Answer time: Language learning

[terresdebrume]

darknpretty asked: What's the best way for remembering French grammar and vocabulary?

Answer: Exposure and usage.

This is true for all languages, not just French btw, but basically the more you expose yourself to French vocabulary (i.e. read in French or listen to stuff in French) and use it (say, if you decide to write fic in French for example) the more you reinforce your knowledge of the language.

As for how you do exposure/usage, again, it depends on what’s available and comfortable for you, but for example you can decide to use French websites, read/write fic in French (depending on your level FanficFR can be a great place to start, but if you don’t feel too confident yet I can try and do a bit of digging for short pieces), chat in French with people on Tumblr (I always accept messages :P) or try and rewatch movies/tv shows you already know in French.

(I say movies or shows you know well because then you’ll know the story and you can focus more on understanding the dialogues. Also, if you want/need subtitles, I recommend using French subtitles as much as possible, so you’re not tempted to just focus on the language you already know and ignore the French input)

Grammar, in my opinion, is a bit of a trick question. Here’s the thing: grammar is an arbitrary set of rules that corresponds with varying degrees of accuracy to the way native speakers (usually, of a certain country) use a given language. You can treat it as something that must be followed to speak a language the ‘right’ way (prescriptivism) or just something that tries to describe how language works (descriptivism).

Either way, outside of language classes, the chances someone will ask you about the accords du participe passé are relatively low. So, either you feel it’s needed for you to know the rules and, again, one of the best ways to do that is to just repeat and consciously reuse the rules as much as possible (i.e. when you write “J’ai mangé une pomme” you can tell yourself “it’s mangé with a é because there’s no accord with the past participle of avoir).

Or you don’t feel it’s all that important to remember the rules and prefer to focus on speaking/writing natural french, and in this case the tips are the same: repeated exposure and usage, whether it’s through the hobbies I mentioned above (there are other methods of course) or through Duolingo, for example :)