3 proven shortcuts to becoming

conversational in French
Part 2: “I freeze up when I try to speak french
Welcome back this is part two now of this series: Three proven shortcuts to
becoming conversational in French.

If you remember, we stared into our crystal ball that reveals exactly what the future
has in store for you as a French learner… based on what I’ve discovered from 1000s
of French learners just like you, who all run into trouble and struggle with similar
thing.

If you can avoid these pitfalls, you are opening up the path to becoming
conversational in French far faster than you thought possible.

Now in video 1… the first pitfall we saw was this:

• “I'm completely lost listening to native speakers at their normal speed”

And we saw how, to avoid this, you need to focus you study time from the
beginning on listening to lots of natural French every day -- ideally 30 minutes or
more, and how the technique of listening along with a transcript can help you learn
much faster than just listening by itself.

By studying in this way, you train yourself to understand spoken French from the
beginning, so when you do have conversations in French, you’re comfortable,
because that’s what you’ve been doing every day.

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 1

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Now, if you peer back into the crystal ball…

There’s something else you need to see… something important

I want you to imagine that you're in the South of France...

You’re exploring a local village, strolling the streets, and at some point you go into
a boulangerie, because…. Well it’s impossible to resist a French boulangerie for long!

You walk inside and say hello to the shop owner in French… you even order
something...

Bonjour
Bonjour monsieur
Est-ce que je peux vous aider ?
Oui, je voudrais une baguette et deux pains aux chocolat s’il vous plaît

This bit is easy, because you’ve practiced it 100 times before, conversation openers
are always the easy bit!

But then, disaster strikes!

Seeing that you speak French, the owner keeps talking...

He starts asking you about your trip….

Now, because you’ve been following my tips and you’ve worked hard on your
listening from the start, you understand everything he said - good job!!

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 2

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But then…

You realise you now have to reply!

So you launch into replying to the owner, excited to have the chance to speak
French.

But as you start to speak, some doubts start to enter your mind…

• That thing I just said… did I make a mistake?

• Should it have been masculine or feminine…
• Never mind… I’ve got to try to carry on…
• Oh.. but I think I got the verb conjugation wrong...
• You keep going, but you get nervous
• You start to analyse what you’re saying in French… as you’re saying it!
• You tie yourself up in knots and before you know it, your mind goes blank…
you freeze up… you start to blush
• The poor shop owner didn’t understand what you said
• There’s the faint feeling of a knot in your stomach as you realise you’re in
trouble…
• How can it be that all the words and expressions I thought I knew are just
vanishing from my mind and don’t seem to be of any use?
• And finally that familiar thought: “I just want to run away and hide”

Now… that may seem like an extreme characterisation…

But, is it…?

If you’ve ever tried to speak a foreign language with a real person before, some or
all of what I just described will feel uncomfortably familiar.

In fact, that feeling of your “mind going blank” is so uncomfortable, it might even
have stopped you continuing with your French in the past.

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And you know what… you wouldn’t be alone.

I hear from hundreds of people who have even gone to live in French-speaking
countries, and their lives are seriously held back by not being able to express
themselves as well as they want.

The effect of this is that they don’t get involved in conversations at all, out of a fear
of making mistakes or not being “good enough”… even though they’re actually
desperate to communicate and show the local people how much of an effort
they’re making.

And now, I’d like to show you how to avoid ever finding yourself in this situation...
using an “upside down” method that you’re really going to like.

When you come to speak, there are two things you need…

• Words and grammar

You need the words in order to “say things”

And you need the grammar to glue the words together

And in French, it’s clear which is the prime culprit…

It’s grammar.

With words, well you just learn more of them over time! But grammar, grammar
has a habit of causing angst! And the more you learn, the more confused and
anxious you get!

Here are some of the hard things about French grammar:

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 • Sentence structure
• The grammar differences between English and French, especially with
different levels of formality
• Masculine and feminine… and words and grammar change according to
which is which
• Understanding particles such as ne, y, en, de, etc.
• conjugating verbs
• Verb tenses

...and when you have to get all of this right in the middle of a conversation, it’s that
which leads to freezing up and your mind going blank.

Here’s what one student said about French grammar:

Sentence structure and grammar differences are hard, especially with the genders
of nouns. Then there’s conjugating verbs, placing pronouns in right place, and verb
tenses can get pretty nasty! For a native English speaker who has not learned a
second language, it's like learning three languages at once.

So grammar is a problem.

It’s intimidating.

But here’s the thing...

It’s not the grammar itself.

After all, English grammar is hard too… and yet you speak that perfectly. Is it
because you studied English grammar to perfection?

No.

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With grammar in French, it’s the way you’re taught it that makes it so hard.

In a regular French class, you’ll learn a “rule” of grammar, and then practise using
that rule to make sentences. Sound familiar?

At school, you learn grammar through rules… and then have to remember all those
rules.

Then you get tested on those rules.

This makes you, the student, feel that grammar is everything!

You’re painfully aware of every mistake you make…Hundreds of rules lead to you
getting overwhelmed...

It’s no wonder you’re going to be self-conscious when you come to speak!

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 6

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It makes it impossible to speak fluently.

The way grammar is taught in the school system perpetuates this, and look:

Fewer than 1 percent of American adults today are proficient in a foreign language
that they studied in a U.S. classroom

(Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/filling-americas-language-
education-potholes/392876/)

So please...

