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What is the best way to learn French?
HIGH NOON
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
hey guys.
so i've struggled with french my whole life. i don't know a second language, but i was taught it from 1st grade to 9th grade in school, and i've decided to actually learn it last year when i was accepted to community college. took introduction french I and then hardly studied, as my acceptance to a university became known three weeks into my 2nd semester, the semester I was studying french.
I got a 58. barely enough to earn the credit. fast forward to university, i take intro to french II, under the presumption that it would move at baby steps compared to intro to I; after all, there were 9 other courses strictly meant to teach french. first day of that class, the professor addresses me, i hardly get a structured sentence out.
it intimidated me greatly. now i am back in intro I, and my teacher is moving at a snail's pace. i feel like i'm back in high school; wholeheartedly enthused with learning French. as a result, i am not motivated.
i am asking: what are some ways for me to learn french outside of school? at least ways to practice, keep motivated in learning, and sky-rocket my way towards basic conversion? I really want to keep at it, but need to find fun exercises, and more importantly, good ways to learn the language despite poor teachers who are unengaged and thus will waste time. i want to hear especially from any of you, who have learned languages on their own, and methods you used help get you where you are with your second language now.
tl; dr
thank you.
so i've struggled with french my whole life. i don't know a second language, but i was taught it from 1st grade to 9th grade in school, and i've decided to actually learn it last year when i was accepted to community college. took introduction french I and then hardly studied, as my acceptance to a university became known three weeks into my 2nd semester, the semester I was studying french.
I got a 58. barely enough to earn the credit. fast forward to university, i take intro to french II, under the presumption that it would move at baby steps compared to intro to I; after all, there were 9 other courses strictly meant to teach french. first day of that class, the professor addresses me, i hardly get a structured sentence out.
it intimidated me greatly. now i am back in intro I, and my teacher is moving at a snail's pace. i feel like i'm back in high school; wholeheartedly enthused with learning French. as a result, i am not motivated.
i am asking: what are some ways for me to learn french outside of school? at least ways to practice, keep motivated in learning, and sky-rocket my way towards basic conversion? I really want to keep at it, but need to find fun exercises, and more importantly, good ways to learn the language despite poor teachers who are unengaged and thus will waste time. i want to hear especially from any of you, who have learned languages on their own, and methods you used help get you where you are with your second language now.
tl; dr
want to learn french, new speaker. attempt to learn french on one's own. suggestions for study materials you've used, methods you've used, and ways YOU'VE accomplished learning a second language (not just french) are appreciated.
thank you.
HIGH NOON on
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Alternatively, you could find a french friend and practice speaking french with them, or hire a french tutor, or, as suggested above, move to france and fully immerse yourself. But im assuming you live in canada (because you say you studied french from 1st-9th grade) so the french you learn in france wont be as helpful if you want to learn canadian french.
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My other suggestion is to start reading in French. A lot. Like at least an hour a day of reading something in French. What you should read will depend on your current proficiency. I suggest Asterix and Obelix comics because it's very engaging even without full comprehension of the text. If you've studied for 9 years, you should be able to read them fairly easily. Keep a dictionary with you to learn the words you can't figure out from context. It'll probably be pretty frustrating at the beginning, but you will slowly pick up the grammar and slowly build up vocabulary. You should move on to other books if you find them to be easy. I find reading is better than watching TV because reading is more active and takes more effort than listening to TV.
Also, this is a really great site for picking up small French intricacies and understanding some differences between English and French: http://french.about.com/. My French is reasonably good (I communicate daily in French with clients and write emails, reports, etc. in French, but it still helped clarify some subtle differences between English and French that I always ignored previously.
I'm also learning French having not studied it since I was fourteen and being twenty-six now. The local university offers evening classes, which I am taking and I try do a little big of work outside of the class each day.
My French is still awful and I've been learning properly for over a year, but it is remarkably better than what it was.
Once you're at the level where you can hold a stilted, slow conversation, go to your nearest language centre (might be in the university, might be more a municipal thing) and you should find loads of postcards on a noticeboard advertising native speakers of language wanting to speak a bit of language Y. So you find one who wants to do some speaking in English in exchange for speaking French, then you meet them for coffee once a week.
