French Immersion Experience

So although it's been six weeks I've still been thinking about immersion at Sainte-Anne. It was really unlike anything I've done before and turned French from dry memorization of verb tables into something that was amazing to learn more about every day.

Our only books I had for the immersion program were Bescherelle: Complete Guide to Conjugating 12000 French Verbs, and Le Mini Visuel, Le Robert &; Collins poche anglais and it was more than enough. the Bescherelle is hands down the best French conjugation guide, the mini visuel is an all-encompassing visual dictionary, and the Robert and Collins has most words you'd be using day to day and is a good begginers book well below the price of an unabridged edition required at the university level. The Bescherelle and the Robert and Collins were both personally recommended by our professor and Le Mini Visuel is more than worth it. The only thing I regret is not picking up Le Robert Micro 2008: Dictionnaire d'apprentissage de la langue française, a French only dictionary as naturally, it's best to find the definition in French.

There really is nothing that compares to full immersion... no real way to explain how much better it is in increasing comprehension, confidence, and thinking in another language than immersion. I would recommend it to everybody, even those not learning French in university, because it has fundamentally altered my way of approaching French and has made me interested and committed to learning the language more than anything else. Because of the program I've been seriously considering moving to Montreal to work and continue studying French part-time at Université de Montréal after I graduate from Mount Allison. I'll write again soon. For now enjoy this: