(Not sure if this is in the right spot.)

I've taken two years of high school French, they were in my junior and senior year, and I regret not taking French earlier! Although I don't want to start a French immersion system, as my first mistress is Japanese, I was considering fooling around on the side, maybe. (Don't tell!)

But, I don't feel the need to be able to listen to French, I just want to be able to read it! I could find material, word frequency lists, grammar topics, etc. Does anybody have any experience just learning to READ a language and not speak or listen to it? Like Latin, you wouldn't need to learn to speak it or listen to it. How quickly do you think this could be done? How many words would I have to know to get a good grasp on French literature? About 5000? 7000? 20,000?? French irregular verbs would be a pain in the butt though...

Obviously I'd intend to use an SRS.

Your thoughts, anyone?

Of course. Learning the written language, especiallay one like French, is many times easier than the spoken one.

You need about to learn 3500 words only:

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teacher...?cc=global

Plus 500-1000 words related to your interests (e.g. music, arts, cinema, etc.)

As for grammar, try Teach Yourself French or French Demystified.

It will not take more than one month to be able to read short articles in fields you're familiar with.

In fact, you can learn the written language in a very short amount of time, 6 days for example!

Try this program:

Day 1-4: Memorize essential words using methods like "Linkword", "Unforgettable Languages" of Michael Gruneberg (strongly recommended), or any similar programs. If you don't have these software, read about the method and apply it to the 1000-3000 most common words. You will find about 1200 useful words here (English-French):

http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/glossar...es/french_ 1_Glossary.htm
http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/glossar...es/french_ 2_Glossary.htm
http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/glossar...es/french_ 3_Glossary.htm
http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/glossar...es/french_ 4_Glossary.htm

For the 3500 most common words:

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teacher...7/oxford_3 000/?cc=gb

Start with the first four links. You can memorize the 1000 most common words in 3-4 days (many people have done it.) You need 10-30 hours only to memorize them. But it's better to split them over 3-4 days.

Put everything in your SRS, and review it regularly.

Day 5 and 6: Read short stories, novels, or articles using Ilya Frank's method:

http://english.franklang.ru/
http://english.franklang.ru/6/

Example of his method:

http://english.franklang.ru/37/
http://english.franklang.ru/13/

It is very effective method, but you don't have to buy his books. You can make your own texts using parallel texts. Use resources like:

Grimm's stories [many fairy tales with translations in many languages]:

http://www.grimmstories.com/language.php...&l=en&r=de

Project-Syndicate [hundreds of parallel articles in many languages]:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/

Turn your parallel texts into Ilya Frank's layout.

In the 7th day, don't take a rest! Read newspapers in your target language. Yes, you can.

Note: You will not be able to write anything in a short time (whether it is 6 days or 1 month), but you will be able to understand much.

Personally, I plan to study English next year. I never learned it in a formal way (not even in the school, because I was not going to school everyday.) That's why you see many mistakes in my writing. But I understand almost anything written in English.

I read in English on Wikipedia, e-books, forums like this, and use the e-dictionary when necessary. (in average 2-3 times per article/page.) I never study grammar.

My Chinese study to date has been much like this. I'm so far satisfied with just reading comprehension since my main objective for studying Chinese is for more background on Japanese etymology and classical Japanese texts.

I'm learning Japanese mainly for reading comprehension and I read lots of translated books and stories. First I'd read a passage in Japanese and then check the English translation whenever I'd get stuck. I did this with the Harry Potter books and the first book was tough. However, it does get easier if you stick with it.

heh. the first section of ももたろう has a mistake. At first they said うまいもも (tasty peach) but later they changed it to うまいもの (tasty thing?). Still, that's a pretty awesome idea.

Thank you, ahibba, that's surprisingly fast! 7 days? Only 3500 words plus specialized words? Ah, wait.. hmm... the first 1200 come in French (with no gender), but the rest are 3500 common English words. ...But I imagine there's a lot of overlap. And, I can find more lists and resources, but getting the green light with that kind of time frame is really encouraging.

Hyreia Wrote:Thank you, ahibba, that's surprisingly fast! 7 days? Only 3500 words plus specialized words? Ah, wait.. hmm... the first 1200 come in French (with no gender), but the rest are 3500 common English words. ...But I imagine there's a lot of overlap. And, I can find more lists and resources, but getting the green light with that kind of time frame is really encouraging.

Please come back after 6 days and tell us how it went. 99% of this forum believe that technique to be completely impossible. I mean come on, if you could learn a language in 6 days, why would, for example, the US government train their diplomats etc for months upon months? One would think governments would love the idea of having people skilled in all big languages within a year

Who needs 6 days when there is

Hyreia Wrote:Ah, wait.. hmm... the first 1200 come in French (with no gender), but the rest are 3500 common English words.

You should translate the Oxford list into French. It's easy, you can copy all the list, paste it into Google Translate, and it will give you a complete list with good translations.

