The great French dump (AKA “immersion method”)
Two years ago, I found myself in the rare position of having a bit of free time and spare cash. Naturally, the first thing that springs to my mind is… ADVENTURE. “On y va!”. Let’s go. Only this time, instead of bogging off to some remote destitute place with a dirty pair of shorts and far too many self-improvement books, I thought I should try a different approach. And what followed was one of my biggest adventures yet. Two weeks, 8 hours a day, spent with a total stranger speaking only in a language in which my competency level can be described, at best, as Basic (or “un-gradable” (U grade) according to my college oral examiner). Total immersion method, they call it. No English Allowed. Only French words, exaggerated facial expressions and plenty of awkward silences. This was the only way to learn a language, apparently, and it was to be more challenging, ridiculous and rewarding than 4 months backpacking around Asia as a solo female (which every overly-introspective millennial twenty-something has done anyway).
The immersion method is premised on the recognition that we all learned this way once, when we were born into this world and had absolutely no way of communicating with anyone. Immersed in the unknown with no way through, around or out of it. A terrifying prospect at any age, I would say. At least if you’re sub-3 years old, the people around you will generally pretend to talk back to you in conversation, even when you’re talking complete sh*t, just to save you the embarrassment. My niece, bless her, says “gack” all the time – that’s slang for cocaine - an unfortunate but brilliantly entertaining thing. And instead of being laughed or pointed at, she receives gentle encouragement like “hmmm, yes DOOR Charlie… say D-O-O-O-R”. And so she just keeps yabbing on, learning English, badly. But slowly getting there nonetheless, happily ignorant of her mistakes and generally able give it a go.
I, on the other hand, would have to wait and see what the Frenchman’s approach would be. Well, I thought, I can just about remember the alphabet (even “ee-greg’, which is the ridiculous phonetic spelling for the letter “y”). So, in the last resort, I can just revert to spelling out English words. As it later turned out, this is also against the “no English” rule – or an obvious abuse of it. As is saying English words in a slanty Frenchy accent. “Mais c’est un terr-a-vest-EE!”. Travestir – close. But even the bemused, unimpressed look on poor prof’ Aristide’s face did not deter my sly efforts.
Did you know that almost every English word ending in TION is exactly the same word in French? Take the English word “adumbration”. Do know what this means? No. Well say it in your best piss-take exaggerated, onion-wearing, stripey-top, moustachioed-Frenchman accent, and you know the word in French. This nifty little trick saved me on many occasions. For instance, when trying to say “the bar was too busy for me last night”, not knowing the word “busy” in French, I could fall back on “there was a lot of gesticulation in the bar last night but I had a lot of introspection”. I know it makes very little sense but Aristide was smart. He understood me. And probably played a lot of Articulate or something (the game where you describe a word without saying the word).
There was a girl in my school called Amy who we all took the piss out of for learning all the words in the dictionary. In fact, she had learned a few long words and we were all jealous because this definitely made her a grownup. Well, Nathalie (with an h in my name this time) was like Amy. Simple sentences with a bombastic twist. This could be very cool in France. I should stick with it. My college oral examiner was wrong, the old fossil. There’s an A* student right here, just misunderstood, ahead of my times.
My two weeks began and I took the immersion seriously. I texted in French, attempted to start a vlog in French, wrote a diary in French and got on board with all the resources out there for eager students like me.
After lots of research and advice from my French professeur, I learned that French movies with French subtitles is a very effective way of learning. It forces you to think in French, as opposed to thinking in English and translating it in your head before speaking. Sounded efficient. A fast-track to fluency! The small problem was that - somehow Amazon missed a trick here - the only way to get these movies is to go to France, which is fine, it’s a day trip on your bike to Calais if you want it to be – just make sure you take a note before you go of the compatibility settings of your home technology though. I imagine it could be frustrating to cycle 100 miles; experience glee at disproportionately giddying heights through having found some drivel like The Devil Wears Prada in the back of a newsagent; spend a small fortune on 20 French-DVDs-with-French-subtitles, only to find out that they’re not compatible with your English DVD player or something. Well you can knock me for my stupidity but never criticise my enthusiasm!
So did it work then? The big French dump, let’s call it. Like a dump load of snow in the Alps, I was buried above my bobble hat in French, France, Francophilia… And did this help me? Sure it did. My level went from A1 to B2 in just 800 painfully awkward hours with my dear, patient Aristide (not a Frenchman after all but a Swiss boy who was actually only 20 years olds). So give it a crack.
