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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| georgw Diglot Newbie Austria Joined 3510 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 6 16 April 2015 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everybody!
About 8 years ago, my French level was probably somewhere between A2 and B1. After this long break, I now want to get back to learning French. I thought about starting using Babbel, which seems to be a decent course focused on speaking. Do you guys have any experience regarding Babbel? I think listening to French radio or watching movies with subtitles is probably too early for me at the moment, so Babbel looks like a good option - combined with grammar drills, of course. Thanks a lot for your answers! Georg 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 2 of 6 16 April 2015 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
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I'm sorry, I don't know much about Babbel, but if I wanted to restore dormant French I might try something a bit more substantial like the Assimil course. The nice thing about Assimil is you could probably review some of the early chapters really quickly, while still benefitting from listening to the CDs. In fact, Assimil probably works better for "false beginners" than true beginners.
If you are keen on online learning, have you considered the free options? There's Duolingo and Lingvist, both of which have a fair bit of content. I imagine Lingvist will be better for you as someone who already knows some French. Once you get back to A2/B1 definitely consider listening to L'avis de Marie, a podcast series specifically geared to A2/B1 students. It's not an instructional podcast, rather the hostess speaks clearly about a variety of topics related to French life, culture, politics, etc. Welcome to the forum, and I hope you enjoy reigniting your French passion! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tangleweeds Groupie United States Joined 3573 days ago 70 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Irish, French | Message 3 of 6 17 April 2015 at 12:49am | IP Logged |
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Hi and welcome! I began reawakening my long-dormant French this past month, and I found
Lingvist a very useful starting point, as it focuses on (re)introducing words in order of their frequency of use. I've also been watching the French in Action videos, which are available free to stream online, though they were created for a much larger (and expensive, given its many components) course created by Yale in the 1980's (the expensive parts have had more recent updates). They videos are all in French, but geared toward teaching beginners. They start out simple, but ramp up relatively swiftly.. I spent money on Assimil's French with Ease on the basis of recommendations here, and it is a very well produced product (real voice actors, good quality paper in the (surprisingly compact yet thick) book, etc), and it's even pretty amusing at times. I haven't seen much about Babbel here, except for people who were happy about its Turkish course. What are its selling points? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 4 of 6 17 April 2015 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
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Another strong recommendation for Lingvist here - it is a huge leap forward over the
other online learning platforms. Babbel Turkish was great because it was designed for Turkish ... it didn't try to force the course onto a preset format. However, as someone pointed out on another thread, once you're past the basic grammar sections it basically becomes another vocabulary drilling course. If the French course is similar then I'd say try it out for a couple months - it might be a great refresher. I was in a similar position with French a couple years ago. I started with Assimil French and the FSI courses, and they worked well together. Assimil took me about three months to finish. FSI took me three years, though I only used it off and on. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| georgw Diglot Newbie Austria Joined 3510 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French | Message 5 of 6 20 April 2015 at 11:12am | IP Logged |
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Thanks a lot for the recommendations, I'll give Lingvist a shot!
Babbel seems to focus a lot more on speaking than on grammar which is good and bad at the same time I guess... Assimil seems to be recommended by a lot of people as well, probably having an "old-fashioned book course" is still better than relying exclusively on online platforms. Lingvist and Assimil should be a good match. Update: I just spent an hour trying out Lingvist, and I've already learned more than in hours of studying with Babbel - thanks a lot for the recommendation! Edited by georgw on 20 April 2015 at 12:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 6 21 April 2015 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
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I tried babbel some time ago. It looked like a not bad practice app for beginners but
not a full course to base the whole learning (or relearning) process on. Of course, I checked only my languages in which I can choose from tons of resources and can afford to be spoiled, I'd say it is quite probable to be very popular among learners of less popular languages, if the version (such as the turkish one) is good. If I could recommend you a few more things you might like: -The progressive series by CLE. You might find their Grammaire and Vocabulaire books useful and they give lots of freedom to learners who don't want to go through another regular course and they have many other pros. And it is a much cheaper option than Assimil -BDs. You might already enjoy Asterix or others. It is a great way to practice and learn more. -rfi site has some easier audio for learners -frenchpod101 is a good thing. audios and (for a monthly fee) pdf transcripts. the quality of various language versions seem to vary but the french one seems to be well thought out and there is a lot of content sorted into several levels -italki, you can get writen pieces corrected by natives there -memrise or anki Edited by Cavesa on 21 April 2015 at 2:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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