, which I now understand fine, was hardly an isolated thing. There are a ton of phrases in the first level of the new French 2 I couldn’t get down for the life of me. Not only that, the level itself is huge. Previously, I wouldn’t have expected a level to contain, perhaps, more than thirty-five items (forty at the outside). Level 1 of French 2 has a good sixty. Very daunting.
The thing I had really enjoyed about OF 1 (and still do, with OF 2) was the way it taught parts of a sentence separately (ie. a verb and its declensions, or a selection of loosely related nouns, or some handy adjectives) and then, after, provided a series of sentences formed using these words. This way, I understood how the sentence was being put together and, even though I’ve feared French for years, I wasn’t at all disturbed to come across (earlyish in OF 1) Est-ce que nous pouvons avoir le menu, s’il vous plaît. This, while not too complex, is quite a long thing to recall if you don’t understand each word involved. (Plus, English speakers are instinctively put off by the est-ce que construct (not to mention the idea of declining their verbs at all — but that’s another matter entirely)).
Faced with something of that length for the first time, I didn’t panic… I knew it was all going to be okay… for OF 1 had successfully not only made me memorise phrases, but it had actually taught me the grammar I needed.
I came, I saw sentence, I didn’t scream like a little girl.
That was a good sign. Or so I thought, at the time.
The new French 2 I had unwittingly walked into, though… it didn’t do this. It didn’t show me new verbs and a couple of declensions in isolation. It didn’t give me a nice selection of new nouns and then, later, teach me some simple sentences that utilised them. Oh no… Instead, level 1 read like a scary little pocket-phrasebook that wanted to eat my brain, assuming what I really needed was to know my hotel room would have a view.
I wept.
Like a baby.
(It was really pathetic.)
I didn’t care if my room had a view… or a balcony. I just wanted to know why the (now familiar — thanks OF 1) est-ce que was now est-ce qu’il y a, and what difference that made to the sentence. And… Gods, I thought, why didn’t my faithful friend OF 1 warn me this was coming‽
OF1 had betrayed me… and to my worst enemy of all — a Romance language.
(Even worse, when I angrily put a hit out on it, I discovered OF 1 had vanished into the night. A fair-weather friend, a treacherous fiend, a spy…)
Uh…
My potential insanity aside:
Looking back at the new French 1, I see level 2 (for some unbeknownst reason marked level 3), is full of useful sentences. It introduces nice, simple things like j’ai faim, j’ai soif and, perhaps most importantly, vous avez du Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, at this point in the course there’s not, that I can see, actually been any proper introduction of the verb avoir, which would be very helpful for those unfamiliar with the declension of French verbs (we must assume those choosing French 1 are).
Perhaps, you are going for a more organic acquisition of grammar, but I believe that what you had before was quite sufficient. You gave just enough for a learner to extrapolate grammar information on their own, which I respected. I found OF 1 / 2 superior in teaching method to the Duo course. The new French 1 and 2, not so much.
I mean not to be disparaging, because I have enjoyed your courses. I suspect now, better prepared by OF 2, I could complete the new French 1 / 2 without too much trouble.
For a beginner, though… we need to be treated as if we’re stupid, to start with. Even if it seems patronising. You have Je n’aime pas l’art (French 1, level 5 (for some reason marked level 8) without first explicitly telling us ne … pas is used for the negation of verbs. Perhaps we should work it out from examples but… it’s kinder to simply say. I wouldn’t be angry at your assumption I didn’t know. It is French 1, after all.
It may seem unintelligent to label French 1 and 2 harder than their previous versions, when they introduce only simple sentences, however it is difficult to learn anything when the words are entirely foreign (no irony meant). I myself find it impossible to memorise full sentences with more than a single (or perhaps two) unfamiliar part; this way, the words I do know already give just enough context, though I would prefer to only meet new nouns or adjectives this way, rather than verbs (which have often very different forms in the infinitive) or grammatical aspects such as ne … pas.
I assume that you consider the course meant as a supplement to some real hard book learning/language class. However, with how bad I am at French as testimony, what you had with OF 1 / 2 was a course that could genuinely teach someone the language from scratch, no other resources truly required and without them giving up in frustration. It just seems a shame to leave that in favour of starting at a very-slightly higher difficulty level, all for the sake of… what? I’m not sure. You had a good thing going… Why spoil that? You know what they say about not trying to fix things that aren’t broken.
I also assume you were given some strict guides over what to put in to the new French 1 and 2, based on the fact that the new German 1 and 2 have similar problems (failing to introduce verbs in isolation, ridiculous-dishearteningly large levels, etc), as does the brand new Slovenian 1 (which would be gentler by far if it’s first level were’t sixty words/phrases, also mostly not independently explained before we’re presented with longer constructions).
Now, this is too long, and I’m starting to forget what I was even saying in the first place. Sorry for not presenting it as a proper essay with well thought out, bullet-pointed lists. That’s just not me.
As this is basically an open letter, for all I initially intended it as a reply to you @fanny_sta (though these are things I had been thinking for some time, even if I never put down as a post), I assume someone’ll want to chip in. Perhaps to say I’m being unreasonable about all this. That’s not my intent. I just wanted to answer the question with the way I personally feel about the question put to me.
To clarify (or perhaps, put into perspective) all above, I still find Memrise the better platform for learning a new language from scratch, and I have an opinion simply because the site’s become such a big part of my day. I’ve learnt a lot here — I’m very grateful for that (especially as it costs me nothing) and to the French course in particular, for managing to teach me some French where all other courses/teachers have failed.
I simply see a little room for improvement, so others who are bad with French can have such an easy time of it as OF 1 gave me.
