I Learned French in 12 Months

I agree about lack of initiative, I just don't want people thinking if they just listen to enough music/TV/whatever they'll magically be able to speak and understand. That only seems to work in children (at least to seem like a native speaker to other native apeakers). It takes work for is adults! For French, it will seem slower after time, don't worry! French in particular has a lot of slurring, but it is predictable after learning the rules (and there are rules!). I recommend the book "The Sounds of French". The new "Ad Vitam" on Netflix is entertaining and you can hear some reasonable-speed modern French. I have some beginner book/audio recommendations if you want.

Native French speaker here... (this is a throwaway account)

I am not judging the overall ability of OP to actually speak French or its methodology but I got triggered by the embedded French text and "correction" [1].

Neither the original text nor the correction make any sort of sense.

Here is the original text :

Je vous propose une deuxième solution : des credits pour s’inscrire à un gymnase proche. Il est évident que faire du sport nous aide beaucoup à bien gérer le stress et améliorer la santé. Cependant, il est parfois difficile de trouver le temps pour s’inscrire à un bon gymnase et se dédier à l’assister, particulièrement quand on est tout seul. Si on donne aux employés des credits pour faire du sport, il sera probable qu’ils se motiveront et ils iront le gymnase ensemble. Cela pourrait beaucoup réduire le stress parmi nos employés et faire en sorte que notre entreprise trouve toujours le succès.

In a conversation, French-speaking people would probably get the general idea if they were to try hard enough but it is at the frontier between gibberish and (young) child level of French.

Let me break it down :

> Je vous propose une deuxième solution : Perfectly fine.

> des credits pour s’inscrire à un gymnase proche “crédits” is an unrelated term ; “gymnase” is the old-fashioned name for a place where all kinds of indoor sports take place. If the the idea here is “vouchers for gym subscription”, the closest in French would be “des abonnements à des clubs de fitness/salles de sport”.

> Il est évident que faire du sport nous aide beaucoup à bien gérer le stress et améliorer la santé. You can improve _your_ health, not _the_ health. Given that he used “nous”, that would be “… améliorer notre santé”.

> Cependant, il est parfois difficile de trouver le temps pour s’inscrire à un bon gymnase Same comment as above regarding “gymnase”.

> et se dédier à l’assister Literally translated “dedicate yourself to assist the gym [the building]”. A correct wording would be “et y être régulier”.

> particulièrement quand on est tout seul. Perfectly fine.

> Si on donne aux employés des credits pour faire du sport, Same comment as above regarding “crédit”.

> il sera probable qu’ils se motiveront et ils iront le gymnase ensemble. Here, the conjugation (the tenses) are plain wrong – it’s really obvious yet whoever did the correction didn’t have a clue. And it lacks a preposition and a grammatical article. Literally translated “it is going to be likely that they will be motivate themselves and they would go to the place where all sorts of sports take place together”. Properly translated “il est probable que cela les motive et qu’ils participent à cette activité ensemble”.

> Cela pourrait beaucoup réduire le stress parmi nos employés Ok.

> et faire en sorte que That’s perfectly fine and the “correction” isn’t any better. They are synonyms.

> notre entreprise trouve toujours le succès. That’s fine from a grammatical point of view but that is not a wording that would be used in that context. Once again, the “correction” isn’t better. The general idea of the text is that, in the context of a fictional company, providing employees with vouchers for gym subscriptions could help reduce their overall stress, have a positive effect on their health and, at the end of the day, contribute to the success of the company. The last sentence would be used by a sect and would roughly translate to “our company will always manage to find success”.

[1] http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png

When they do that, they are focusing on the English subtitles and effectively filtering out the Japanese. If they tried to hide the subtitles and only glimpse at them occasionally they would start to see gradual improvement. Many people won't because they'll find they suddenly can't understand most things and it becomes exhausting. by that that's what it's like when you are really learning.

That being said it's still a slower way to learn because the language in anime is quite removed from a typical real conversation you will get in to.

I believe Krashen's theory is easy to misunderstand. If you only take a brief look at it you may think it's over simplified. The theory isn't just input in the sense that you've at least got the language going in you're ears. The "comprehensible" part means that you are comprehending via the language, using context to fill in the blanks. I don't think you learn from outputting language, but outputting is essential for producing the ideal comprehensible input. For example, BTBurke's third point is to ask questions to a native speaker. Note that here, the native speaker is doing the speaking, and BTBurke is learning when listening, not when asking the questions. But asking questions to a native speaker like this and refusing to give up and go back to your native language engages the human brain in a way that simply watching some videos doesn't, and provides important context. Krashen calls this compelling input. In BTBurke's first point, they say production is essential, but I think Krashen would say this so-called production (talking to native speakers) is really just using production to get ideal comprehensible input from native speakers when you listen to them speak back to you. As for the 5 minute minute presentation. I would say that this 5 minute presentation is mostly just testing one's current ability, but the preceding the presentation there would be hours of looking up (and inputting) sentences that you wish to say rather than learning randomly, and that's where most of the real learning occurs.

I apologise for the "It's both right and wrong at the same time" kind of answer. In summary I believe BTBurke is a fantastic language learner, but if you look closely at what they are doing, you'll see they are providing themselves with plenty of comprehensible input, and the production/output as actually a more minor part that facilitates this input.

Nobody should base their opinion of a country on the way service workers in that country's capital city treated them.

See Le Louvre, La Tour, Musee D'Orsay, Sainte Chapple, perhaps pop in to l'Orangerie, then get on a train and visit the real France and find real French people.

Actually Père Lachaise is pretty cool too: Fourier and Jim Morrison are buried there.

Why can't a diplomat have a tech-related hobby? Most people outside tech have hobbies that are unrelated to their daily job.