Conversational [your language here]

[ChrisGreaves]

I measure fluency by time. I am 5-minutes fluent in spoken French if I can fool a native-born Parisian for 5 minutes before they catch me out; same with written, read, comprehension. I am lifetime fluent in English.

35 years ago I spent 2½ years working in Paris, and picked up fairly good spoken French (I had to eat, tell computer operators how to run jobs, ask directions etc.). I'm rusty. They don't speak French in Canada; they speak Quebecois, a dialect.

So I have decided to brush up my French comprehension.

I have discovered that podcasts of a daily Parisian breakfast show (web site http://www.rtl.fr/, podcasts http://www.rtl.fr/podcast/rtl-petit-matin.xml) is an excellent tutor for me.

(1) It runs from 04:30 to 07:00 each weekday morning; over two hours of podcast is a suitably long tutorial.
(2) It has a fixed format - weather, birthdays of Oldies pop stars, horror(sic)scopes, and always a theme. One day it is a mayor who milks cows, so there's a lot of lait and vache, another day it is a hospital in Bobigny and they report how many doors, how many miles of corridors so it's all about numbers.
(3) The French is "proper" french in the sense that it is Parisian.
(4) The French is rapid-fire (just listen to ANY breakfast show) with a fixed-cast of speakers, each with their own accents; just like a conversation in a coffee-shop.
(5) The French is natural - during the cow-broadcast a cow mooed nearby and the speaker just inserted "J'arrive, J'Arrive!") into the sentence, as I would have heard my mother speaking "So we ought to make two dozen sandwiches - I'm coming I'm coming - which will be two per attendee". It is SO natural.

So here's the deal:

If you have a smattering of French left over from high-school, download a few podcasts from RTL and see how you like it.
If you have a hankering to brush up your German because you live/lived in the Barossa Valley, grab a Berlin breakfast show.
And if you are studying Mandarin or Cantonese with a view to doing business, try peeking at a Peking breakfast show.

P.S. RTL has a whole slew of http://www.rtl.fr/podcasts so if you are into European Sports, Technology, or whatever specialized vocabulary, you can probably find a parallel universe. Me, I'd plump for the equivalent of the Guardian's TechWeekly.

[jonwallace]

Hate to be pedantic (or take away from your excellent analysis of language learning and retention) but I think you'll find that Quebecois speakers consider it to be a language with roots in common to modern French, rather than a dialect...

(I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong...)

[mishmish3000]

When I was a senior in high school, our English teacher let us listen to some broadcasts from Paris, then a recording her daughter did while doing research on Louisiana French-speakers. I could understand part of the Parisians' speech but not much of the Louisiana French at all. And yes, this was an English class--she was talking about how dialects change languages and vice versa. Of course, she also gave the example of reading Chaucer aloud to us...

[ChrisGreaves]

Hate to be pedantic (or take away from your excellent analysis of language learning and retention) but I think you'll find that Quebecois speakers consider it to be a language with roots in common to modern French, rather than a dialect...

Agreed; I used "dialect" partly because I'm lazy and partly because I'm (right now) more fascinated by RTL podcasts.
I met what I thought was a nice Canadian gal in Paris. We are now divorced. But soon after we arrived back in Toronto we went to Montreal on holiday, both of us keen to try out our boosted French. Our experience has been validated by others, including a client of mine based in Montreal.
In general, it seems, the Quebecois look down their noses at people who "pretend" to speak French, just because they spent time in Paris.

Whatever.

Now I think of it, I'd recommend an English-language morning show to anyone wanting to boost their conversational English.
In the appropriate national environment, of course.

[ChrisGreaves]

... Louisiana French-speakers. ...

Agreeed.
Steven Pinker's books include quite a bit of stuff on the forms of French and English found in the USA. Creole languages, pidgin too.
I find it fascinating.

I came away from Paris with a grand realization: You don't have to be perfect in your host's language; your hosts are so good at the language that they can understand what you want even though the gender/grammar is fractured.

I grew up (10 years old) that way in Western Australia; a great many post-war european men, labouring, basically. They were called "New Australians".
As in "Yer Orstrailiian now, so you can bleddy well speak English"
But also "Yer new, so it's OK if yer mike a mistike"

Basically, what mattered/matters is that one makes an effort to use the host language.

[mishmish3000]

I think that--showing an attempt to use the local language/dialect--shows a lot of respect for people and their cultures. Those who "look down their noses" have some major insecurity issues or something. Most people, when I've attempted their native language, are very pleased (and amused, often).

[BobH]

Hmmm!

I'll have to seek out a similar venue in German to see how much of what I learned 60 years ago I might still retain.

Or, perhaps more usefully, I should start watching Spanish language TV.

[ChrisGreaves]

I'll have to seek out a similar venue in German to see how much of what I learned 60 years ago I might still retain

Go for it!
An evening drive-home show ought to be as good as a drive-to-work show.

I want a full report on my desk by 9am tomorrow.
Give diagrams wherever possible.
Show your reasoning.
...