callmemodesty Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3486 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 7 12 May 2015 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
Would using the Living Language French Complete programme followed by Fluenz French be a good way (or
at least start) to learn French? Does anyone have any experience with any of these programmes? I'm new to
this website and I only speak English, which is my native language. I do however want to learn at one other
language, and currently I'm thinking of learning French. I'm 16, by the way.
Any advice, tips or responses to my questions would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
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rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5236 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 7 12 May 2015 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
This sort of thing comes up a lot here. Here are a couple of threads where others have asked the same question.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=13393&PN=1&get=last
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=20750&PN=18
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=5158&PN=10
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=13869&PN=3
You can download FSI French for free.
You can search this site using google to mine for more information like this:
site:how-to-learn-any-language.com SEARCH_TERM
You will want to read the log of a guy called EMK here, he is a really amazing and helpful French/learner/speaker with lots of tips and tricks for learning languages.
There is also a thread about using ANKI (Free flashcard program) to learn using TV's and movies.
Basically just start using whatever resource you have, then come back here and ask questions. If you want my advice do this:
1) Start with the course you have.
2) Download ANKI and start creating cards for words in your course, so you memorise them.
3) Find yourself a French book to read. (Jules Verne is free on LibriVox and you can get English audio, English Text, French Audio, and French Text for the same book. This will allow you to use the Listen-Reading Method. You can learn about L-R Method here.)
4) Come back here and ask for more help.
5) Lather, rinse, repeat...
Hope that helps.
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bryanpeabody Groupie United States Joined 4985 days ago 48 posts - 79 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 3 of 7 12 May 2015 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
I used Fluenz Spanish. Overall I liked it and it helped me fill in the gaps of missing
knowledge, mostly around grammar. It also forces you to write (well, type) which I think
helped the topics/concepts sink in. But I generally need that kind of repetition for things
to stick so I didn't mind.
I will mention that Fluenz is 5 levels of 30 lessons and they are rather long and drawn
out. Lessons can easily take 1.5-2 hours in front of the computer to complete. While I did
like it overall, I'm not sure I'd use it again for another language. I think for the large
amount of time invested, it should have resulted in a higher level after completion.
Edited by bryanpeabody on 12 May 2015 at 7:01pm
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 4 of 7 12 May 2015 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
If you can get the Living Language Ultimate French Beginner-Intermediate - it is the
best Living Language course - and I think one of the best French courses out there.
It is unfortunately out of print - but if you can get second hand (you need the CDs) or
from the library (which is where you can get the CDs if you can only get the book second
hand) - it is better than the current complete course.
UK Libraries often have Paul Noble French, Michel Thomas French and Pimsleur French - I
would start with any one of those.
Edited by Elexi on 12 May 2015 at 7:08pm
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 5 of 7 13 May 2015 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Courses
you can find overview of quite a lot of French material there. Other than that, I
recommend looking at logs of French learners and the older threads, as mentioned.
Fluenz looks from all the info I got (last time I checked a few days ago) like a great
beginner resource, however, I think you can get to the same level cheaper, so it is a
matter of your finances and personal preferences.
I can surely recommend Assimil or the Ultimate. And series Grammaire
progressive/Vocabulaire progresif by CLE as a great supplement to anything and great
resource.
The Ultimate is awesome but the new Living language courses are not. I have looked at
all the info available and the new courses are just less content in a more fancy
design, meant to milk more money from the good name of Living Language. The quality is
lower and there are better resources.
I believe quite anything like Teach Yourself, FSI, Pimsleur etc can do much better job
than the new living language "complete" series.
As you are 16, I don't think your age calls for anything significantly different from
adult learners. Just a wild guess of resources ou might use quite soon and enjoy:
BDs (comic books). There is much more than just Asterix (but Asterix is awesome as
well). izneo.com is one of the very useful sources of those. Or your local Aliance
Francaise might have a library with a selection of those.
Lyricstraining.com
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rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5236 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin
| Message 6 of 7 13 May 2015 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
Oh yes, speaking of French Commics (Bande dessinée), here are some more threads which have links to some really brilliant comic books in French.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37747&PN=1
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=35368&PN=12
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 7 of 7 22 May 2015 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
And of course there are the free online courses:
https://www.duolingo.com/
and
https://lingvist.io/
Either of them is a good starting point, but neither will be enough on its own. Think of them as useful practice alongside whatever other learning you do. I personally prefer Lingvist for several reasons. The main reason is that it consciously teaches the most used vocabulary first, and then the readings and audio tell you what percentage of the vocabulary you know so you can pick readings/audio that are accessible.
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