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Best Way to Learn French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 25 of 31 19 January 2014 at 7:38am | IP Logged | ||
Oh and another great site to try is lyricstraining, of course. As far as I understand, the advanced Assimil course is more about idioms and business French and all that jazz. Officially they say you should reach B2 by using the with ease/without toil courses, so if you're not there, it's way too early. But I think B1 is a more realistic of where Assimil takes one. However, note that it's intended for English native speakers, so you'll get less out of it than what they do. If you were in Italy, I'd recommend using Italian-based materials (if you use them at all, that is), but in the Netherlands monolingual textbooks should be a better option. 3 persons have 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 26 of 31 19 January 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, thank you for all the advices!
So, better using native resources than Assimil at my stage. Good :) Listening-Reading method plus Scriptorium seem to fit well for me, shadowing is a problem because I live in an apartment in the center of a city. What do you think about FSI? Maybe I can do only the French Phonology course to improve my pronunciation (that is not so bad after all, listening to what natives tell to me on this matter) and find a language partner to do conversation? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 27 of 31 19 January 2014 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I wrote about this here. I also live in a flat and I only do shadowing at home.
I personally hate FSI. I find the pronunciation very dry and unpleasant (in pretty much all old recordings, Assimil too). But of course feel free to give it a try. What exactly do you feel you need to work on before finding a conversation partner? It's a good idea to work on your listening, as it won't help you much if you can say many things but don't understand the replies. Also, the combination of writing+thinking+shadowing is a good preparation for speaking. I think lang-8 is a better choice for you than exercises, as you'll be more aware of the grammar you need urgently if you write your own texts. Maybe alternate between writing with and without a grammar book? In the former case, aim to use as many "grammar things" as possible, including those you don't fully understand. Obviously when you write without consulting a grammar book, stick to what you know and work around the gaps and learn to think in the language. When you want to express something complicated, chances are it will come to your mind in Italian, English or Dutch... learn to deal with that, don't try to translate from the languages you know better but simplify your wording to get your point across. Edited by Serpent on 19 January 2014 at 8:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MasterMelhem Newbie Australia Joined 3982 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes | Message 28 of 31 20 January 2014 at 4:03am | IP Logged | ||
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With any language, is it bad to start off with verbs first? French Verbs may be hard and
difficult, but is starting a language with them a no-go zone? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc2 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4550 days ago 85 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German Studies: French | Message 29 of 31 20 January 2014 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think it's bad to start with verbs per se, but at least for me the ideal approach would be more holistic -- don't try to learn the grammar piece by piece, just try to learn it all as it comes up (which is sort of what Serpent mentioned above).
It might be helpful to you to read Wikipedia pages on French grammar, phonology, etc. (in your native language). That is what I do when first starting a language, and I think it really helps me identify structures when they come up -- I never drilled a particular verb tense, but I remember reading about it and so it looks familiar to me. Then as it is used more, I get a better sense of the pragmatics of it. Similarly for pronunciation -- knowing about the variations, allophones, etc. helps me listen and notice how native speakers say things. (And at least I find this slightly less boring than drills, the FSI French pronunciation course, etc.) ETA: I didn't realize that it was two different people asking about pronunciation and verbs. Hopefully this is helpful and not too off-topic anyways! Edited by anamsc2 on 20 January 2014 at 4:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4281 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 30 of 31 20 January 2014 at 4:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Books like these helped quite much:
Grammar/dp/007178781X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390187855&sr=8 - 1&keywords=complete+french+grammar">Complete French Grammar Guides/dp/0486204197/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390187914&sr=8- 3&keywords=essential+french+grammar">Essential French Grammar Series/dp/0071498044/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1390187971&sr=8 - 17&keywords=essential+french+grammar">French Verbs & Essentials of Grammar 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 31 of 31 20 January 2014 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
Complete French Grammar Essential French Grammar French Verbs and Essentials of Grammar Edited by luke on 20 January 2014 at 10:30am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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