French beginner resources (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

French beginner resources
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13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6447 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 10 of 13

25 November 2008 at 5:38am | IP Logged

Vai wrote:

Volte wrote:

Vai wrote:

I suspected that was the reason, but for someone not interested in obscure languages I wouldn't think it would be necessary. (I suppose, ironically, the ubiquity of English could obviate the need for English-speakers to need language-learning materials in the first place.)

Necessary - no. Useful - yes. If you're aiming for polyglottery anyhow, why cut yourself off from a huge percent of the most useful material?

I'd still think that using somewhat worse material published in my native language would be more useful than the best being read in fledgling French or German.

Yes, but it's not polyglottery if you only speak non-English languages to a fledgling level. Hence, the idea is that you'd try to get your French and German up to a quite competent level at the beginning, so that you _would_ be able to study by them (without much/any preference for studying in English). The whole point is to avoid having the problem of not being able to comfortably read French/German material!

Also - you might be surprised at what you can do with a moderate fledgling level. I read Kauderwelsch's "Esperanto: Wort fuer Wort" yesterday - and while I consider my German pretty 'fledgling', it was still quite useful and interesting.

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CMB_001
Newbie
United States
ispeakthat.com
Joined 5883 days ago
2 posts - 2 votes
Studies: Russian

Message 11 of 13

27 November 2008 at 9:56pm | IP Logged

london1919 wrote:

I also want to follow one of AJATT's main points of listening to massive amounts of input by using my mp3 player as often as I can. Does anyone have any useful links for podcasts/slow news bulletins etc. that would be good for a beginner? I'd probably go mad if all I used for input were the Assimil recordings. Any other useful resources?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Rich.

If you want to Learn French by listening to mp3 audio, check out iSpeakthat.com. They allow you to create your own playlists using only the words you want to learn. Very cool.
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dmg
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7019 days ago
555 posts - 605 votes

1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Dutch, Esperanto

Message 12 of 13

28 November 2008 at 12:43am | IP Logged

london1919 wrote:

The only beginner/intermediate podcast that's entirely French that I've found is One Thing in a French Day. Everything else (FrenchPod, Learn French By Podcast, DailyFrenchPod, Coffee Break French) have tons of English in them. You could always download them and edit out the English parts though. Most of the above also have listening guides and extra features available if you subscribe.

RFI has a Journal en Français Facile, as well as a number of other "learn French" audio series. They have three bilingual radio series: a "police thriller" (L'affaire du coffret), a "crime adventure" (Mission Europe), and an introduction to French for business (Comment vont les affaires?).

For native-level input, I listen to CBC Podcasts.

Edited by dmg on 28 November 2008 at 12:44am
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MmeFleiss
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5990 days ago
58 posts - 72 votes

Speaks: English*, Tagalog
Studies: Japanese, French, Spanish

Message 13 of 13

28 November 2008 at 8:27am | IP Logged

dmg wrote:

The only beginner/intermediate podcast that's entirely French that I've found is One Thing in a French Day.

I just wanted to thank you, dmg, for pointing out this particular resource. I, too, was looking for some extra French input, and this one really fit the bill. I love that all the transcripts appear to be provided for free, too.

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