How have you started writing in the target language? Do you prefer to type or write free hand? Have you started to see patterns emerge in the structures between words, clauses, and sentences? What is the relationship between simple and complex sentences? How does your knowledge of parts of speech, government, and agreement affect your ability to communicate in written contexts? Provide a sample of several short meaningful writing exercises from your target language.
I have not yet gotten to the point of writing out full sentences in my target language, I am still in the beginner stage of rewriting vocabulary for memorization, which I do by hand, and sentence exercises typed online. Writing full sentences has felt overwhelming, I have tried a couple different discussion prompts that are centered around who I am, what I like to do, my favorite things (aka nothing too complex). Building a sentence from square one is still a bit too much for me. I am working on really understanding subject verb agreement and vocabulary, and verb tenses very separately in different online exercises. I think that I am not quite at the point where I can put it all together on my own, but I am getting there. I think that knowing italian grammar structures has really helped me, especially with verb conjugations.
Me Présenter
Bonjour,
Je m’appelle Caro. J’ai 21 ans. Je suis americaine. J’habite à Richmond. Je suis une étudiante de communication et en italien. J'aime étudier les langues pendant mon temps libre. J'aime passer du temps à l'extérieur et courir. Cette année, j'ai couru un marathon.
https://french.kwiziq.com/my-languages/french/exercises/overview/425
This site I found gives writing prompts and takes you step by step through the writing process helping with vocab and grammar so I have used a couple different prompts to learn how to translate sentences.
Replies
Thank you for sharing your process of language acquisition for French, and I think your concept of writing sentences and building knowledge from that firsthand act is truly important. I think any time I hear from another student's language acquisition process, I improve upon my own.
Hi Caro!
Writing in French can be really difficult, especially if you learned to speak before learning to write (considering half of the letters in French aren't even pronounced in writing!). I find that the sentence structures are some of the less difficult parts of the French language, especially with knowledge of other romantic languages. Out of curiosity, what are some other grammar difficulties you have encountered in French, besides verb agreement?
Off topic, but I read that you ran a marathon this year! Congrats! Did you also participate in the 5k run on campus by chance?
Hey Caro––
I totally get your struggles with beginning to write in French. Though I know very little about the language, I am aware that in many words (the majority, even), certain letters aren't pronounced, so I commend you for being able to write in French so well so far. It's also interesting that your Italian background is helping you juggle all of the conjugations (the most annoying part of learning a language, in my opinion), and the website you provided looks really neat.
Since I also know one should start from memorizing words to reach a higher level of fluency and proficiency in a language, I feel you with having a hard time trying to learn vocabulary. But I also think you are on the right track and I'm sure you are going to achieve what you have been looking for. Keep it up!