I learned French the lazy way, SHOCKINGLY it worked | Language Experiment Comprehensible Input

Learning French or any language can be time consuming and stressful! The comprehensible input (listening and reading only) method of learning offers a magical solution to these problems. It sounds too good to be true. Does it really work?
I decided to do a little experiment to put it to the test with a new language for me, French. The results were surprisingly....good?!?

Check out this video if you are interested in a new and efficient way to tackle your language of choice!

0:00 Intro
1:00 What is Comprehensible Input
2:23 How to measure success
3:24 Did it work?
5:36 What do the results mean?
8:01 Weaknesses of the experiment
9:03 Conclusion

[jmoore]

Language learner on youtube that is honest about his progress. You sir have just earnt a subscriber.

[paul-laurienelson]

Fantastic experiment! I'm glad some folks are doing this kind of thing: this kind of anecdotal/experimental data will be very helpful going forward as CI/input theory becomes more widely known. 8 mos and 105 hrs comes out to ~3.25 hrs a week (or approx 1/2 hr per day) -- I love this experimental design because 1/2 hr a day is a great number to talk about in terms of language learning: any regular person can devote that much time and effort ! And what your video doesn't reveal is that your listening and reading comprehension are undoubtedly much more 'impressive' than your speaking (Input theory after all classically teaching that speaking should be delayed anyway). Great work Marcus, thanks so much for doing and recording your experiment - very helpful for all of us!

[ronlugbill]

Yes, your spoken French needs some more practice. But you did lots of listening and reading, so you can understand French. And that is probably more important than speaking. I am a French teacher and I speak French fluently. But most French learners have 3 big problems. 1. They haven't spent much time listening so they don't understand anything. 2. Their vocabulary is too small so they can't understand anything. And 3. Their pronunciation is horrible so no one can understand them. You need 1, 000 hours of listening just to understand common spoken French. I agree that doing lots of comprehensible input is super important. But to speak, you do need to practice speaking some. And if you are an adult learner, I would also do a little pronunciation practice with a teacher or native speaker. Comprehensible input works better than a traditional approach because you can at least understand people. With a traditional approach, you can't understand anything, so it is not useful.

[coryjorgensen]

Really interesting. I did a similar thing with Icelandic, but I gave myself two years of around 2 hours/day. With that much CI, I was actually able to speak fairly "fluently, " though haltingly at first. The good thing was, when I went to Iceland, my accent and grammar were good enough that native speakers never switched over to English with me (which they typically do if your Icelandic is not excellent). So, yes, CI for speaking absolutely does work.

[bogorisaznonhemn]

French is my native language and actually I find it quite pleasant to hear you speak it.

[enkor]

I think that the best method is... combining diffrent methods. Comprehensible input is great, but adding a little bit of active practice and, importantly, speaking, will help you to get rid of mistakes and learn new concepts much easier. I've been learning almost solely with comprehensible input for a very long time and above a certain level it starts to become very hard to progress.

[jeremybuckets]

It's great to see you add the caveat that the subtitles are what you *meant* to say, not what you actually said. Most of the people who see this probably don't speak French (statistically speaking) and a lot of Youtubers use that fact to pretend they're a lot better than they actually are. I also learned French largely through comprehensible input. You're right, 100 hours is nothing compared to the amount you'll need to actually become fluent. But, how hard is it to spent 100 hours watching videos or reading books? Really not hard at all, especially compared to drilling grammar, or conjugation tables, or other nonsense that causes everyone to give up.

My recommendation for anyone who wants to try this method is to spend about 80-90% of your time on comprehensible input and the remainder on studying grammar or memorizing flashcards. You should start speaking lessons with a tutor when you 1. have reached at least a B1 level of oral comprehension (according to the CEFR scale) and 2. you have a real-world reason to speak french in the next 3 months. Until both of those things are true input is probably a better use of your time.

Bon courage !

[plomdator]

Hi bro, I'm french and I'm amazed by your presentation in our language. It definitely convinced me to try the method you described. Thank you for this video and looking forward for the next ones.

