Like everyone, French lessons were compulsory during my school days, but I never really took them seriously. As far as I was concerned, it wasn't important to be and would never be.
After all, English was more popular and I could get along anywhere in the world with my knowledge of English language, right?
Oh my, how wrong could I have been.
It really became apparent how wrong I had been when I was sent to France for an assignment through my work. Talk about a fish out of water! I was completely out of my comfort zone.
Everywhere I went to, everyone was speaking French. Finding somebody who could speak my native tongue was like trying to find someone in England who could speak Swahili.
Yikes, I just felt completely lost.
That experience nonetheless, I still made a silent resolve not to learn the language, since I wasn't going to be coming back to France.
But on getting back home, my boss told me I would be going back in 3 months. Not only that, but this time I would be staying for much longer than the last time.
I protested, but she didn't bulge.
Right that second I made the decision to make sure I had learned French before those three short months were over.
Being a lover of audio books, I went right ahead and bought some “Teach yourself French” foreign language audio books which I played while preparing for work in the morning, while exercising, during my commute to and from work and any other time when my hands were busy but my mind was free.
At first I didn't pay too much attention to what was being said in the "Teach yourself French" audio books because it was a strange language.
But as time went on, it all started to make sense. What was really beneficial, and what really helped me to grasp the language in the end, was the translations to English for any of the words spoken in French.
This really confirmed what I had read sometime ago about the power of listening. It is no wonder that the good lord gave us two ears and one mouth. This means just listening is powerful enough to learn virtually any language.
You wouldn't believe it but gradually I picked up and was able to speak some amount of French just 6 weeks after.
Can you just imagine the look on my superior's face, when I spoke to her completely in French without even mixing it a little with English!
She couldn't believe it and asked me how I was able to do it. I told her - audio books!
Not only was she very impressed, she made me the head of the delegation she was sending to represent our company in France.
She made sure every other member of my team got their foreign language audio books and did exactly what I had done.
When I eventually got back to France 3 months later, I was no longer "a fish out of water".
It was incredible, but I was able to achieve this without taking any classes, without hiring any private French tutor, without reading any "French tutorial" books.
And it was all done in three short months, just from listening to my foreign language audio lessons.
Do you know what was most intriguing about this? All of this I did in my "free" time. There were no extra committments of time needed from me, I just used the same time that I had wasted in the past.
Now, if I could do this within just three months, I am absolutely certain that anyone else can do it too.
If there is any language you would love to learn, follow my footsteps and you will be pleasantly surprised what can happen in just 3 months, with the power of audio books.
There are several audio book versions of many books on learning foreign languages that you can get on the Internet.
You can start your search from SpokenNetwork.com directly or via the search engines. Simply type in the phrase or particular title you are interested in and you will be presented with the best results… within seconds.
www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0026
