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Best Way to Learn French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4900 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 17 of 31 08 January 2014 at 2:21pm | IP Logged |
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I found Michel Thomas to be excellent for German, but for French I was disappointed for
two reasons: his accent is poor and he teaches you to ignore noun gender. Still, alongside other material it is valuable. Professor Alexander Arguelles also commonly recommends the X in 3 Months series. I have the French set, and it looks very good. Since you say you like grammar explanations, it is a good way to cover the basics in detail in a short space of time. French in Action is great. I have watched all of the videos, and played a bit with some of the exercises. The videos can be watched free and legally, but if you want the audio files it will be expensive. The textbook isn't too expensive, and it has full transcripts of the videos, plus a few exercises. I would also recommend that you give Duolingo a try. It can get quite addictive, but if you overdo it, you will get tired of it in a few weeks. My final recommendation is that you need to spend a little time each day with some "real" French. At the beginning stages, watching TV or movies (even with subtitles) is helpful, but my top recommendation would be to listen to some relatively simple audio. RFi's Le journal en français facile (http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/sta tiques/accueil_apprendre.asp is a daily news podcast lasting about 10 minutes. Listen to it once on its own, then once with the transcript. At first you will have trouble even distinguishing one word from another. But keep at it and you'll be amazed at how much easier it will be to listen to real French after a few months. I sometimes also listen to Les mots de l'actualité, which discusses a single word appearing in recent news reports, and is only 3 minutes long. EDIT: the same RFi page also has a few podcast courses. I didn't think much of Mission Paris, but I did enjoy listening to most of L'affaire du coffret. These courses really just scratch the surface, but they can be good for developing the habit of listening for clues. Edited by Jeffers on 08 January 2014 at 2:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4043 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 18 of 31 08 January 2014 at 7:45pm | IP Logged |
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MasterMelhem,
While the FRENCH IN ACTION series is highly-regarded, you should be aware that it was designed for classroom use. Like many such courses, the full set of materials includes a series of Teacher's Texts, Student Texts, Work Books, Study Guides, audio CDs, and DVDs, which, in total, can be QUITE expensive. My experience with similar classroom courses for Spanish and German is that the videos can be quite useful, providing that transcripts are available. However, I have been consistently surprised and disappointed by the accompanying textbooks, study guides, etcetera, as they (given the predatory pricing practices of which university students are the primary victims), seem to offer very little by way of actual "content" when compared to the better self-study courses. That is, it is quite possible that you will not really learn more French with this course as compared to a self-study method, which will most defintely cost you much less. While it is quite possible that resellers offer reduced prices, I have attached the link to the publisher’s website (Annenberg) where their pricing is posted (ouch!): https://rhu040.sma-promail.com/v5fmsnet/OECart/OeFrame.asp?P mSess1=187800&Action=SEARCH Quite frankly, I would begin my French studies with PIMSLEUR (despite its drawbacks) and supplement it with a very basic grammar (EMK recommended an excellent starting point with the ESSENTIAL FRENCH GRAMMAR), a dictionary, and a basic book of verbs. As to the Pimsleur courses themselves, there are numerous authorized resellers of the CDs, some of which also offer mp3 downloads, and others which offer very interesting buy-back-exchange programmes (which may, or may not, be subsidized by inflated shipping charges; so, beware). The publishers, Simon & Schuster, have recently begun offering a somewhat improved version of their courses as the PIMSLEUR UNLIMITED software packages. These versions include the mp3 downloads, they are only slightly more expensive than the mp3 downloads, and they include online exercises and reworked, partial, transcripts of the lesson material, thereby obviating the need to develop one's own course notes and glossary by working backwards from the audio through a dictionary and book of verbs (which can actually be quite instructive). I truly enjoyed the full Pimsleur programmes (now called Phases I through IV) for Spanish, Italian, and German. I found that the method is quite useful for Latinate or Germanic languages, but that it is not well-suited to the Slavic languages. Nonetheless, every self-study language programme has its supporters and its detractors and no one can tell you how you will react to their own favourite. While I might seem to be "promoting" Pimsleur, I will admit that it is very expensive, that it does not contain much vocabulary (perhaps 1200 words, rather than the publisher's estimate of some 2000 words), and that it can seem frustratingly long (but then again, 'apparently' shorter programmes take just as much time to truly integrate the same amount of material). Be advised, though, that the full programme will lead you to somewhere within the A2 level and not the B2 level as many would have you believe. It is only a BEGINNING and I suspect that upon completion, you would find the FRENCH IN ACTION videos of Part I, for the most part, quite understandable, but that the Part 2 videos might still be something of a stretch. All of my comments and recommendations are based on my independent-learning experiences with languages other than French, which I learned "sur le tas" about 30 years ago and which has become, for all practical purposes, my primary day-to-day language (by the way, French is one of the easiest languages that an Anglo can attempt to learn). Bonne chance avec vos etudes!... yes, I know how to spell étude, but the forum doesn't seem to like accented letters. PS TO JEFFERS: Great website! PS TO YNEOS: Ah, the professor! Great links! