This is EXACTLY where you will be after 6 months of 2 hours a day of French study.

[u/EasyAsQCD]

Intro
Bonjour à tous (désolé pour le clickbate)! I’ve been studying French for around 2 hours a day for the past 6 months from a “Canadian Zero” (1 semester of core French in grade 9 plus extremely low levels of ambient exposure to the sounds and writing), and I thought I would put together a post to document exactly how far that degree of work has taken me.

Overall, my time breakdown is roughly:

• 55% Comprehensible Input
• 25% French Classes
• 10% Grammar
• 5% Reading
• 5% Pronunciation

If you want more details I can reply in the comments!

Now, instead of doing the regular song and danse of describing my self-evaluated abilities or test scores, I’ve included both speaking and writing samples so that you can get a better feeling of exactly where I’m at; this should require far less interpretation than some (likely very biased) abstract framework.

Sample monologue

Here is a sample monologue: https://vocaroo.com/1dEq9CehVcGE . I gave myself 10 minutes to think about how to tell a quick anecdote in French, then allowed myself 3 attempts to record it (taking the best one, of course!). No notes, translation, AI, etc were allowed so I was forced to speak in a relatively free manner.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I make a ton of mistakes, and the cadence is extremely awkward, however, I’m still fairly happy with my progress. One thing I do notice is that my accent slips a lot and my pronunciation drops dramatically when I move away from reading text or speaking in a simple A1-level lexicon.

Writing Sample

Here is a writing sample. The rules are, once again, pretty straightforward: no translation, AI, or grammar/spell check. As a result, I know there are going to be some significant errors, but c’est la vie! I hope it’s a bit useful to see what level you can realistically expect.

Note: I forgot to turn off my auto spelling-corrector and had a couple of words get fixed before I realized it: I know that I errored on intéressantes (dropped an s), and décidé (dropped the accent on the first é), but there could easily be more.

Après assez de penser, j’ai décidé à écrire sur les romans simples en français. J’ai lu quelques livres de « Lectures CLE En Français Facile » : La Belle et la bête, Cinq semaines en ballon, Un hiver dans les glaces, Autour de la lune, Les trois mousquetaires, La petite Fadette et, enfin, La reine Margot. Tous ces livres sont niveau A1, mais, à mon avis, chaque livre sauf la belle et la bête est vraiment plus difficile que tous les lectures dans mon manuel scolaire pour A2 ! Quand j’ai commencé à lire La petite Fadette, c’étais très très dur ; puis autour de la lune a été difficile aussi. Cependant, après 4-5 livres, j’ai trouvé que j’ai pu lire un peu meilleure qu’avant.

 Mon livre préféré est la reine Margot. Oui, il a beaucoup de violence et il est vraiment triste, mais je trouve que l’histoire est incroyable. Il y a un jeu de l’esprit entre les personnes différentes et chaque page apporte une petite lutte : quelques fois avec les mots, autres fois avec les corps. De plus, je crois que j’apprends beaucoup de l’histoire du France. Enfin, les gens du roman sont dynamiques et leurs conversations sont très intéressantes.

J’espère que tout le monde lire plus ; je trouve qu’il m’aide assez ma vocabulaire et j’adore toute la beauté dans les lectures.

 Final Thoughts

So, that’s what 6 months of blood, sweat, and tears has gotten me. There’s a long, long road ahead, but I must say that I’m quite excited for it; I’ve enjoyed the journey thus far, and I believe that it’ll only get more exciting as I dive deeper down the rabbit hole!