Commitment is greater than motivation.
Motivation is fleeting, especially when learning a language, which can become dull and tedious at times. But build up a routine that revolves around that language, be it a passive activity like listening to music or watching TV or something that engages your mind more actively like speaking to a person or translating a conversation in your mind.
Yessss, this is the best thing.
It won't teach you the language you want to learn, only reinforce things like structure and pronunciation. You also get to learn some interesting vocabulary. But if you can find some French shows you like in addition to your studies, it may be a big help to you.
Also, the news. Often, news anchors use standardized forms of the language, or easier-to-understand dialects.
You aren't going to understand the programming you choose, so don't worry about that; just get stuff with subtitles. The point isn't learn French by watching TV, but to supplement your efforts elsewhere and increase your exposure to the sound of the language.
They have a transcript you can listen to after you're done.
It helps a lot.
Otherwise, yeah, immersion. Stick it out through the classes, they will get harder and motivate you. I'm currently in 201 right now and I'm spending next Fall in Poitiers through my university.
Try Livemocha.com as well.
And your teachers aren't "poor". Intros move at a snail's pace no matter what language it is.
I like zoolanders idea too, reading french comics would probably be a fun way to learn a language. I'm trying to learn spanish myself so i think ill go ahead and order some spanish comics.
Also, if you can afford it, Rosetta Stone actually does work pretty well in my opinion.
Current Games I Own: http://sirchrissypoo.tadalist.com/lists/1763135/public
Things I'm Interested In: http://sirchrissypoo.tadalist.com/lists/1763272/public
And since I'd hate to start a new thread for such a closely related question, does anyone have any useful tips for furthering my understanding German? I'm at a point in my life where I'm moving around too much to take a class or regularly meet with people, but I have a couple readers and the internet is stable enough that I can do stuff on a regular basis.
On that note, the French dubs of Disney animated features are always excellent. Same goes with the Miyazaki movies (those that have a French dubs).
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Note that I my languages of choice all have different character sets, which adds another dimension of irritation to that particular type of program.
That doesn't seem worth it. Better off watching some french TV and finding a french translation of a good book you've already read in English and reading it over and over again. That's basically what my brother and I do to re-familiarize ourselves with our first language.
FYI, the subtitles are most of the time not a literal translation (or even close) of what is being spoken. Once I learned enough French to start to pick apart movies, it's pretty humorous to see how bad the translations are.
http://www.france24.com/fr/
Some of mine...
...and more.
In what language. Try typing "harry potter (language)" into Amazon. Powells.com has quite a few as well. Or do you mean like "French on one page, English translation on the next"?
Translations are like women.
The pretty ones are never loyal, and the loyal ones are never pretty.
Go to Québec and learn French. It's cheaper than Paris, closer, and not full of douchebags who will correct you over every little mistake. If you happen to go to la Ville de Québec, you'll also be in the most beautiful city in North America.
It's also not the same as Parisian french.
The latter, I've a few short story collections with the left hand page in English and the right in French. The better ones also have a little space at the bottom devoted to various idioms and peculiarities of language.
Ages ago, I saw a Japanese-English Harry Potter. I was hoping they existed for all languages.
Why so bitter?
Yeah I got the French one to help me out in my French class but it really does suck. After the first week I stopped using the program and focused all my energy into the class.
Apparently Amazon has such books, only they seem to be exclusively children's books. I will continue looking for a bilingual Harry Potter or other young adult book since I am very interested in this thread as well for advancing my French!
http://www.amazon.com/Bilingual-childrens-French-English-languages/lm/R3ENECB7HV231N
e: I had an idea; I'll message the Foreign Language department on my campus and see if they know where to find such books. I'll post if they tell me anything helpful.
Bother me on steam: kabbypan
I don't think they exist. If anyone would be able to get them, it would be Powell's Books and in all my time in their French literature section (it's right downtown) I've never seen bilingual Harry Potter. Google comes up with nothing either.
Honestly, you're not going to be able to read or understand a lot until after you start to learn past, future, and conditional tenses as well as reciprocal verbs. Stick to kids kids books and comics until you get to that level.
To each his own, but OP, I've had nothing but great experiences so far with Rosetta Stone Totale.