How can humour help in overcoming the frustration of forgetting French words?

It’s so easy to get all hung up when you’ve forgotten a word in French. 

And it’s also too easy to get stuck in that moment.

Then there’s only one word on your mind: Awkward!

So let’s look at some fun ways to shift those feelings and glide straight back into the conversation:

• Why it’s important to overcome the frustration of forgetting French words
•  10 simple to-use techniques to overcome that frustration

How can humour help when we forget?

Today, you will discover how humour is important and helps you when you forget French words. You can observe its benefits from a physiological point of view, in your learning, your memory and so much more.

In the following parts, you will understand why you should add humour in your French learning.

With humour you reduce stress.

Do you agree that when you enjoy something, it’s when you have fun? Whenever you laugh at your mistakes, you ease not only the pressure on your body but also on yourself because you don’t feel the obligation to be perfect.

Humour always reduces stress. There’s a chemical reaction. You release endorphins in your body, and your stress reduces.

After all, why would you stress? You are aware that French is not your native language, and you know that mistakes are part of your learning.

It’s not a question of life and death, and your reputation is not at all at risk. Therefore, enjoy your learning and try to laugh at your mistakes. 

Create a positive learning moment.

As we have just mentioned, everything gets easier, and it’s fun to do. Indeed, it becomes more enjoyable and less daunting.

You have the choice. You can learn a language the hard way or…you can learn it with fun.

Ditch the boring repetitions and build happy learning moments.

Here are some ideas for you to make your learning fun:

• Use colours
• Buy a notebook that you love to make some notes
• Sing in order to memorise
• Write your shopping list in French
• Send some text messages in French to your family and friends… 

How humour builds your resilience.

What kind of person are you? Do you see mistakes as failures or lessons?

If you think that you learn from your mistakes, it means that you embrace them and don’t take yourself seriously.

Humour allows you to bounce back from your mistakes and reinforce your resilience.

Whenever you laugh at your mistakes, you go deeper into your learning zone, you build your confidence, and learn so much more.

On the contrary, if you are afraid to make mistakes, you will stay in your comfort zone and will not improve. You need to take some risks to take your French to the next level.

Do not take it seriously! 

What are the direct benefits of humour?

When you laugh at yourself, you foster self-acceptance and kindness, which is crucial for your language acquisition. 

However, if you have bad feelings like stress or anger, you block learning because you generate fight / flight hormones.

Basically, you close down the arteries in the language part of your brain. In other words, there’s less oxygen in the learning area and it makes it harder to learn!  

Humour improves drastically your memory.

I am sure that when you are stressed you lose many abilities. You can’t be focused on what people say to you or you do the opposite etc…

Now, imagine that you are filled with positive emotions associated with humour. What happens? 

You enhance your memory recall and retention. When you naturally feed oxygen to the learning area of your brain, you reinforce your memory.

So, you know what you should do: instill humour in your learning!

10 practical tips when you forget French words. 

In the previous parts, you have seen how important is humour in your learning. It’s time for you to overcome your frustration of forgetting French words.

I’m going to share with you 10 things to do in case you forget words.

The first one is to describe the word. You don’t remember the French word, but you can still paraphrase it.

Surely the person will understand what you mean as long as you provide a detailed description and will give you the answer.

Let’s have an example:

• Je cherche un mot… C’est une grande maison où on peut dormir quand on est en voyage.  >>> I’m looking for a word….It’s a big house where you can sleep when you travel.

That was a way to describe a hotel (hôtel in French). 

By the way, don’t go back to your native language. Instead, try to describe with the French words that you know.

The second tip is to either use synonyms, opposites or something that fits in context.

Make your life easier and use the negative form if you can’t recall the word.

One example: (you can’t remember how to say sad in French which is triste)

• Il n’est pas content aujourd’hui. >>> He’s not happy today.

If you can’t remember the word hungry (faim), here’s a way to express the same idea:

• Tu veux manger ? >>> Do you want to eat?

Can’t remember the word? Use your body and hands! A lot of non-verbal gestures are international.

If you act out or gesture the idea, the other person can help.

Oui! You may look silly, but it’s fun and pretty powerful. After all, you want to communicate the idea, and you can do it without words.

For instance, you are looking for the word glass in French, which is verre. Simply point to the object or mime the gesture of drinking. Voilà!

You can’t find the word at the tip of your tongue, and you don’t want to interrupt the conversation? Do like native people do when they don’t recall a word…They buy time with a filler.

Here are some French fillers for you:

• Euh…Comment dire… ? >>> Uh…How do you say…?
• Attends, je cherche le mot. >>> Wait, I’m looking for the word.

Then, you can describe or mime, and the person will gladly help you.

Remember to avoid English at any cost. But, you can use just the one you can’t recall. Many French words are similar to English.

Therefore, there’s a high probability that the person you’re talking to understands it and offers you the French word.

For instance, the word “station” can lead you to the French word “gare”.

Be honest and ask for help. There’s nothing wrong with this. I share with you these sentences that will save you in your learning:

• Comment dit-on… en français ? >>> How do you say…in French?
• Je ne connais pas ce mot, mais…  >>> I don’t know this word, but…

Even French people can forget some words. They don’t make a fuss about it, and they continue with the conversation. Just do the same with this expression:

• Ce n’est pas grave. Passons à autre chose.  >>> It’s not a big deal, let’s move on.

Apart from miming, you can always use images to help you retrieve a word. Use your phone, Google images, or even draw! 

Imagine you want the French word for knife (couteau). You can show images and say this at the same time:

• Ça, sur la table, pour couper.  >>> That, on the table, for cutting.

There’s a word French people use a lot which is generic and it’s “truc”. It means thing. It’s not very helpful because it can be anything. However, if you forgot a word, use it with a description:

• Un truc pour écrire. >>> A thing to write with.

The other person will give you the answer or several options. In this context, you want to say “stylo”, the translation of pen.

You’ve made a funny mistake? (Because they are all funny.) Laugh about it. It’s natural to mix up the pronunciation of 2 French words such as “poisson” (fish) and “poison” (poison).

Laugh about it and say:

• Oups, je voulais dire poisson et non pas poison ! >>> Oops, I meant to say fish ,not poison!

To conclude, you have seen that humour is highly powerful and will surely help you whenever you forget French words. Then, you have seen 10 techniques to apply when it happens.

The following mini-lessons will help you with your speaking French:

Developing your conversational flow: Why cramming will not help you speak more easily!

How DO you speak French every day even though you’re not in France?

What do you usually do when you can’t recall a word while speaking French?

Does it stop you from continuing the conversation? Always happy to hear your thoughts . . .