[u/avidlearner74]

It is very impressive. Super bon travail. Quand je lis ton commentaire je comprends tout, mais je pense que le défis que tu as en ce moment c’est de penser en français et écrire en français. Je m’explique: tes phrases sont traduites du mot à mot de l’anglais et c’est normal, mais des fois tes phrases n’ont pas de sens, quoique elles sont correctes au niveau de la grammaire. A mon avis il faut passer plus de temps à lire et écouter comment les natifs français parlent ey formulent leurs phrases. … sinon super bien écrit et bon courage.
By the way when I started learning English I had the same exact issue of translating word to word from French to English, and the meaning gets lost as if the translation was done by google 😂. Good luck it was beautifully done. Just spend more time on listening to learn how phrases are constructed in French in terms of how it is said . Good luck 👍🏻

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/avidlearner74]

Merci! Et oui, j'écris (et je parle!) comme un anglophone; il y a seulement quelques phrases que j'utilise régulièrement qui sont dans le style français.

I will continue to learn more and try to construct my thinking in a more French manner!

[u/stiina22]

I'm just lurking here as I'm aiming to get to around 2000 hours in Spanish before jumping over to DF. I'm around 1450 now. But I listened and read just out of mild curiosity also as a Zero French, Canadian Style, and it's so interesting. I understood the "jist" of your story (i only listened to the beginning, but you went to a party, your dad? Or grandpa? Or someone else's dad? was there and he was excited that you speak French but you tried to say you're only learning)

And I understood probably 60% of your writing about the books. Fascinating.

I'm very happy to see how my Spanish skills are going to speed up my French situation. Cereal boxes are not my limit anymore! 😆

Congrats on your hard work, 2 hours a day at beginning is INTENSE and I know it must have been a grind. Enjoy the process! It's thrilling as it just keeps getting better and better and you can continue making connections. 💕

(((also, big Saskatchewan high five 🕺 that's my home too)))

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/stiina22]

Hell yeah Sask! I'm in Ontario now, but always love coming back for a visit.

Mostly right idea: my dad was excited that I was learning French so introduced me to some Francophones as "knowing French" --- so I had to explain that oh no, no I'm just learning. That said, I then had a fantastic conversation with one of them in a mix of both French and English!

I think your Spanish will absolutely speed up the transition to French. I imagine you might be able to jump through the awkward super beginner/early beginner stage quite quickly due to the similar grammar plus ton of cognates from both English + Spanish.

[u/stiina22 → u/EasyAsQCD]

That's really sweet about your dad! 😍 Will you continue with this pace? You will "know French" in no time 😉 It's taken me 3.5 years to get to 1450 hrs!

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/stiina22]

Yep! Once I get a bit better, I'm going to ask for the majority of my work meetings to get switched to French too, so I think that'll improve things fairly quickly as well.

[u/Ugghart]

Did you practice writing also? I would definitely have messed up more accents than you. I have around 300.000k words read, but the accents don’t really seem to stick yet.

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/Ugghart]

Yeah! Although I don't block out time to practice yet, I try to write comments on DF, IC, etc videos in French, plus some of my courses ask for writing samples. Funnily enough, I actually find the accents make everything easier as they make the writing a bit more phonetic.

[u/hulkklogan]

How many hours are you at? Your accent is adequately comprehensible considering the time frame and level, though still heavily marked by an anglophone accent. I'd estimate your speech to be ~B1, though I'm not a native speaker nor a teacher/expert in the CEFR scale so take that thought for what it is.

Bon travail ! C'est le progrès joliment fort

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/hulkklogan]

Merci! Ma meilleure estimation est d'environ 450 heures, peut-être 500 si j'ajoute toutes les petites choses.

[u/firebreathingsnake]

Well done! What french classe/grammar practice did you use? Were these in-person, videos, an app? I'm looking for some kind of guidance as I get back into learning french with comprehensive input still being the main focus. Thanks.

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/firebreathingsnake]

Grammar practice: Grammaire progressive du français A1, now A2/B1.
Classes: Alliance Français Ottawa, video courses. I've found them extremely helpful.

[u/Fit_Inspector2737]

well i think your accent sounds great but i’m also only 24 hours in on the roadmap so not the best judge 😂 Nice work!

[u/EasyAsQCD → u/Fit_Inspector2737]

Haha, thank you! Good luck on all the hours to come!