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Best Way to Learn French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 1 of 31 05 January 2014 at 10:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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I know there is no particular 'best' way to learn French, but I'm getting more and more
interested in how this language works and how widespread it is. Other than English it is the most useful language in the world. This has spurred me on to learn it! Any tips, programs, experience and time would be grateful since this forum is perfect to kindle the fire in learning languages. Thanks in advance 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5523 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 31 05 January 2014 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We have nice (but rather generic) pages on the wiki titled How to Start Learning a Language and Frequently Recommended Courses. We can give you more detailed advice, but we'd need to more about your background and tastes.
Personally, I had excellent results with Assimil's New French with Ease. This has one lesson a day with French audio, French text and an English translation, and the idea is that you use the English translation to understand the French, and you build up a small piece every day. If you're the kind of person who also likes to see a big overview, it might also be worth getting a copy of Essential French Grammar to use as a reference. And once you get a little way into Assimil, it never hurts to start looking for French music, French TV and radio, French picture books, etc.—you won't understand much at first, but they'll gradually start to make sense as you work through the course. Plus, having cool French media around gives you another reason to make progress. Regardless of what method you choose, the most important thing is to keep going. Your persistence will matter far more than what approach you choose. We can also give lots of advice on how to be persistent. :-) But as you said, there are many excellent ways to learn a language, quite a few of which are summarized on the wiki. If any of those seem appealing to you, please don't hesitate to ask questions! Edited by emk on 05 January 2014 at 2:44pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 3998 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 31 05 January 2014 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Welcome to HTAL! I don't think you could have received better advice starting out than from emk. He is an
inspiration to us all, but particularly to those of us learning French. I started studying French in May 2013, and I wish I had found his forum and the sage knowledge of everyone here earlier than I did in September. I then started using Assimil -- and I love it! It has really made a difference. I also use French in Action. The videos are free here in the US (not sure about Australia) and you can get used textbooks very inexpensively through Amazon. Also, look through language logs of people studying french. Just be consistent and have fun! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4706 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 4 of 31 05 January 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As for me, I used only Assimil and loved it!
Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 5 of 31 05 January 2014 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have never heard of Assimil before. I guess in Australia it's only the Pimsleur's and
Rosetta Stone's. Thank you so much for your advice emk, Mohave and fabriciocarraro. I really appreciate it. I will have a look at Assimil as my first priority. I currently have the Michel Thomas Method CD's and was wondering if I should start with that - I have heard it's very effective. I like learning ground-rules and I love grammar. I don't know why but I love learning rules and applying them to sentences. Thanks in advance once again! Edited by MasterMelhem on 05 January 2014 at 11:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5523 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 31 06 January 2014 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Go for it! Lots of people around here love Michel Thomas, and it's pretty short. Pimsleur also has a good reputation here at HTLAL. Rosetta Stone, on the other hand, is a huge pile of money for an allegedly mediocre course.
Definitely get a concise grammar book to go with Assimil, then. Assimil's great, but it's primarily a source of easy French text with audio and translation. This is really useful, because it gives you lots of realistic examples of how the language works. But Assimil doles out the grammar in tiny chunks, and some people find that frustrating. As I mentioned above, I personally like Essential French Grammar because it's cheap and short, and it includes enough details to get you to a fairly decent level. If you have questions which it doesn't answer, french.about.com is comprehensive and free. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 7 of 31 06 January 2014 at 1:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for your wonderful advice emk. The help you have given me is phenomenal, and
thanks to it, I have come up with this: Every Day: -1 Recording of Michel Thomas -1 Chapter of Assimil -1 Recording of Pimsleur I will have a look at the grammar book you have told me about and will incorporate it. Thanks for your help once again EDIT: I may also have a look at French In Action too Edited by MasterMelhem on 06 January 2014 at 1:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4043 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 31 06 January 2014 at 3:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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You say that "I like learning ground-rules and I love grammar"; then you should be aware that PIMSLEUR Method addresses grammar only indirectly. That is, the student is expected to deduce the underlying structure of a given language through thoughtful assimilation of example sentences and dialogues and this is not easy for everyone. The only written material is a Reading Booklet which I would qualify as a "reading for pronunciation" supplement. Thus, you'll need a Basic French Grammar, a Dictionary and, most likely, Book on Verbs and you will have to derive your own course notes and glossary by working backwards from the lessons. In any event, if you're serious about learning a language, you will acquire these books anyway. Finally, please don't get me wrong, I am a great supporter of Pimsleur and I really enjoyed learning some basic German, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian with this method. However, like any other language course, it has its limitations.
If you love mind-numbing drills (and I'm being very serious here, they can be truly onerous), you might consider the FSI BASIC FRENCH course that is freely available on the website FSI-LANGUAGE-COURSES.ORG. Ultimately, it might be best to use this course AFTER you have completed an initial course using some other method. While it was designed to be presented in a classroom by a qualified instructor, the course material is outstandingly thorough. But be aware of the following caveats: (a) some of the material is starting to show its linguistic age, (b) the sound quality of the original audio tapes and hence the mp3 files is not very good at all, which injects an additional challenge/obstacle for a beginner, (d) the notes on grammar are correct in what they say, but the way they say it is at times a little oblique, (e) while the drills are excellent, it is not always obvious what is being exercised: for example, it would help if one knew from the outset that a particular drill was meant to practice the verb "vouloir", (f)the mp3 files are often about 30 minutes long, which can be quite imposing given the drills. I would advise that a user cut the files into more digestible segments using an mp3 file splitter. Nonetheless, if you thrive on drills, this is the course for you. I expect that many will disagree with my assessment; however, although I'm not crazy about the Assimil Method, I find that it is immensely more thorough and enjoyable than the Michel Thomas Method, which, to me, particularly when delivered by Saint Michel himself, resembles a particularly aggressive session of water-boarding. Edited by Speakeasy on 06 January 2014 at 3:30am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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