100 hours of French : COMPLETE!
I loathe French. I loathe it so much, because Iâve been trying to conquer it for five years, over five separate attempts [2014, 2015 in HS, 2016 preparing for CLEPs, late 2016 in class, 2018 over summer], and coming up empty every time. So, I decided to have a personal challenge, and reach B1 over 100 hours of quality studying, by May 1st.Â
My CEFR level according to just an online test on Kwiziq:
⊠was a very low A2. nothing to write home about!
my passive grammar knowledge wasnât much better:
As some of you already know, I had a system for getting my vocabulary back up to snuff, and its detailed methodology post can be found: right here. I started doing this a few weeks before I decided to shoot for 100 hours, and finished about three weeks before I hit 100 hours.
However, this isnât all I did. Hereâs how my study time broke down:
Listening comprehension: Around 50% of the 6000Â minutes I spent studying [50 hours], were spent on listening comprehension. This was very important to me, because I had never been able to watch anything in French, or listen to anything, and understand it. I knew I was going to have spend a lot of time on pronunciation and French media. I still canât watch a French movie without subtitles [obviously!], but I can listen to News in Slow French and understand around 80%? So thatâs pretty cool.Â
how I strengthened listening comprehension:
Language Transfer: Introduction to French [6-8 minutes each]
Coffee Break French: Seasons 1-3Â [15-25 minutes each]
News in Slow French [15-25 minutes each]
Movies + shows: I spent 25 hours watching stuff in French, and learning a lot of colloquial language and specialized vocabulary that I wouldnât have stumbled upon myself! 90% of these, I also have vocabulary lists for [those helped me pay attention, pausing and writing down vocab to look up later].
French movies on Netflix: The African Doctor, Il A Tes Yeux
French series on Netflix: A Very Secret Service
Netflix Originals with French Audio and Subtitles: e.g. Watership Down, Â The Unicorn Store, How It Ends
Most of my writing was covered with my vocabulary system. After that ended, I kept a language journal for the next month, with the starter post detailing what I would write about. Most of those posts can be found in my #language journal tag. Sometime in March, I also borrowed Teach Yourself: French Grammar from my library, because of all the resources I own myself⊠I have zero French stuff. I posted some notes from that book, and made a lot of reference posts in my language journal.Â
Teach Yourself: French Grammar [thereâs a newer version now, but I worked with the one I linked]
Lingolia: French [grammar site]
Lawless French [grammar site]
ElearningFrench [mini course based from FSI]
Français Avec Pierre [Youtube channel, he also has a blog and coursesâi think those are paidâto see, 7-10 minute videos he does with his wife, all captioned!]
Laddering ! [for one week, I studied Japanese via a French course, so I got a lot of practice with that]
Discord server [Putting this here because I often posted questions and received help from my friends, so definitely have some way to check yourself!]
a lot of other things, but this was the majority of my grammar study..
An unspoken rule for myself was that I didnât want to actively study French past 8 pm. I usually studied from 9-11 am on weekdays. Some days I would keep going until 2 pm, but usually I had work. Occasionally, Iâd study for half an hour or so on my lunch break. Then, another hour as I listened to podcasts on my commute.Â
In total, the challenge took 72 days, 11 of which I actually didnât do anything, so more like 61. This means I averaged 1 hour and 38 minutes of French studying per day. I had zero desire to max myself out. I just wanted to make sure whatever I studied, I was paying attention! Plus, I needed time to prepare for work and keep up with my students in other languages, so having French on the brain all the time wouldâve hindered me.
Now, I test as this on the CEFR level:
and this is my grammar ranking:
Can we say, success?! I got back to B1, and not a LOW B1, but actually fairly decent ! Iâm at the point now where I can write in French pretty quickly and, Iâm right on the cusp of being able to explain my way around concepts that I donât yet have the vocabulary for.Â
So yeah, challenge over! Now, Iâm back to studying Japanese via French so that I can retain that knowledge, and Iâve switched my phone over to French. I need to get back to writing letters in French to keep up with that, but overall Iâm very happy with my B1 again, and feel more confident in my skills.
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask!
