One of my students came back from France in December and told me she didn't have problems communicating with people in France. In fact, she learned French from me for five months and the result was incredible. The truth is, after 6 months of learning a language, anyone should be able to speak that language fluently. The secret is in six little principles:
1- Pay attention and focus on the part of the language that is relevant to you. Don't start by learning what you don't need. (vocabulary pertaining to aeronautics is irrelevant when trying to travel for tourism)
2- Listen to radio or watch tv in French. You may try France 24 live. (www.france24.fr)
3- Make sure you practice at least one and a half hour a day. They say "use it or lose it"; so, communicate in French every day.
4- Try hard to get the meanings of what people say first; even if it's just by reading their lips or through sign language.
5- Try to be relaxed when you are learning. You will make mistakes, but don't get frustrated.
6- Create sentences with the few verbs and vocabulary you have. The first six verbs I teach my students are: avoir (to have), être (to be), manger (to eat), boire (to drink), aller (to go), vouloir (to want).
Bonne chance !
L P Waters
I agree with you when you say "we should stop rushing and enjoy the long process". The problem with your statement is that not everyone has that time. There are circumstances in which you have to speed up the learning process. Let's take for instance a multinational corporation that has just opened a new office in a country and need to train natives; or simply an immigrant that has just moved to a country in which the language is new to him... I strongly believe people should learn things according to their aspirations.
I suppose that it depends what one thinks 'fluency' is, and what one's standards are. I think that if you 'learn' a language that quickly there will be a mismatch between the language and your lived experience. It took me around 16 years to have a really good level in my native language: so half of that time for a foreign language is not too bad in my book.
Generally I think that we should stop rushing and enjoy the (long) process more.
@Tima R
C'est normal de se stresser lorsqu'on n' arrive pas à s'exprimer. Par contre, ton interlocuteur sait que tu apprends la langue et devrait compatir. Mon conseil: Il ne faut pas avoir peur de faire des fautes car faire des fautes fait partir de l'apprentissage.
@Ksydee: Quelques gens regardent les bouches de ces qui parlent. Mimier les francophones peut aider.
That doesn't work well with natives, unless the learner is a trained body language expert (or the native in question is consciously speaking in a "classroom way" to enable this). Most natives don't exaggerate positions, and do not speak via "position management" the way a learners are often taught. They speak based on feel, muscle memory, and sound placement. An Anglophone can speak while barely moving their mouths unless bilabials are involved, and many do this. Even rounded vowels can be accurately reproduced, because they simply alter tongue/palate position in the mouth and place/resonate the sound in the correct place in the mouth. I suspect this is the case with speakers of many languages.
Couple this with Liaison, Elision, Vowel Reduction and sound changes to accommodate word linkage in fast, fluid speech... This becomes extremely difficult - if not impossible - for the majority of people. Finally, people won't always be intent on looking you straight in the face when you speak to them. If you ask for directions, they may turn their head away from you and look in the direction they point. Reading lips will be impossible in such a situation.
There are also differences in the Standard and Common Vernacular. If you are unaware of them, you will often fail to lipread them.
The best way to improve your comprehension of a language, is to improve your pronunciation and listen to much of the language. When your pronunciation is good, then what you "expect" to hear is in tune with what is produced by natives (accents be damned). This is a huge help.
My suggestion is to work hard on phonology at first (a few weeks). It will allow you to get more comfortable and "place" the sounds properly, at which point speaking and comprehending will be a LOT easier.