[philipdavis]

This is really interesting. I’m currently learning French and Japanese and I’m hoping to start soon with Korean using comprehensible input only. The main problem of course with CI is the difficulty in getting appropriate material, especially for a more difficult language. But increasingly there are individual teachers creating really interesting material. But a point about ‘comparing’ systems. In reality, it’s very difficult to compare learners skills as there are so many individual skills involved. One system may be better for passing standard exams, another produces greater speaking fluency, etc. From my reading of the research and talking to lots of learners, I think its vital that you use lots of native audio when inputting - this is what allows you to develop an ear for the subtle sounds of a language, and ultimately leads you to conversational fluency.

[lartrak]

One important tidbit about those FSI hours - they expect you to do several hours of daily homework too, and those time estimates are only class time. It's thus really more like 1000+ hours for French.

[morganmcmillin]

I'm French/American, really impressed by what you've already achieved. Don't know where you're going in France but I'm in the south. Welcome!

[DarkPumpkinSpice]

First of all, this is not bad at all! My mother tongue is French and I understood EASILY everything you said. Yes there are some mistakes, yes talking and practicing your French would be a good idea but please, let's be supportive here! You can even correct yourself i.e "pour donner vous" corrected to "pour vous donner" which is something that takes time. I have been teaching French for a few years now and putting yourself out there for the world to see and comment takes guts! Bravo and good luck! To everybody saying his spoken French is a train wreck, well, this is why people are afraid of speaking. Why not support instead??? I am all for giving ideas and constructive comments but come on...a train wreck? no way :)

[jacquesflinois]

That’s definitively a win. By the way your accent is almost good, this method seems to work. As you know between 40 and 45% of the english vocabulary is coming from french (because of the Normands invasions) it helps even if you want to learn English being a French speaking person or french being an English speaking person. That’s why almost all the words ending by ION can be used in both languages. Bravo, et bon courage à vous, vous êtes sur la bonne route !

[novikane]

One thing to keep in kt is they specified "classroom" hours and not total hours. They were actually given 1 hour of homework for every class hour. So the more accurate figure is likely double that.

[dgabor]

Yeah, within that time, this result is expected. I use comprehensible input in my language learning, and usually it is 2 years, when I can speak confidently about everyday things and at the end of year 3, I can usually speak about things like astro-physics. But it also depends the availability of the language. For example, in Spanish/French, it is much easier to find a lot of interesting materiel than in Norwegian.

[wildfp]

Habit forming is so key, no matter the language. I'm doing French learning. Apps downloaded but got rid of a few I tested and disliked, including Duo. So I have around 4 apps using which I like. Been 2 weeks, it's manageble but fun as I like the apps I chose. I may try easy french next on YouTube, translate, parrot the sentences. I don't like pods listening or news watching etc in that language as a learner. Not yet, I feel it's too much if I don't understand nothing. It's effort. And currently I'm Habit forming so it needs to be fun, relaxed and interesting. Small gains at moment.

[andresalejandrogarciahurta]

I'd say that to learn a foreign language, you must try everything you possibly can: read aloud, listen to podcasts or watch movies in the target language, study the grammar with a book, learn vocabulary with an app like Anki, find a parter to talk with, etc. Consider all possible options and try them. I think people often become too dogmatic about certain methodologies, just don't pay attention to them.

[donzepe]

Dude, nice fantasy/sci-fi collection over there. Since you love reading, I encourage you to read these genres in French (french authors, not only translations). You could also try extensive reading, it's a very interesting approach for learning foreign languages.

[yana_]

It doesn't sound that bad at all, you are able to express yourself and you obviously understand much more, it looks like a great result!

[frankjspencejr]

Wow, at first I was going to slam you for acting like you could learn French eight months or so. I’ve been learning French with mostly comprehensible input for about three years and I am far from fluent. But when I saw what you meant, I’m glad I watched. Your level is fine for the amount of study, or the amount of time that you spent listening and reading. and it will get better and better over time. And at times you will feel like you’ve made sudden jumps. Exposure to the language inevitably leads to learning the language. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t really have to study you just have to acquire.