John Hattaway

In order for me to graduate from BYU with a bachelors of arts in English, BYU requires that I take four semesters of a language. One language. I chose French. I don’t know exactly all of the reasons I chose to take this language, a lot of my life is spent with a notion or an idea of something and when I really think about it, I think, “French is the language of literature,” and that is true. I have dedicated my life to literature and as such, there is some idea of semblance that you take French in order to augment understanding of a particular language or culture.

On top of the decision to take the language, I also discovered that I can’t just sit down and suddenly start learning this particular thing. Language, though not completely lost to me, is not coming wicked easily. In fact, after five weeks in an eight week course, I am currently bombing the class. I am failing rather miserably. The only positive thing is that I am starting to get it, but not because I haven’t spent hours studying and hundreds of dollars to augment what is being taught in the classroom.

My first purchase, just to understand rules, was two books on French Grammar rules. You gotta know the rules. However, what I think I am learning is that knowing the rules before you know what the rules apply to negates knowing the rules. You start to over-think the whole process. So, I began learning why things happened without know what was happening.

Then, I did a little bit of research and came across some software that purported to teach people French better than anything else. Reviewing the material through various forums and website and sure enough, it seemed that most people who used it felt that it had helped. And, I feel that it helps. But after the second purchase I am still struggling with the class.

Think about it. $100.00 for the class materials. $50.00 or so for the books on grammar. Another $200.00 odd dollars on software and I don’t really feel like I’m getting it.

Then I had this bit of inspiration to augment everything else. Buy something I can listen to in my car so I went out and spent several hours looking for audio specific programs and, after some time looking, reviewing, standing the “Y” bookstore and staring at the various products, ended up with an audio program that went from beginner to intermediate levels that, according to books and packaging, can be studied while “in the car”. Yeah, in the car, not while driving.

Which then led me to sit with a bunch of the information on various programs to just sit there. At the same time, I felt that it was appropriate to keep the software and audio programs for future augmentation and maintenance of language skills.

After spending several days only studying what was in class and talking to the teacher (who observed that I was trying to say more than I really understood and that I needed to concentrate on just saying what I knew and not the complex ideas I wanted to talk about) I didn’t really feel like I’d gotten anywhere and, sitting in class, I’d almost felt like I’d moved, somehow, backward in progression. Talk about discouraging.

Anyway, I then had this spur of a memory. It consisted of the memory of a memory of a name. There was this audio program specifically designed for “audio only” use that purported to help people speak the language very quickly. Now, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to understand the language, as spoken, and then learn the rules of writing and reading rather than trying to figure out the whole kit and caboodle as I went along. I mean, granted, I have no foreign language experience previous to now and the process of learning with no background has been pretty difficult. And taking an accelerated course doesn’t help.

As a result of the memory I sat down at my computer and looked up the language program that I’d remembered reading about. Memory indicated that the program was not inexpensive, but at the same time, was not as expensive as I’d already spent.

$100.00, $50.00, $200.00, and $80.00. Those are the approximate payments so far and only one was directly pertaining to class.

After finding out the name of the product I was interested in I discovered that the company who produces it sells a two disk product to introduce people to the language and the program for considerably less money. I then went to my current preferred bookstore website, to search local inventories, and did a search for the cheaper product and for the more expensive product.

I then sent an e-mail request for the company to hold the product for me and, several hours later (after school, work, and fixing the toilets at home) I went and purchased the product. Before I was even out of the store I’d had the packaging off and before I’d made it out of the parking lot I was listening to this “old as dirt” guy explaining how he wanted people to learn French. He is a French expatriate who, after World War II, moved to California and discovered his love for teaching languages. He’s taught a lot of stars and really famous people. And here he is telling me how to learn a language.

I’m thinking, “Yeah right. Not gonna happen,” even though this same “old as dirt” guy insists that if I follow his method, which is really hands off, I will learn how to vocally converse in French. I hadn’t made it a mile to where I needed to be before having actually retained information and, a couple of hours later, home without actually beginning to feel as though I’d actually been taught some pretty basic speaking skills.

Yesterday I had a previous commitment down in Manti and on the way down I went over several lessons over and over again. The one thing that the man on the program says is to not memorize and not think about it and not study. So, there I was, for about an hour, learning French and driving to Manti and I made a pretty interesting decision. This audio program is what it purports to be and, for $80.00 it was worth the cost; but, I also knew that I didn’t have to pay that amount as Amazon.com (my current preferred online retailer) generally offers pretty sizeable discounts on most thing.

When I got home, I found it new for $40.00 and for another $4.00 will have it here before the end of this next week.

I don’t know what the total cost of the language will prove to be. At present, I am resigned to taking the class over again, at some point. At present, the cost is worth it if I can, in the fall, take 102 and then accelerate through 201 and 203 in a little less than a year.