Thread: Will this work?

A friend of mine learned French by labelling the things around his house. He was only learning a few words so he could communicate with his French cousin.

I'm wondering if this idea would work? What he did was he labelledl the French word on things like his TV, computer, fridge, desk, bookshelf, etc. He then wrote a few sentences under the word like "I am watching television" or "My computer is off" and such.

Would this be a good way to learn words?

I guess if you wanted to learn useless words like "armchair" and "Venetian blinds." You wouldn't really learn words that you actually use often in conversation, unless you're a real estate agent.

Hmm, ok, I'll scrap that.

What about the extensive PDF/audio course archive at the Princeton site? By the looks of it this could be a really great tool. Do you know if it's a good route or not?

I've never used it, so by all means give it a try and tell us how you liked it. Since Princeton has a pretty high rep and all.

Hmm. I don't know. But what seems to work is writing the dialog at the beginning of the chapter 5 times or until you know it by heart. Let that chapter go by for a few days. Realize that you can only remember 3 sentences with clarity, and the rest of the sentences are rattling about in your mind. Reach for that fresh sheet of paper, open the book and write the diaglog again. You'll now remember 4 sentences with clarity. Repeat process . . .

I don't know if memorizing dialogues by heart is a good idea, sounds kind of like the way they taught foreign languages in the 60s(ALP or something?). But what works, works.

Well, the teacher I have is a sweet old lady, who came here from France and is from the Russian aristocracy (went over to her home last week and noticed her husband's coat of arms and pictures of mustachoed gentlemen in tsarist uniforms), so one's gotta do what the teacher tells you to do.

Cool! Swipe a jar of mustache wax for me, will ya?