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