No more of this.

What you need instead is a method for learning grammar that helps you get used
to the grammar naturally -- so that you can internalise how grammar works,
without the need to memorise rules through rote learning.

Instead of LEARN > PRACTISE, we’re going to reverse it:

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 7

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With this model, your starting point is listening and reading to French. Remember
how in the last video we said that you’re going to listen to at least 30 minutes of
French a day, to improve your listening skills?

Well guess what…

What I didn’t tell you in the last video is that, by doing this, you also have the chance
to learn grammar in a “stealth” way.

You see…

What do you think happens when you’re doing all that listening?

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You’re not just practising your listening…

You’re learning a TONNE of other stuff at the same time...

Words, phrases, pronunciation… and grammar!

You’re learning the whole French language, in fact!

So, when I teach French, I have my students start to listen and read to a LOT of
simple French before we do any grammar whatsoever.

No grammar!

I know your intuition tells you that you can’t learn a language without learning the
grammar first, but it’s not the case.

“You. French. No grammar. Understand. Easy. OK? ”

Just like you can understand that last sentence… even though there’s no grammar…
you can start to appreciate and enjoy French right from the beginning, with the
right material.

And then…

And then… comes the grammar. And this is what’s so exciting…

Let’s imagine you’ve spent a few days reading and listening to simple French, every
day… just spending time with and enjoying the language…

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 9

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How much easier do you think it is to learn a grammar rule, once you’ve seen it
being used dozens of times in context?

Don’t you think learning all those conjugations would be easier once you’ve heard
them dozens of times… instead of trying to memorise them from lists of verb tables?

And guess what? It’s also how people learn their own native language!

For example, by the time you studied and English grammar at school, you already
knew how to use that grammar… perfectly!

Experienced language learners, like native speakers learn grammar not through
rules, but by getting used to it first, and checking the rules later...

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First, they “practise” - they get lots and lots of input… without any expectations of
“knowing rules”...

Next… they “learn” - they come to look at a grammar rule and, because they’ve
already seen it being used over and over, the rule just makes intuitive sense.

When you learn in this way, seeing the “written grammar rule” on paper just helps
to confirm what you already knew. In fact, you’ll even say to yourself “Well that rule
is kinda complicated… I’m glad I learned it naturally… I’d never remember that rule
by itself!”

This method allows you to internalise grammar the way that native speakers do -
so that when you know it, you really know it.

This is also when you realise just how futile the idea of learning a language through
grammar rules really is.

Now there are two ways you can do this yourself… one solo, one with a teacher.

In both cases, your starting point is to spend at least 30 minutes a day listening and
reading to French.

SOLO
In the solo method, as you start to see certain grammar cropping up in the material
over and over… when you find yourself curious and ready to learn… simply refer to a
grammar book and look up the grammar point. Check how the grammar works,
look at some examples… and then close the book and get right back to your
listening! With this approach, you let your natural curiosity guide you, and you don’t
put yourself under any pressure to learn new things. This is my preferred method -
I know from my experience learning 9 languages that I will learn all the grammar I
need - I just need time and perseverance.

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WITH A TEACHER

With a teacher, this can be more structured. You’ll still do your daily listening, but
then you can go through the material with a teacher and have them help explain
grammar questions as they comes up.

Remember, the BIG difference is that you’re not starting out by learning the
grammar rule.

You’re spending all your time listening to the beautiful French language, and
referring to the rules only when your curiosity leads you there.

Over time… as you spend more and more time with French… as listening to French
becomes normal, and grammar starts to become second-nature… what do you
think happens to your speaking?

Quite simply… French grammar just starts to sound “normal”.

It doesn’t mean you’ll never struggle with a new piece of grammar, but it does
make the process so much more enjoyable

You’ll be able to enjoy the time you spend learning French, without constantly
feeling that your memory isn’t good enough, or you’re not cut out for learning
languages…

And when you do eventually come to speak French with people, you’ll love:

• how quickly you can respond to people

• How you hesitate very little
• How verb conjugations seem to roll naturally off your tongue, because they
just sound right…

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And before you say that this sounds like fantasy, have a look at some comment
from real students who I’ve taught in this way….

So let’s recap.

Up until now we've talked about how to develop the ability to understand fast
spoken French

that was video one

in this video we've talked about how to speak more fluently, by turning your
approach to grammar upside down.

instead of memorizing rules and trying to speak with rules… instead, start with
French - listening and reading to lots of content in French, and look at the
grammar rules later -- when you need them.

This way, you’re ready for the rules when they come, and you can internalise the
grammar with much less effort, the way native speakers do!

3 proven shortcuts to becoming conversational in french 13

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Now at this point, if you’re like me… there might be a little voice in the back of your
head.

A voice that says… well this all sounds great… but I’ve tried to learn language before.
I’ve always struggled to stay consistent… and sometimes I just lose motivation and
fizzle out.

Have you ever felt this before?

Well… you wouldn’t be the only one. In fact, this is the next thing we’ll find in our
crystal ball. In the next video, I’m going to reveal the most powerful way I know to
make sure you get started with French, and stick to it, all the way until you can
speak the language with ease. It’s a real gem.

For now I'd like you to leave me a comment right below this video and tell me about
your experience learning grammar in a foreign language. Has traditional grammar
study worked for you? Does grammar cause you stress when you speak? Let me
know below.

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