How The French Foreign Legion Learns Languages Fast

But no matter their reason for enroling, ALL candidates must accomplish one key thing by the end of basic training if they want to receive any of the Légionnaire perks: learning enough French to function as a soldier!

It turns out that most of these men arrive at the recruitment center in France unable to speak a lick of French, and yet manage to get fluent enough in mere months to understand orders, describe the workings of their HK416F service rifle, and have conversations with fellow Légionnaires.

So how do they learn so fast? And what can we non-Légionnaires learn from their method? These are precisely the questions I answer in this video.

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😥 CORRECTIONS:

- The troops are speaking Portuguese, not French, at 1:16.

- The image at 3:30 is from a Commemoration of the Battle of Camarón by the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment at the Roman Theatre of Orange.

- A final "r" is missing from the end of « l'extérieur » at 13:10.

- Luciano says « boule de feu » ("ball of fire"), not "bowl of fire" at 19:49.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Intro
00:59 - What is the French Foreign Legion?
01:57 - Enrolment
02:22 - The Test
03:15 - The School
04:41 - The Classroom
07:02 - The Instructor
08:28 - The Method
13:00 - The Francophone
13:33 - Punishment
16:57 - Dialects
18:20 - Homework
20:54 - Competence in French
23:05 - The Schedule
24:33 - Immersion
26:06 - In the Field
26:41 - Bastille Day
27:09 - Advice from a Légionnaire

📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:

Wikipedia contributors. "French Foreign Legion." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Dec. 2021. Web.

“Democratic Republic of the Congo (orthographic projection).svg” by Connormah is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

[naurskeshs]

Served 8 years there,
Secret is:
If you dont understand, you do push-ups till you understand...
And it works miracles

[seabournewolf]

Let me save you 30 minutes. As a former Legionnaire I’ll tell you. French classes focused on verbs nouns and conjugation. Total immersion. Getting caught speaking a language other than French earns you a brutal beating. That motivates you to learn.

[sarahs]

I think one of the major barriers to speaking your target language is the embarrassment / awkward feeling of making mistakes or not being understood. On a recent trip to belgium, I met a nurse who was very shy to speak any english to me. However, I hit my head, and in the panic of the moment she went into full confidence mode and spoke perfectly clear english to evaluate me for a concussion. There really is something about being in a high stakes situation which melts away the fear of speaking, in my experience.

[ghtung]

I, Taiwanese, joined a French state owned chemical company 30 years in Paris with little French language knowledge. The executive recruited me decided to put me in the HQ’s audit department and then issued a memo that no one was allowed to speak any language except French to me. I had to read, discuss, and write reports with those highly talented French from elite schools. But they were extra sweet and accommodating. Everyone, from secretary, canteen lady, colleagues, superiors, executives… Everyone in this big organisation was willing to help me. In less than a year, I was able to lead audit team for works all over the France and overseas. 3 years later, they gave me a general manager position at a subsidiary. It is so amazing about French people and their culture. Once you speak French, talk about wine and food, they they take you as a French . Well beside the immersion at work, I learned lots of classic French songs and some poems. That really makes French people think you are one of them. Finally, I married a Parisian and have 3 French children.

[charlesstoeng]

I joined when I was 19, and didn't speak one word of French.
My teammate (we are always two) was from Senegal.
After 4 months I had the basic French, although with a slight african accent.
Perfect for a Norwegian.

However, I could swear perfectly in Wallof (one of the Senegalese languages).

[tommyslavic]

The lack of comprehension was overcome by the threat of endless pushups, extra corvee and a boot in the arse. From Australia with no prior French, became fluent in the first year. Still speak it as well today 30 years after leaving the Legion. Street French with slang that surprises most from Frenchies I meet today.

[nealcaffrey]

Funny this come out right now, in 3 weeks I will join the Foreign Legion, at least I will try. I speak several languages so I think it could help, I hope so ! Thanks for the video

[abrhamfisher]

As a french guy, I can tell you just this, the Legion in one of the most respected elite part of the french army even tho we never see them, everyone here respect them, knows how well trained they are with the best equipements and concider every members as a french person. The only time we do see them, is during the military parade, the 14th of july, you know what ? they actually close the parade, just because they are the only part of the entire french army walking a wee bit slowler than everyone else, and nobody would say otherwise =) But because of this, it's also at this moment where you see a lot of french (more than during the whole parade) gathering just to see the legion walk =) To be really honnest, we barely hear about the legion's doing, even on the news, they are like a secret elite army x) The rare times when we hear that the legion has been sent to "xxxx" we all think : omg they are going to face the legion, those guys are so screwed.

[two_motion]

Funny story: the first week we had to sit in paradise until our medical checkups and stuff were done. So me and this one guy practiced some basic French phrases every day. And it was only on the 4th or 5th day that we realized we're both Afrikaans speakers.

My tip for going to the legion: at least learn how to say 'Puis-je vous aider' before going. They don't like laziness or anyone that seems lazy.

[BrunoDECOURCY]

Served 5 years and I’m French. As a French (I was switched to Canadian because one cannot be French in the FFL) I helped others. It was 5 awesome years of my life!!!

