Mango Languages: French Transliterations!

Students of French tend to find it difficult to pronounce the Romance language; however, Mango Languages' English transliterations have made that aspect of learning French a lot easier.

For example: Bonjour. Vous parlez anglais? (Bone-joor. Voo par-lay a(n)gleh?)

Mango Languages, which I highly recommend, isn't free, but it's free if you have a New York Public Library card.

(Disclaimer: This is not a paid endorsement.)

Polyglot Kató Lomb Condones Reading for SLA

Kató Lomb is well-known in the world of polyglots for learning fifteen languages as an adult. In Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, Lomb recommended some unconventional but reportedly effective strategies. For example, she wrote: 

"[...] dare to include reading in your learning program from the very beginning, and second, that you should read actively." (66)

"[...] books [that you find personally engaging], which can be consulted at any time, questioned again and again, and read into scraps, cannot be rivaled as a language-learning tool" (66)

"[...] more efficient means of learning exist [than reading engaging books in a foreign language], [but] more accessible and obliging ones do not." (69)

Lomb recommended buying instead of borrowing. That way the books: "[...] can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points [...] and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself." (69)

"[...] books not only teach grammar but also provide the most painless means of obtaining vocabulary." (74)

Here's Lomb's methodology for using reading as a second-language acquisition (SLA) strategy (69):

So, grab an engaging book in your target language and a (monolingual) dictionary (to be consulted conservatively) to supplement your SLA.

Duolingo's French & French in Action: A Clarification

Last fall, we finished Duolingo's French skill tree. Consequently, we received an e-certificate, and we were informed that we're 52% fluent. 

Duolingo's claim that we're 52% fluent should be clarified. We're more like 52% fluent in reading French but not in speaking or writing. For example, about 50% of the time we can read the French that's peppered throughout Nabokov's oeuvre. For example, in Transparent Things, when Armande, who had a grain de beauté, setup a rendez-vous with Hugh prior to their subsequent marriage, she told him, "Now listen, tomorrow I'm occupied, but what about Friday-if you can be ready à sept heures précises?" (43)

Erard related from Krashen in Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners that: "[Language] [a]cquisition happens [...] when we understand what we read or hear-not when we speak or write it, memorize vocabulary, or study grammar." (102)

Very recently, we watched all fifty-two episodes of Yale University's French in Action. Interestingly, we didn't understand 50% of the dialogue, but we understood over 50% of the transcripts.