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Master the AZERTY keyboard with French typing tests!

One of the first things I did while taking French 110 (now 111/112) was add a French keyboard to my laptop and phone. What I didn’t know as a beginning French student was that even the French keyboard layout is different!

Layout of a French AZERTY keyboard from the Mac keyboard settings.

This layout is called AZERTY, with all the additional French characters (ex. ç, é, and à) arranged on number and symbol keys. It also swaps the positions of Q/A, W/Z, and M, which actually helps you type in French faster, believe it or not! As you advance in French, improving your typing (“la dactylographie”) skills will make a difference in typing emails, essays, and texts. Here are two typing practice recommendations to boost your AZERTY typing skills!

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Mexican media for Spanish learners!

If you’re learning Spanish and are particularly interested in learning how it’s spoken outside the classroom, watching movies and reading books is a great way to learn it. If you’re interested in how Spanish is spoken particularly in Mexico, please for the love of God don’t watch Emilia Pérez. There’s so many things wrong with that movie I could write a whole blog post about it. Instead, here are some recommendations for you to watch! I ranked them in order of the level of Spanish I estimate you need to comfortably understand what’s going on, from easiest to hardest.

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Petit Poulet, Henry Hühnchen, Pollito Tito… also known as Chicken Little

Petit Poulet, aka Chicken Little, looking at his computer. “Le ciel est en train de tomber!”

THE SKY IS FALLING, and you can read that in three other languages on TheFableCottage.com. I discovered this website with a friend as we attempted to read bedtime stories in each other’s languages. TheFableCottage is a multilingual library of bedtime stories written in French, German, Spanish, and also Italian! Each story has a few features that make it really helpful for beginning students: audio recordings, captioned video animations, illustrations, and English translations if you get stuck. All of their free short stories can be found on each language’s respective website: TheFrenchExperiment.com, TheGermanProject.com, and TheSpanishExperiment.com. (Stories can also be accessed on TheFableCottage, but not all of them are free.) This is a great resource for beginner-level students, as the grammar and vocabulary are written using everyday and simple language. These stories expand upon the beginner-level language you’ve learned so far using a story you’re likely already familiar with. Having an additional resource like this can supplement what you learn in class and in your textbook by creating a new context where you use your target language. For example, you may have introduced a photo of your family to your 100-level class, but you can practice that same family vocabulary in the context of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I found the short stories on TheFableCottage to be the perfect resource for anyone in their first year of a language class, and I recommend that you check it out!

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Heal your inner child with Chinese kids’ cartoons!

Reading Sara’s post on Soviet Winnie the Pooh truly inspired me. As a beginning Chinese student, I love watching C-dramas, but sometimes it’s a bit challenging to understand what’s going on, especially with the complex love triangles! Children’s cartoons are a great way to introduce yourself to more Chinese media, especially because they’re designed to use elementary-friendly language. Even if they don’t have captions in English, the animation style can make it easy to pick up on the story and characters. Here are some recommendations I’ve found, plus a bonus C-drama recommendation!

喜羊羊与灰太狼 – Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf

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