[MDobri-syce]

It’s unfortunate that I can’t resurrect my great grandfather because he was part of the French Foreign Legion. However, I think he already had a knack for languages. He fled the Russian Revolution but he already knew Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish but when he settled in France he learned French, was able to pick up German, and Serbian according to my grandfather. The government thought my great grandfather was conspiring with Adolf’s men which is part of the reason I was born in Canada.

[jplater]

There’s no better way to learn a language then an immersive training. My mom sent me to France to work when I was 14 during summer holidays. Nobody spoke anything but French to me. After three years it got me to an almost native speaker level so much faster then classes at my school.

[jackbrown]

In the late 80s Ed a cousin of mine joined the French Foreign Legion looking for adventure. He hadn't done well in college in the US and wanted to try something different and see the world. During his time in the Legion he served in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and even South America. 22 years later Ed retired from the Legion and lives outside Marseilles. He now has dual Us and French citizenship with a Legion pension and works at a trade he learned in the Legion.

He married a local French woman and they have a couple of children. His mom is a retired American school teacher who lives with them. She was a Spanish teacher in NYC and thought that would make it easier to learn French. She says for her learning French is still a work in progress.

I've been to visit a few times. In 2018 a bunch of family members went to visit. First thing he told us is that Marseilles is the crime capital of France and if you have to do some sightseeing in the city he'll take the group out otherwise it's not safe.

One of the cousins, a young woman in her 20s asked if crime is such a problem isn't he afraid. He said no he killed men in combat in the Legion and if necessary he'd do it again. He was serious. When he was an adult back in the US he was considered the family goofball never taking anything seriously. What a difference a few decades makes.

During my trips to visit Ed he's introduced me to a number of current and former members of the Legion. I was truly surprised at the number of American citizens who were or are currently serving in the French Foreign Legion. I've met at least 25 Americans in person who are current or retired from the Legion. Another few dozen who Ed showed me photos of from his time in the Legion. Quite a few of the Americans retired in France or other spots in Europe.

[terrymunnelly]

I was there in the early 90’s and had been told I couldn’t learn a language in school because I am dyslexic but hey the FFL basic training broke me and my dyslexia! All in the head LPN ❤️

[chronos]

Agree. Fastest way to acquire another language is to force yourself not to use your native tongue. In my gym, one of the members grew up in Puerto Rico where he was drafted to go to Vietnam. Back then, the Army sent all draftees from there to NYC (of all places) to attend ESL school for four months before being sent on to basic training. So, they created a little Puerto Rico with students speaking Spanish almost all the time. He was one of the few able to learn English quickly by not associating with them outside the classroom and instead practicing with NY'ers who didn't know any Spanish.

[sophiabruem]

So I grew up in a very English-speaking town in Ontario, Canada. Both of my parents spoke only English. They decided to send me to a French Immersion primary school because it was nearby, it was free, why not? The structure my school followed was in the beginning of kindergarden the teacher would give all instructions twice; in English and in French. We learned songs in French, like the alphabet or But we were all native English speakers and there were no rules against speaking English to one another; in fact most of the time, we did.

Fast forward to grade 5 when my friends and I have a massive fight and my Mom really dislikes the grade 5/6 teacher I'm meant to have the following year as well. A new French-language school has just opened across town; pressured by Quebecois families living in the area who find the immersion education isn't adequate for their kids who speak French at home, this school has less than 100 students from kindergarden through grade 7 - with the intention of going all the way up to high school as those grade 7 students get older. It's still a public school, and they're keen for more students to enroll, so I move from Immersion to French.

In grade 6 my French skills must have improved tenfold because suddenly we had to speak French in the hallways, in the cafeteria, at recess. There was no English allowed. It was this incredible little full-immersion bubble in an area that is otherwise incredibly Anglophone. So I know that this method works really, really well.

[pauljnolan]

I learned in Special Forces training 52 years ago: if other men can do it, you probably can do it too. This insight gave me lots of confidence in some stressful times, confidence I would otherwise not have had. I have no doubt I could have been a Seal or French Foreign Legionaire. In fact I wish I had left the US and joined the Foreign Legion after my divorce.

[estevaocunha]

In 1993, the year I started there, French was learnt by force. That is, in class, if your teacher asked you a question and you didn't know, your whole class would pay the price, physically. There were very few French people there, so each French person had a group of foreigners, and they had the responsibility of teaching us. I, being Portuguese, had a great understanding of French, but others were not so lucky. So when someone didn't know, we all simply paid for it by doing lots of push-ups. Once in a while our French teacher was simply a foreigner who repeated what he himself had learned. But no doubt French was compulsory in everything...
Our class in the "Farme" was 49 young men, at the end of 3 months, we were 30. Some defected with the "Famas" weapon.

[rwboa]

23:53 — To top it off, the marching pace for a Legionnaire is 88 steps per minute (a holdover from the Ancien Régime, a.k.a. Bourbon and Orléanist France), as opposed to the standard 120 steps per minute.

[khelian]

The "movies in the language with subtitles in that language" advice at the end is legit. I'm french and always sucked at english until I started playing games and watching stuff in english with english subtitles on... And I went from mediocre grades to top of my school ones.