This week is Languages Week Scotland which gives an opportunity to celebrate the signed and spoken languages used and learned across Scotland. We have decided to mark it on the blog by posting an article every day about a wide range of the language learning experiences of our students, friends and colleagues. To start us off, meet Iiris who is in the second year of her degree in International Politics and French at Stirling:
“Studying languages has pretty much always guided my study path and is how I ended up here in Stirling from my hometown of Turku, Finland. It all started with beginning to study English when I was ten. I absolutely hated it and made a point out of not participating or studying for it. It dawned on me that I was learning English even without trying, and the classes would go a lot faster if I just stuck my hand up. After that, I quickly began enjoying English, and when I picked up Swedish and Spanish a few years later, languages became my favourite subject. Instead of high school, I applied to the International Baccalaureate to be able to study in English and wanted to continue to do so at University. I chose Stirling because of being able to study politics and French as equals, which isn’t a given elsewhere. It has been really great, and I’m on track to becoming a polyglot soon, which is really important to me as an aspiring diplomat!
Every time I study a new language, I always just throw myself off the deep end and start reading books I can hardly understand. At first, it’s frustrating and takes a while to get used to, especially if you don’t know the plot or the characters from before. But after a while it becomes tolerable, and usually, after a hundred pages you recognize most of the words. At the end of the book, you know plenty of new words, new phrases and you improved your reading. So it’s definitely worth it, but how to get motivated enough to read a book you don’t understand?
The first trick is always choosing a book you like! When I was first learning English, I frequented the Fiction in English shelf at the library and chose whatever sounded interesting. I really liked adventure, so I went for books like Young Sherlock or Artemis Fowl. Afterward, I went back to English class and confused my teacher by using words like bloody hell and ambivalent – but I definitely also learned more appropriate and useful words, and quickly aced English class.
Another trick is to have a translator app or a dictionary nearby. When help is near, you don’t get frustrated as quickly. You can download Google Translator on your phone, and then use the camera to scan and translate words and phrases you don’t understand. For this Spring’s Contemporary French and Cultures Course, we were assigned Simone de Beauvoir’s Les Belles Images and Faïza Guène’s Kiffe Kiffe Demain, and I wanted to get a head start and read them over Christmas. These two were the hardest novels I had ever read in French. Kiffe Kiffe Demain uses plenty of slang, and Les Belles Images is challenging to understand even for a fluent speaker. But using the Google scanner got me through tough sentences, and I was able to finish both novels in two weeks.
I try to boost my learning by making a vocabulary of the words used in a novel. Authors often use similar phrases and writing patterns throughout their texts, which is also why after a hundred pages you already understand the author so much better. When reading Kiffe Kiffe Demain, I initially started by scanning almost entire pages to make sense of what I was reading. After a while, I didn’t need to check at all.
Another trick is to read a book you already love, but in the language that you’re trying to learn. The other national language of Finland is Swedish and I’m currently stuck in a limbo between advanced and fluent. I don’t get much practice in Scotland since I don’t have Swedish friends, but I try to fix that when I vacation in Finland by reading familiar books in Swedish. The Moomin are everywhere in Finland, and I used to read the books watch the series in Finnish a lot. Now, I read them in Swedish, and it’s great because I can deduce the meaning by context and I already know what is going to happen. Most importantly, I know the book is good, so I never get bored.
I take the same technique and use it when watching movies! I choose a movie in the language I want to learn and then choose the same language subtitles. If I want to understand the movie, I’m going to have to read – and quick. This helps your reading but also listening because you can try to listen to the movie and glance at the subtitles for support if you need it. Netflix is full of good French content like Lupin and Les Intouchables you can watch.
First and foremost, my motivation is just to improve my language skills, and reading foreign books does just that. One of my favourite books is Les Misérables, but I am not at a point where I can read it in French yet. But if I keep reading books in French, I will be soon! Reading is such a good way to learn new vocabulary and phrases without having to repeat a single word to yourself over and over again. You also learn a broader vocabulary beyond what you learn in class, and you too can confuse your teacher by using étourdissante instead of jolie.”
Some fantastic language learning advice from Iiris and a great blog post – thank you very much! As the week goes on, we’ll be posting about everything from teaching exchanges to language assistantships via language ambassadors and much else besides. And since Iiris has mentioned the novel here, we might even post something about the reading group on Les Belles Images Aedín ní Loingsigh is running for our Year 2 students. Bonne lecture et bonne semaine!
French at Stirling 
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