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 19 of 31 08 January 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
It depends on whether you have time to dedicate to study, or have to do it catch as catch can. My recipe could work for either. It's somewhat based on my own experience and that recommended by Professor Arguelles:
Another Assimil course - French Without Toil, Using French, or possibly Business French. Hugo French in 3 months. I haven't used this one, but I want to find out about it. I used Essential French Grammar like emk, which doesn't have audio or written exercises. The Hugo course has multiple generations, but was (and maybe still is) a grammar/translation method with a good bit of Target Language audio. FSI Basic French has over 70 hours of drills which I'm finding helpful. Edited by luke on 08 January 2014 at 10:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Light Newbie Canada Joined 4416 days ago 30 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 20 of 31 09 January 2014 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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I have not gone through French in Action, but only read good things here.
There was a series I've not seen talked about on these forums (I think by BBC, which someone has conveniently uploaded to YouTube) called Ensemble French. It's for the complete beginner, and doesn't cover much ground at all which is why I'll try not to compare it with French in Action too much. Though similarly, it does a lot of skits. Having been through French in school as a Canadian, I can't say I never understood some French before watching these videos, but I can say I had never reached a good level in French and watched these while I was just getting reacquainted with the language after years having no contact with it. I found that I understood pretty much everything said on these videos. Some of it probably through recall, but most of it through context. I think they did a very good job of making it accessible to anyone, from young age on up to being an adult. Ensemble French Edited by Light on 09 January 2014 at 3:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 21 of 31 13 January 2014 at 4:00am | IP Logged |
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Thank-you for all of your advice and experiences. I just finished the Michel Thomas Foundation Course and
starting the Foundation Review. After I finish this, I'll probably do the Pimsleur courses. Once again, thanks for all your help. I will look into some French films as well 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4038 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 22 of 31 19 January 2014 at 4:48am | IP Logged |
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Guys, I started classes of French and I'm been classified A2 (I already studied French years ago). Now, with Assimil I
should be A2 at the end of the course, so my question is: is it worthy to do it anyway from the beginning, or it's better if I start with the advanced course or it's better than I use something else in conjunction to the course book and the FSI? Or it's better if I keep only the course book and FSI? Thank you very much! EDIT: sorry for the owner of the post, I put my question here because the title says "best way to learn french". If is required to open a new thread I will do it. Edited by tristano on 19 January 2014 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4245 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 23 of 31 19 January 2014 at 5:13am | IP Logged |
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Assimil can be so random at times that usually doing a new course always mean new vocab unless you're way above it. I took 5 years of German in public school and still found some new stuff in the course. However you might find it a little slow paced, but it would be good for review if you think you need it.
Assimil also offers both their normal and advanced levels in a Dutch base language, so if you want to experiment a bit, you could try learning French from Dutch and that way you might get a little extra out of it. Edited by YnEoS on 19 January 2014 at 5:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 24 of 31 19 January 2014 at 6:56am | IP Logged |
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Thanks YnEoS. I have started Assimil and now up to the 3rd Lesson. I'm just going to give
it a try and see if I improve. I am also doing the Pimsleur I course now and am loving it at the moment. I'll see how things go and if I don't stick with these, I am probably looking at doing the Hugo - French in 3 Months book and Michel Thomas Advanced Course 1 person has voted this message useful |
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