France Lyon Mission

I didn't have to learn French because I'm a French speaker, but the advice that I would give is don't be afraid to do mistakes. Ask how do you pronounce, what does it mean. Ask to the member, your companion and people on the street, on the bus, on the metro. That's how you can connect with people. They can become friends and investigators and then members of the church. So just don't be afraid to ask. For me, like four years after I left the mission field, the missionaries who still have and speak good French are those who are not afraid to do mistakes, to ask and just to try and try and try again.

Well, I always suggest you not to be afraid to make mistakes and to listen to people. Also, when you are outside and you have a conversation or you're in a group and you can't actually talk because your French is not good enough at the beginning of your mission, that's okay. Just be there and listen to the way they speak, the way they pronounce the words. Ask people, ask members, everybody there will be more than happy to help you with a friend. And also, it's not true that French people don't speak English, they do and they're actually willing to help you, especially in the south of France, and to, yes, provide you a translation from English to French, but I really do suggest you to learn the language because they love and appreciate the people that speak their own language.

My number one language tip is just to speak as much as possible, especially when you first get in. My trainer was someone who liked to speak French all the time. He really became a master of it. We would speak it all the time outside of our apartment and the car, otherwise pretty much we'd be speaking French. Oh, and bidet. But still, that taught me so much. And the more you speak it, the more mistakes you make. It'll be fine. You'll realize it's not so bad. People don't expect you to speak perfectly, especially at first. But you start to hear things, how they sound. If you listen closely when real French natives talk, you'll start to pick up on little phrases and things. You might not know exactly grammatically why they work, but you'll hear them so much that you'll just kind of start imitating them. That way you'll learn to speak like a true Frenchman or Frenchwoman.

So when I was in the MTC, I had a teacher that told us that your first 200 conversations would be super awkward. You wouldn't be able to speak very well. I'd recommend getting those 200 conversations done as quickly as possible. You could either get them done in one transfer, or you can drag it out for six months. I'd just talk to as many people as you could. And then I'd also recommend reading the Book of Mormon out loud. I started reading it in English during my personal study, and then in my language study, I would reread the chapters, but in French. That way, I knew what to look for and what to expect, but I'd read it in French. Also, use the grammar book that they gave you in the MTC. It might seem kind of hard and confusing, but it really, really pays off in the long run, and you can tell which missionaries use it and which don't.

Speak as much as you can, and try to listen as well, because sometimes we just get stuck on, I need to learn this, I don't know how to say this, I don't know how to say that, but we don't stop to listen. And we can learn a lot, we learn if we just listen to what other people are saying, how they talk, the way they pronounce things, how they express themselves. So yeah, I think that's something that really helped me to get a normal, average French as well. You'll find that not only French, but you'll need to learn a little bit of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, even German. So the same, you just gotta learn those little phrases so you can have a short, small conversation with them, and it will work really well. So, good luck.

My biggest advice for learning a language is to start as soon as you can. When I received my mission call, my mission president at the time asked me to do a half an hour of language study every day. And I started doing that. I started reading in the Book of Mormon in French. I also started trying to study, preach my gospel in French. And I had had a couple of years of French in high school, so I knew the basics, but not a ton. So it really helped to start that early. And then also once you get into the MTC, and especially out in the mission field, to just try to do your best to speak as much as you can. Because the more you try, the better you'll get at it. And people are very understanding, as long as you are really trying to speak their language. So don't be afraid, and just talk as much as possible.

Learning a new language is really, really, really fun, but it's also difficult and it's challenging, but it is a good challenging because it's something that we know that Heavenly Father can help us do when we are called to His work and we're putting in our effort and trying our best. Something that I really loved and what helped me the most I feel on the mission was reading the Book of Mormon out loud in French every day. I made the goal to finish reading out loud in French and then I just did it over and over again throughout the mission, as well as studying grammar concepts, asking people questions on buses and metros and trains, asking members questions, and really trying hard to speak French with my companions, which can be difficult sometimes, but it really is worth it if you set the goal to speak with each other. Keep reading the Book of Mormon in French, pray in French, and just take every opportunity you can to learn.

Take advantage of your language study that you are given every day. A lot of times it was easy for me to not want to schedule that in because I didn't want to stay in the apartment. I wanted to get out and go talk to people, but realizing how important that language time is can be crucial in you learning the language. Also taking advantage of native speakers. I happen to have quite a few Tahitian companions who their native language is French and that really helped me to have them help me. I asked a lot of questions and I really just had them correct me. And that goes along with members as well. When you're at members homes, ask them to correct your French. They're never ever rude about it. I never had a bad experience where they were like super rude about my French, but because I asked they were more than willing to like correct me where I went wrong and that helped me fix mistakes I didn't even know I was making. So.

So my language tip is about French R's. It's a little bit hard to do them like we all know that so don't stress too much like if you want to say prayer don't be like just be normal it's okay if you can say it i still can't do that

French is a very beautiful but sometimes difficult language and the French people are very particular on how you pronounce things and say things but it is all from love. I once heard an anecdote that the French people are like coconuts, hard on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside and that is 100% true. They have a beautiful and rich culture and language and they really want to share that in the most authentic way possible. So if as a missionary you are corrected, which often is the case, don't take it personally. The French language is so rich and full of beauty that, you know, it's just completely out of love.

An extremely important part of learning any language is non-verbal communication and also verbal pauses and filler words. Certain gestures like in French, you know, they make, they pucker their lips and make a noise to say I don't know. Sometimes they do this aspirated what from the word way which is like the equivalent of yeah in English. You know, certain other things, verbal pauses, things that make your speech sound so much more natural. And also the body language as well. Those are just things that will help you have a mindset to help learn the language and not just the words.

You can actually receive a mission call to the France Leon mission in three different languages, French, Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese. There is also an English ward in Geneva, Switzerland, and a Spanish ward. There are also many areas with a fair amount of Portuguese speakers, Romanian speakers, in addition to other languages. So, it is very diverse and multicultural. I had an assignment serving in Portuguese speaking in Cannes in the south of France.