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Best way to start learning French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| harryg Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4495 days ago 9 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 11 29 August 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm just starting to learn French as i have taken a year out before Uni and will have a lot of free time now, before i
go travelling next year and i wanted to see if i could learn French to a reasonable standard in this time. Could you recommend some resources to get me started and then take me to the next level. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5371 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 11 29 August 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned French using Assimil's New French with Ease. Here's how it works:
- There are about 110 lessons. - You do one lesson per day. - Each lesson has a 2-minute recording in French, text in French, and text in English. - You do your best to repeat the audio out loud. - You spend 20 or 30 minutes listening to the recordings while reading the texts. - At the end of the lesson, you should understand 90–100% of what you're hearing. After 50 lessons, you start the "active wave", where you go back to lesson one, and translate from English to French. So it takes a little under 180 days to complete the course. At the end of this time, you should be able to carry on a simple conversation in French and read the newspaper with dictionary. Basically, all you need to do is show up and do that daily lesson. That's the nice part about Assimil. If Assimil isn't to your taste, some other popular options are here include: - FSI French. Free. For those who like to work hard, and who love grammar drills. - Michel Thomas. Expensive, but some people like to use it early on. Doesn't cover as much material. - Pimsleur. Never tried it, but some people like it. - French in Action. Never tried it, but people seem enthusiastic. In general, most of these courses will get you "conversational" and allow you to read newspapers and books with a dictionary. At that point, you'll be able to start using your French for real. And when you're ready, HTLAL will be happy to give you lots of advice on where to go from there. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| harryg Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4495 days ago 9 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 29 August 2012 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, is Assimil free or does it cost?
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| conroy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4913 days ago 36 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 11 29 August 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assimil definitely, but if you don't have anyone to talk to in French then I would definitely add a speaking course such as Pimsleur to develop confidence and automaticity in speech, so that when you go to France you don't find yourself tongue tied.
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| conroy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4913 days ago 36 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 11 29 August 2012 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sadly Assimil is not cheap (look on Amazon or Ebay). I wouldn't be tempted to get an edition without the audio because you'll need to hear the dialogues for listening practice as well as correct pronounciation.
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| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5371 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 11 29 August 2012 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Usually about $55, including the book and CDs (you need both, especially for French). I've seen it cheaper. But this is like the MasterCard advertisement: Assimil: $55. Doing the lessons: 20–40 minutes per day for 6 months. Speaking French: priceless. Compared to Michel Thomas or Pimsleur, Assimil is dirt cheap. And it will take you further than most of the other courses available. If $55 is still way too much, the other good option is FSI. Everyone always says that it's dry and pretty difficult, but it works, and you can legally download it for free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6436 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 7 of 11 29 August 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can also get MT or Pimsleur at the library/via inter-library loan.
also, French in Action is also legally available for free. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5101 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 11 29 August 2012 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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The DLI (Defense Language Institute) course is available for free download as well DLI French. Download the basic course volumes 1-10 with audio free and legal. Edited by iguanamon on 30 August 2012 at 1:20am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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