I was chatting in french and always my friend corrects me. He is a native french speaker but I find it rather annoying. I wanted to give up but I decided not to. Does anyone do this to you too? I feel as if I’m a really bad language learner. Should I continue with french despite the corrections? I sent him something in french and he says oh it’s good (something like that) and then he corrects it. Obviously, I’m not good at french 
He corrected literally everything and I was crying because all these months of studying have been wasted. I am trying my best. So now I will have to start all from stratch. Do you think corrections from people while chatting annoying? Especially when they correct you too much.
The only thing which makes sense in this case is that you tell him that your want to practise your foreign language without being corrected. Otherwise he wouldn’t know that this is a problem for you. And if he then still continues correcting everything you could end the contact and look for someone else to chat with.
I myself appreciate being corrected, but that’s my personal opinion!
Fasulye
I’ll probably tell him to stop correcting me. I don’t mind being corrected but not too much. I just over react, that’s my problem.
Personally I find corrections overrated in language learning. With enough exposure and if we pay attention to the language we correct most of our mistakes ourselves. It is often hard to remember corrections as well. It is far more important to communicate in the language and if corrections spoil the communication, they are a bad thing.
No correction without the permission of the learner is my motto.
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We (French) are very strict when it comes to our language and we like to correct everything as we’re raised with our parents and teachers constantly correcting us. Even among adults, if someone uses the wrong tense or an inappropriate word, there’s a good chance someone else will correct them.
Tell him to stop doing that, he’ll understand. Good luck with French!
I agree with that it can be annoying to correct speeches during the process of making it. It interrupts one’s train of thoughts and is impolite. It could be much better to correct them afterwards such as, “Just now when you said …, you should say… instead,” etc. I believe a good example of a what a friend should do is to correct your speech only after you tell him/her to, or he/she asks you if it’s okay to. However, I disagree with the opinion of disliking paper correction even if the entire paper was filled with red ink. That’s how I see one would learn from mistakes and learn each one of them. If I were you, I would be in joy rather sorrow to have a friend make me realize that my past few months of study -may- have been in a slight wrong direction (either that or I need to pick up the pace a little), so I don’t continue like this.
" It interrupts one’s train of thoughts… "
This is the main reason I don’t correct people during conversations in English. Besides that, I believe that based on the research I’ve done, corrections are not nearly as important as constant exposure to the language. I think grammar and spelling naturally improves when you see and hear a lot of examples of it. I’m not convinced that corrections are as helpful as conventional wisdom would have us believe it is. You could correct a mistake they make by interrupting them, only to have them make the same mistake again in the next sentence, and then again in the sentence after.
Instead, what I do (if the learner likes it) is send the learner’s incorrect sentences back to them in the conversation report after the conversation is over, along with the corrected version. For instance:
You said: I like play sports in spare time.
Correct: (I like to play sports in my spare time.)
This way the learner can review their mistakes on their own time and at their own leisure. I’m not wasting valuable conversation time (which should be spent building confidence and allowing the learner to discover that they can actually enjoy speaking another language when they talk about things that interest them) interrupting them at every opportunity to correct them. Instead, I can devote my full attention to the conversation and allow the learner to have an unimpeded flow of thought.
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I love getting corrected, but I always want to learn whatever language to a point where I won’t get corrected so much, which obviously would mean learning it to a good level.
I’d only correct somebody (or expect correction from somebody) if the utterances were almost incomprehensible, but on the other hand - what kind of “conversation” would that be?
If I or the person I’m talking to understand “the other” person despite mistakes, I think it’s best to leave any comments till later, specific homework suggestions (“Grammar topic…”), rephrased sentences (e.g. "During this conversation we had, you used the following expressions… Some suggestions…) and so on.
It’s stupid to correct every mistake, but if the mistake is bad and repeated, I think it must be corrected, however, better not during the conversation - but after it or in the report if you are a tutor.
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Think about the huge progress that you’ve achieved, and remember when you knew nothing. Don’t give up…never. I smile when I can watch a video on You Tube and to understand the meanings. So, you’re already able to talk. It’s awesome =D
Thank you everyone for replying. I do recognise my own mistakes. I know why I am wrong most of the time. It’s because I don’t study enough grammar and I’m not motivated enough to learn french. But it’s different with Russian, I’m very motivated to learn Russian. But I have studied some french grammar today but not too much. I love studying french grammar. After listening to lessons on lingq, I write my own sentences that are related to the lesson so I can practice. I also write down the words or linq yellow words on my little whiteboard and I write sentences with that word in. Somehow, it helps me a lot. Today was better. I asked about the noun before the adjective thing and he helped me. I will improve… hopefully. I won’t give up french.
Aw happycheeks if you don’t like it tell him. Personally I would like it but can see how it could be annoying for you. Being corrected doesn’t mean you are bad at the language. I think what is most important in lang is that you can communicate your thoughts or feelings, you may be able to do that despite having a lot of grammar mistakes.
Yeah you are right. 