Google Translate is very effective in translating isloated words and terms (unlike sentences.)

Tobberoth Wrote:I mean come on, if you could learn a language in 6 days, why would, for example, the US government train their diplomats etc for months upon months?

Who said that one can learn a language in 6 days?

We are talking about reading comprehension. It is French not Japanese, and it is very close to English. Near %40 of the English vocabulary is derived from French or entered English through it. Not to mention that the vast majority of advanced words from subjects such as the sciences, philosophy, math, etc. come from Latin or Greek, and they are very similar in most European languages.

sheetz Wrote:First I'd read a passage in Japanese and then check the English translation whenever I'd get stuck. I did this with the Harry Potter books and the first book was tough. However, it does get easier if you stick with it.

sheetz, why don't you try L-R since you have many translated books and novels? I heard that you don't have time to make parallel texts. I can make one for you. Do you want to try it? PM me.

Jarvik7 Wrote:My Chinese study to date has been much like this. I'm so far satisfied with just reading comprehension since my main objective for studying Chinese is for more background on Japanese etymology and classical Japanese texts

Jarvik, how long do you study Japanese and Chinese?

Sorry, although you are one of the active members, I don't know much about you. I registered here last year.

ahibba Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:I mean come on, if you could learn a language in 6 days, why would, for example, the US government train their diplomats etc for months upon months?

Who said that one can learn a language in 6 days?

We are talking about reading comprehension. It is French not Japanese, and it is very close to English. Near %40 of the English vocabulary is derived from French or entered English through it. Not to mention that the vast majority of advanced words from subjects such as the sciences, philosophy, math, etc. come from Latin or Greek, and they are very similar in most European languages.

This is what the Japanese would call 甘い. How much does it help that many words are similar (similar =/= same) and it's not even the majority of them, when the languages have different roots? (English being north germanic, French being romance).

The grammar is completely different. No matter how great you are at learning from context and how many words you "somewhat" understand (3500 words in 4 days will do that to you), you can't read a text in 6 days.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Who needs 6 days when there is Countdown to French: Learn to Communicate in 24 hours

I have this book (and the Spanish version as well). In fact, 24 hours does not mean one day. It means 6 days (4 hours/day.)

You can use it for grammar. But it will not teach you much vocabulary.

Tobberoth Wrote:The grammar is completely different. No matter how great you are at learning from context and how many words you "somewhat" understand (3500 words in 4 days will do that to you), you can't read a text in 6 days.

Are you sure?

So you don't know about Ilya Frank method:

http://english.franklang.ru/6/

Ilya Frank Wrote:What is one supposed to do about the grammar? Actually, in order to understand a text that contains such prompts, one does not need grammar – all will be clear anyway. Soon one becomes used to certain forms and the grammar is also learned latently. It is very much like when people who had never studied grammar but were put in a language environment, managed to master the language. I’m not saying this so that you keep away from grammar (it is very interesting and useful). The only point is that you could begin reading such books without being an expert on grammar; rudimentary knowledge would do. This kind of reading can be recommended at the earliest stage. Such books will help you overcome a very crucial barrier: you’ll learn the vocabulary and get accustomed to the logic of the language while saving time and energy.

Actually, you can start reading texts in the first day!

http://english.franklang.ru/13/

If you know how to read Cyrillic, try this:

http://english.franklang.ru/36/

Don't read just three to four lines. Read the whole story, then read it again without prompts.


No force on earth can convince me that you cannot learn a language without study the grammar, because I myself read articles in English without any formal study (no grammar, no drills, no exercises, etc.)

Note that my first language is more distant from English than French. It is from a completely different language family.

ahibba Wrote:No force on earth can convince me that you cannot learn a language without study the grammar, because I myself read articles in English without any formal study (no grammar, no drills, no exercises, etc.)

You don't have to do drills or exercises to learn grammar. You don't even have to read grammatical explanations. That doesn't mean you can read without knowing grammar and it takes a lot of time to learn, especially if you attempt to do it with nothing but exposure. (That's why the drills, exercises, books etc exist my friend: To speed things up.)

You can definitely learn grammar without formal education. But not in 6 days.

Tobberoth Wrote:But not in 6 days.

What about this:

and this:

I don't know about 6 days, but I do think it's possible to comprehend written French in a very short amount of time. Years ago I took a trip to Quebec and one month before I left I crammed in as much French as I could. The end result was that even though I couldn't speak a lick of it, I was able to read almost any French I came across. And I don't just mean signs, but also things like entire passages written in pamphlets and brochures. Now, I did have some knowledge of Spanish so that helped, but this was also before the internet so I didn't have access to a lot of the study aids we have now.

ahibba Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:But not in 6 days.

What about this:

and this:

None of those videos provide any proof what so ever. What I want is a video clearly showing a complete beginner and then test them each day. On the 6th day, they should be able to read the target language. The example in the german video, while somewhat impressive I suppose, is far from proof that you can learn german in six days. They are making tons of errors, speaking very slowly and using very basic language.

