best free ways to learn French?

[chris.m]

hi folks. i'm new here and would be grateful for ideas please. currently i'm using www.memrise.com online and yarn on iphone but i wondered if you wise folks had resources that worked? kind regards :)

[Patf]

What level of french are you aiming for?

Holiday french?

Basic french conversation?

Managing french bureaucracy?

Reading french newspapers and books?

Understanding french radio and TV speech? etc.

The best way for me is chatting to a sympathetic french person who is prepared to speak slowly and clearly, and correct my accent etc.

[Jonzjob]

If you live in France then one way that we have used is through the AVF

Have a look at the map on the site and contact them to see if they do French? It isn't free, but if it's like the Carcassonne branch then the membership is just 30€/year. Not just lessons either. They do all sorts of other things including visits all over the place and lunches several times a year, all for the 30€.

[woolybanana]

Get a bird/bloke!!

[Jonzjob]

Wooly you wally!! Just how would a bird help in learning French??? [:-))][:-))]

Beautiful though it may be[kiss]

[Loiseau]

Parrot? Mynah?

[mint]

Yes, loiseau, but those birds are very long-living and then you'd have to make provisions for their care in your will.

And, if you happen to get an English bird, it might only be able to swear or say "pretty polly, pretty polly" or some such.

And, if your French accent is dreadful, the bird will certainly start talking like you and so you will have gained nothing![:D]

[Loiseau]

Well, actually, Mint, I was about to put the same answer as WB,

Worked for me!!!

I had a French boyfriend when I was a student - and made amazing progress (in the language)...

Angela

[chris.m]

thank you Patf for replying and for those questions. its a mixture of holiday French (which i really struggled with... especially trying to pronounce peanut butter to a supermarket clerk!), knowing French families that i spend time with and want to participate in the conversation, and spending more and more time in France.

thank you everyone for replying also and for making helpful and playful suggestions :) quite a lovely group of people on this forum :)

[idun]

peanut butter in french isn't too hard really, burr de ca ca whet, basic but you would manage with that.

Rust still has my tongue in a spin, that is very very hard for me to say and always will be.

[mint]

Chris, I do hope this isn't your only foray into the forum.

The vast majority of people on here are francophiles and many have lived/owned houses/holidayed here for years.

It would be interesting to hear of your personal experiences of French life, what you find interesting, puzzling, enjoyable, uniquely French and so on.

No, I don't mean write your impressions and stories all at once!  I mean, just when things occur to you or indeed, if you are looking for tips on language learning (or anything else), you could come here and ask or share or relate?

I haven't met anyone new to France or come here to live recently so a pair of eyes and ears new to France and all things French would make nice points of comparison for me!

[idun]

mint have you mastered saying 'rust' in french?

That would give me far more pleasure to be able to do that, than getting to grips with any of the grammar.

chris.m, the basics are fairly quick, getting your bread or slices of ham  etc. The rest is simply getting stuck in.

We moved to France on a whim, just like that with no french and no knowledge of France apart from a day trip to Paris (me) OH a couple of days in Normandy. And I had a few lessons, but for many reasons that was it.

If you are not up for a french lover as has cheekily been suggested, just speak and if you don't understand what people are saying, well, bit by bit you will. Just keep on with that.

And I don't care what it is like, watch french tv all the time, we had no choice back then, but you get the music of the language in your ears and start picking out words and see the context of them. ie for example the news.

If you are still in the UK, SKY has TV5 Monde on 796, I'd say watch it a lot.

Within two years I was sorting stuff out at the bank in my own way, but I did it and got better. I still mangle the language, but do it all easily and fluently with a strong english accent which I do try to curb. I can speak to anyone about anything have been able to for years and years. And if I can do it anyone can.

Still rotten at written french and grammar, my goal was always verbal communication and frankly my written english is not so hot really, I was always better at numbers.

[Jonzjob]

You could try this if you have a Kindle??

Occasionally I read French books on my Kindle and have had to have either my translator or a dictionary beside me. I noticed something yesterday that said that you could translate from all sorts of languages to others. So I found this web site that tells you how.

http://learnoutlive.com/how-to-use-your-kindle-to-study-a-foreign-language/

So now I have found how to translate fro English to French at the touch of the screen and when reading a French book it only takes a couple of seconds to change it over.

Good 'ere init [8-|]

[Pierre ZFP]

The one I like is Duolingo

It has a great deal of content, you do the little exercises at your own pace and it's FREE !!

Why is it free? Well the story goes that the person that invented Captcha  (you know, the irritating words you have to transcribe sometimes to prove to a website you are not a robot) is so consumed with guilt at the amount of time wasted in doing this that he wants to 'give something back'  and so his grand plan is to translate everything into everything else

I tried to learn Portuguese with this but I didn't get far.  Not the fault of Duolingo but with me, I should have spent more time on it

[Rabbie]

Horizontal Berlitz is one of the most fun and effective ways to learn a language. It worked for me learning Swedish when I met Mrs Rabbie.

Duolingo I found a useful way of building a broader vocabulary even if some of the sentences are a little esoteric

[YCCMB]

I'm not knocking free stuff. I use a lot of it as source material for lessons.

Nor am I saying that you have to pay for stuff because it's better.

However, the thing I noticed years ago, and it's been reinforced time and time again in various ways, is that if you're using a free method of learning, you have much less vested interest in keeping up with it.

When ESOL classes were free, they were always oversubscribed and the first lessons of term were mobbed. By the middle of term, people had stopped bothering to come, and by the end, only a few stalwarts remained. Once people had to pay, they turned up, twice a week, every week, and very few students ever missed.

Of course, it might be a different matter if you're learning French whilst living in France, where the imperative is greater and is part of your day to day life. If you're learning from afar, for pleasure and to improve your basic language skills, the most important thing is your own level of commitment.