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<\/a><\/p>\nForeign Languages have always been a challenge for me. When I was in high school French was the only course that I received a failing grade in. In fact, I only passed the French regents exam with a 68% (passing was 65%). I should have been better at languages. My parents both came from Germany, though they didn\u2019t bother to teach me any German, which might have helped. My father lived in France for 5 years from 1933-1938, so was fluent in French. I believe my older sisters also studied French. That didn\u2019t help me at all. I guess I just wasn\u2019t motivated to learn either French or German. In college as an Engineering major and later Education major, there was no language requirement, so I escaped having to try and learn a new language or reinforce an old one. <\/span><\/p>\n In my 30\u2019s, my school district gave me permission to take undergraduate American Sign Language classes at a local community college. I ended up taking 20 credits of ASL and still only know the basics, which I did use in my teaching but still am incapable of holding my own conversation with someone who speaks it. My biggest problem is not coming up with signs or spelling, it was understanding a conversation when someone was signing at me. It went too fast. I read fingerspelled words by their letters and not as words.<\/p>\n In 2013, I discovered my brother (read my A to Z Blog on \u201cB\u201d <\/span>http:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=430<\/span><\/a>). He and his wife only speak French. So now I\u2019m back to the drawing board. I need to learn French again. I should be motivated, which I am. I\u2019ve tried a lot of different programs: the Pimsleur method, the Michel Thomas method (which I really liked), other library audio CDs on Learning French and an online course which is free at <\/span>https:\/\/www.duolingo.com<\/span><\/a> (which I have completed for French and am reviewing every day since I started in 2013). Even still they only say I\u2019m 53% proficient. There are two other courses online that I\u2019ve tried: <\/span>https:\/\/www.yabla.com\/<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>http:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/<\/span><\/a>. Both require a lot of listening and remembering. Those both cost subscription fees. There are a number of podcasts that I\u2019ve tried to listen to also like <\/span>http:\/\/onethinginafrenchday.podbean.com\/<\/span><\/a>. But still my lack comprehension of a spoken or signed foreign (to me) language continues. My ability to read French and less so to write it however has improved.<\/span><\/p>\n When I speak to my brother and sister-in-law and try to formulate sentences it is like the spinning wheel you see when you watch a video online that says \u201cbuffering\u201d. I will start to say something and then pause as my mind buffers the next sentence. When listening, I look like a deer in headlights.<\/p>\n What I need is more conversational opportunities with other people that speak the language and can tolerate my slowness. I continue to search out these venues.<\/p>\n Research believes that learning another language is a way to keep your mind active, improve memory and increase the number of neurons in your brain. For that reason and to improve my communication with my brother, I will continue to work on the learning of French. I look forward to comments from anyone else willing to share more ideas to help me accomplish this. The challenge continues.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parlez vous…what? (WR) Foreign Languages have always been a challenge for me. When I was in high school French was the only course that I received a failing grade in. In fact, I only passed the French regents exam with … Continue reading