discuss your method of learning french

  I have been studying french on my own for about 5 years except for 2 short courses of about 4 months each other than that I have been pretty much on my own.

   I couldn't find the time to do a course long term or the finances to do so.  I wonder if any members of the forum are doing the same thing.

    I read or try to read a lot in french, in fact I am supposed to do extreme reading which means you really do tremendous amount of reading at the right input level and of course on subjects of interest to you. From time to time I could do extreme reading when time permit. Most of my reading material are from Alliance Francaise .

     I also try to listen to radio france as much as possible and look for french tourists to practise my french on them.  It seems to work for me. I am not worried about making mistakes , I do try to read and remember the conjugaison and all the grammar rules.  I believe all the fuss on 100 percent correct grammars or faultless french will finally slow you down and you get this negative feeling that you are not doing well.  And this negative feeling is a self fullfiling prophecy, you eventually give up because you don't see improvement or too little results after so much hard work and expectation. 

   Mental tension is detrimental to your language study so you have to do it the light heart way but the right way and that makes it difficult.

   For the moment the french tourists will have to put up with my not so well spoken french and come back after another 3 to 4 years for the almost faultless french that I am trying to achieve. I found studying the phonetique on the internet really improved my pronounciation and I discovered all my past mistakes.

    I hope other members of the forum find this discussion interesting otherwise I am wasting my time.