Hope Wilburn – How French Became My First Love

Dive: Linguist - French
Description: Can read, write, speak, and understand French
Level: Level 1
Level Requirements: Can read, write, speak, and understand French at a basic level
Certified On: Apr 24, 2020

Editor’s Note: On all dive certifications, we try to edit the writing as little as possible to preserve authenticity, personality, and writing style. We typically fix spelling errors, but minimally modify grammar and sentence structure (just enough to ensure readability).

Name: Hope Wilburn Break Diving Level: Recruit Number of Certified Dives: 1 From: United States In: United States

1. When and Why Did You Decide to Pursue This Dive At This Level? What was your inspiration and motivation?

I began studying French in high school and chose French over Spanish for two reasons: 1) I had been to France once before and 2) I decided I would love to live there one day. Once I began learning the language, French gave me further insight into the structure of English too, which fascinated me a lot. So I started to become more entranced with the wonders of language, and specifically, with learning foreign languages. I like to say French is only my first love as I hope to learn many more foreign languages in the future. 🙂

2. How Long Did It Take For You To Accomplish This Dive At This Level From The Day You Decided To Pursue It, And Why Did It Take That Long?

It took about 3 years for me to reach this basic level of proficiency that I now have in french. My journey started in high school, but after 2 years of not enjoying how my teacher was presenting the language to us, I took it upon myself to really learn it! Only recently have I gotten more serious. These days I spend at least an hour every day practicing the language.

3. What Was The Hardest Part About Achieving This Particular Dive Level?

The hardest part, I would say, is committing time to actually speaking the language. There are not many francophones around me so I had to take to the internet, which turned out to be a major help! My recommendation: find articles or especially series/podcasts that interest you so you can find your own place within the language. 🙂

4. What Was The Easiest Part About Achieving This Particular Dive Level?

The easiest part about achieving this basic level of proficiency was that I have so many resources available to me. Not only the ones on the Break Divers blog (https://www.breakdiving.blog), and here on the WYSEguidance blog, but all over the internet there are people ready to help you succeed in learning any language! Also since English is about 60% French and other indo-european languages combined, it made the translations from French to English quite straight forward most of the time.

5. What Is Your Advice For Someone Who Is Pursuing This Dive And Level?

I would highly suggest someone make flashcards (or any other way of studying vocabulary) and be sure to add the articles that go with each noun and the prepositions that may follow any verbs. This is very important as a basis to understanding how grammatical gender and other grammar rules work in french, since almost all of it is arbitrary.

6. What Are Some Of The Best Resources You Recommend to Those Pursuing This Dive At This Level, And Why Do You Recommend Them? Please Include Relevant Weblinks, If Applicable.

I highly recommend:

TV5 Monde (https://www.tv5monde.com) – It is a wonderful site for all levels that offers interactive video/audio clips with questions, articles and videos on culture, politics, and even a channel focused on the french speaking realm in Africa too!

Youtube (https://www.youtube.com) – Offers many helpful channels and a few that I really like are “FrançaisAvecPierre” and “InnerFrench”. If you are studying specifically for a proficiency test such as TCF or the DELF, YouTube also offers a wealth of sample tests and information.

Resource 1: Break Diving's French Fluency Project - Come and practice with us!

Resource 2: www.breakdiving.io - It is a wonderful site for all levels that offers interactive video/audio clips with questions.

Resource 3: French on YouTube - Check out FrancaisAvecPierre and InnerFrench

Resource 4: -

Resource 5: -

7. Tell Us A Story Of One Of Your Adventures While Pursuing This Dive (At This Level).

Comment Stéréotypes Sont Formées?

En écoutant un podcast, la question suivante a été posée: Comment stéréotypes sont formées?

Je pense que les humains forment des communautés en partageant leur mots et leur idées. Tout le monde a des opinions différentes ainsi que différentes façons de les exprimer. Quand suffisamment de gens partagent la même idée général, cela devient plus d’un ‘fait sociaux’.

Un fait sociaux, c’est juste une pensée qui devient intériorisée et rendue comme la vérité parmi plusieurs de gens. Ça, je croit, c’est le processus de formation et de propagation d’un stéréotype. Quelque chose qu’on pourrait faire pour arrêter cela est de remettre en question toutes les hypothèses dont on entende parler.

Tout le monde mérite de se sentir vraiment compris 🙂

8. What Evidence Did You Submit to Prove You Met the Requirements for This Dive and Level?

The Break Diving dive committee verified my written (reading and writing) French language abilities via live text chat in the Break Diving Fluency Project FP-French chatroom for the current level.

The Break Diving dive committee verified my spoken (speaking and listening) French language abilities via live video chat in the Break Diving Fluency Project live video classroom for the current level.

9. Will You Be Pursuing The Next Level For This Dive? If Yes, Why? If Not, Why Not?

Yes I am planning to take the DELF exam in a couple months (if it isn’t postponed) so I can then achieve level 2. I want to be fluent in this language since I want to live and work in France in the next couple years.

10. What is the Break Diver's Creed?

No Rules. No Excuses. No Regrets.

Certificate photo:

And having made this post, and provided adequate evidence to the dive committee, Hope Wilburn is now hereby certified by Break Diving, Inc. as: Linguist - French - Level 1. Congratulations ! Thank you for being an inspiration to others!

Certificate number: 34

The author above wrote this WYSEguidance post as one of the certification requirements to become certified by Break Diving, Inc. for a dive completed. Would you also like to find greater success, happiness, and friendship, and make genuine supportive connections with others around the world pursuing your same dreams? Come join us at Break Diving and soon your story will be the next one you read about on this site!

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