They aren't learning the language in six days like this claims. They are being introduced to it in 6 days. It's bogus. Remember, in all languages, no matter how you learn them, the progress in the beginning is the most radical. You can easily double your ability each day. (I went from knowing no Chinese at all to speaking basic sentences in like.. 2-3 hours of studies.)

Hyreia, I have a PDF file contains the whole essential French grammar in 6 pages only.

Send a PM if you want to borrow it!

Tobberoth Wrote:What I want is a video clearly showing a complete beginner and then test them each day. On the 6th day, they should be able to read the target language.

Do you speak French? Why don't you try it youself and see if it is possible?

Quote:The example in the german video, while somewhat impressive I suppose, is far from proof that you can learn german in six days.

1. You saw their speaking skills not how can they read German texts. (Remember that Hyreia wants to be able to read French not to speak it correctly.)

2. They didn't use the methods mentioned above. (The school's method isn't very effective.)

3. They learned more than 800 words in 6 days + basic grammar. If it was Japanese, it is equivalent to JLPT 4 which contains about 724 words and they say it needs about 150 hours or 1 year of study to pass it!

ahibba Wrote:3. They learned more than 800 words in 6 days + basic grammar. If it was Japanese, it is equivalent to JLPT 4 which contains about 724 words and they say it needs about 150 hours or 1 year of study to pass it!

Anyone who says that JLPT4 takes a year is stupid/severely misinformed. I passed JLPT2 in one year without using any special trainers using magical 6 day teaching techniques. Getting good enough to pass JLPT4 in a month is not hard. Doing it in 6 days is much harder, but probably still possible. It is after all a multiple-choice test, with 60% passing grade.

Sorry, but JLPT4 is nothing. 800 words are close to zero. In my opinion, Japanese only starts to get useful after JLPT2, and that is a lot more time.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Sorry, but JLPT4 is nothing. 800 words are close to zero. In my opinion, Japanese only starts to get useful after JLPT2, and that is a lot more time.

Very very true. I got 95% on a JLPT3 test in Japan after having studied for about 6 months (and yes, that's just normal classroom studies), and I still had no chance to read a manga and understand more than minimal parts of it. Any text containing tons of kanji, I simply gave up. Even after passing JLPT2, I still had a lot of problems reading manga properly (my problem being vocabulary), and at that point, I'd guess I knew over 4000 words.

1000 words or so might be enough for very basic conversation at the childish level, but it's not even close to having proper conversations.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Sorry, but JLPT4 is nothing. 800 words are close to zero.

I know that JLPT 4 is not a big thing. That's why I think passing JLPT 1 in 3-6 months is possible.

But 800 words is enough to conduct basic conversations.

You can write the whole Bible using 800 words only!

http://o-bible.com/cgibin/ob.cgi?version...&chapter=1

The link above contains the Bible in Basic English. (if you don't know, Ogden's Basic English is an international form of English uses 850 words only.)

Ogden Wrote:If one were to take the 25,000 word Oxford Pocket English Dictionary and take away the redundancies of our rich language and eliminate the words that can be made by putting together simpler words, we find that 90% of the concepts in that dictionary can be achieved with 850 words. The shortened list makes simpler the effort to learn spelling and pronunciation irregularities. The rules of usage are identical to full English so that the practitioner communicates in perfectly good, but simple, English.

http://ogden.basic-english.org/


Aijin, a native Japanese says that most Americans need 7-10 months to pass JLPT 4.

Aijin Wrote:Most students can pass the JLPT4 after two semesters of college courses, which is usually around 140 hours of instruction. Maybe 200 hours of studying total for the average learner? I'm sure there are people who could do it very quickly if they did intensive studying, but my estimate is 7-10 months for someone just studying in their spare time and taking it at a slow and steady rate. I think that's the average for most Americans

ahibba Wrote:Aijin, a native Japanese says that most Americans need 7-10 months to pass JLPT 4.

But he is, like you said, a native Japanese. In Sweden, you're supposed to be able to pass JLPT3 after one year of studies. I can't really believe the difference is THAT big from the states.

Maybe the Scandinavians are a bit smarter than the Americans

Is there a big difference between JLPT 4 and JLPT 3?

JLPT 3 = 1400 words + 300 kanji JLPT 4 = 800 words + 100 kanji

I don't see a big difference. If JLPT 3 needs one year of studies, then JLPT 4 needs 7 months as Aijin says.

But for many of us, both do not need more than 1-2 months.

Jeez, I studied Japanese for more than 4 years in a classroom and still failed JLPT3 last year

Just for comparison the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London claims to get absolute beginners to JLPT2 level in one year in their diploma course.

http://www.soas.ac.uk/programmes/prog13253.php

It's 40 weeks of class time totalling 600 hours. Students are also expected to do at least 15 hours a week outside class.