My Language Success Story

hi i’m vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm if you have already seen my

language learning failure video then

today i want to give you a positive

example today i want to talk about

another personal story about my success

in learning french in a different way

let’s talk about it

as i mentioned in my Spanish video I

decided to quit my Spanish class because

I felt like it was boring it wasn’t

interesting it wasn’t what I wanted to

do and I thought that maybe there was a

problem with Spanish and my brain maybe

there was a problem with the language

and me in reality that’s not the case

there was nothing wrong with Spanish but

there was a huge problem with the method

that I was learning Spanish so I decided

to change to French instead I took a

French class that was very basic but

after this basic level I decided to go

on to a more advanced class and in this

advanced class the other students didn’t

really care about learning French I

think they were only there because it

was a requirement but for me it wasn’t a

requirement I was just interested in

learning French trying another language

so this class wasn’t a really good fit

for me and I decided to quit again

and this is the best thing that I could

have done because I asked the professor

can I meet with you in your office once

twice maybe three times a week just to

speak one-on-one I’m really interested

in trying to speak but the classroom

isn’t really helping me with that she

said yes I was very lucky and I met with

her two or three times a week for

several months until I graduated this

helped in so many different ways first

of all she helped answer all my

questions

she also helped to give me more

expressions that I needed to use in my

conversation and the most important

thing I feel like is she helped me gain

confidence I wasn’t scared to try to

speak even if I had no idea what to say

I just tried to say something and she

was so patient so I learned a lot in

that situation but after I finished my

studies then I had to do something

different I decided to go to a local

meetup group you can see these kind of

meetup groups in your city at meetup.com

meetup calm but I went to a French

meetup in my city and every Wednesday

evening there were a group of people who

spoke French most of them also spoke

English because we were in the US but

the goal was to speak only French

together and these people opened my eyes

because it wasn’t one-on-one anymore it

was a group of people all speaking

together I didn’t really understand very

much and I mostly listened I tried to

speak but I mostly listened in that

situation but it helped me to realize

that this is a real language this is a

thing that isn’t just in the classroom

that isn’t just with my professor but

this is something that I can use with a

lot of people and it showed me that I

need some motivation to be able to get

to that level so I decided to change my

path I decided to move to France and

live with a French family as their

au-pair au-pair is like a nanny or

babysitter who lives with the family so

I moved to Paris and lived with the

French family of course this was really

useful to me to speak French with the

family but I think there were two other

things that were really useful while I

was living in Paris that I could have

done other places too and I want you to

take note of these places because you

can also do this in your own

tree the first one is that I spoke

French with my friends who were not

native French speakers a lot of my

friends were other a pears from Austria

Germany Sweden a lot of other places and

none of us were native French speakers

but we spoke French together anyway and

I think in these conversations it really

helped me because I felt confident

expressing myself I knew that they

wouldn’t feel frustrated if I didn’t

know exactly what to say because they

understood they were in the same

situation but we learned from each other

this was so beneficial non native French

speakers speaking together was wonderful

the second thing that helped me was when

I went to my daily French class this was

required for my visa so I had to go to a

French class every morning when I went

to that French class I had a great time

I’ve never had a good language class

before but this teacher showed me that

it was possible and in my own life I

tried to imitate him and imitate his

style and his care because each class

passed so quickly we learned a lot he

shared so much fun information with us

and he cared about each student so this

was something that was really positive

for me having someone who was

entertaining interesting and also

attentive to each student this helped me

to learn French a lot so speaking with

my friends speaking with the meetup

group speaking with my professor

speaking with the teacher in Paris these

were also useful and I want to give you

all these different situations because I

know a lot of you are not living in a

native english-speaking country you’re

not living in the UK and Australia and

Canada in the US you are living in your

home country or somewhere else and you

can’t live with an english-speaking

family so I wanted to show you

these other ways that really impacted me

that really helped me to learn French so

thank you for listening to this story

today about my success learning French

and I want to ask you a question now

tell me what is your English learning

history your English learning background

when did you start to learn English what

did you do to reach today what did you

do throughout your life to learn English

maybe you had a similar experience to me

let me know in the comments below and if

you are not on my website click the link

below this video so that you can see the

full free lesson to get more sample

sentences and to read about this

experience more fully thank you everyone

for joining me and I’ll see you the next

time goodbye

you