French language learning update for April 2023

I started listening to French standup comedians, e.g. Montreux Comedy. I don’t understand almost any of it, but sometimes I hear some words or phrases that I know. I feel that it is useful to familiarise myself with how natives speak.

Why standup comedy?

I was watching a video by Tohideh French. She is my favourite French teacher and content creator on Youtube and Instagram. She made a few points, two of which resonated with me the most:

• Consume content that you enjoy.
• Consume documents authentiques, i.e., content made for native speakrs, even if you don’t understand.

In her video about French resource recommendations, she recommends different kinds of resources, TV series, podcasts, etc and encourages learners to see which one they enjoy the most. I tried some of them, but I didn’t see myself wanting to go back to most of them. But then she listed a few comedy Youtube channels, including Montreux Comedy! I watched a few seconds and for some reason, that hit me in the right place. I love comedy, it’s my go-to genre on Netflix when I need something to watch. This is definitely something I can go back to again. I can even rewatch the same videos.

I have watched the videos on the Le Répondeur de Montreux Comedy playlist a few times so far.

The thing that makes me happy is that it doesn’t make me feed bad when I don’t understand them. Something is in the right place in my mindset, I hope the mindset persists :)

Reading the French comments is fun as well. I first try to understand the comment, then confirm my understanding with the very convenient “Translate to English” button. Reading Youtube comments is generally a positive experience, so it helps!

Doully

I have watched a couple of videos by Doully. She has a video in which she talks about vit avec un handicap invisible.

I might explore videos by Konbini later as well, they have a video by Doully which was good to listen to (saying as someone who didn’t understand most of it lol).