Hi everyone! I am Merve. I want to tell you about my French learning adventure. Yes, I call it an adventure because it totally is :)

When I was in high school, we had to choose a second language. The options were German, Arabic, and French! All of my classmates chose Arabic or German. But I chose French because our French teacher was so pretty and nice — and I always love the different one.

Then we started the lessons, but it lasted only for one year. In the following years, learning French was still on my mind. I started working at a library, and we had a lot of researchers from many countries — especially from Eastern countries. So, we needed Arabic and French for our research, and I decided to learn both languages. I already had some Arabic knowledge, but I had to learn French from the beginning.

I took lessons from an academy I knew, but it wasn’t good enough because I was so busy. At the same time, I was going to school and working at the library. After 2–3 months, I met my current French teacher. She grew up in France and came to Turkey after her marriage. Then we decided to have private lessons. She brought me many French learning materials — all in French! By the way, I was using Duolingo like crazy…

In my learning adventure, the best thing I’ve ever done is learning French through English. In my opinion, if we want to learn a second language, we have to use English materials. These might be books, channels, podcasts, music, series, etc. I still use an English-French dictionary — I think it’s better than a Turkish-French one. We can think of it like this: the English language is the host, and the other languages are the servers. In this way, English is a bridge to reach other languages. But if I try to reach French from my native language, it becomes more difficult.

Now I am back to my Franglish adventure after a short break :)

And I want to say: wherever you are, you will need English. Even in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when I was working there and couldn’t understand people, I spoke in English. Or when I met people from different countries, English created a bond between us.

Keep learning English, everyone!

With all my best wishes / Avec tous mes meilleurs vœux!