Learning French

Roscobob

Alright troops?

Anyone here learnt French? I'm looking to and I was looking for hints and tips on the best way to go about it.

Any advice welcome

GiantMike

Rosetta Stone seems good (but expensive).....



Failing that, immersion in the language is the best way. Could you get a french girlfriend?

Francais, c'est la langue d'amour.

deptfordmarmoset

It might be best to think about what you want your French for and then tailor your studies accordingly. Work French, holiday French, living-in-France French, whatever, might each suggest different paths.

If it's all-round get-by-competently French, use every possible thing that could help you. DVDs/videos with the subtitles off or covered up was one of the best ways I found of learning everyday spoken French while enjoying it. Books, even grammar books. There are also useful web resources: http://french.about.com/ is good for dipping into and there's a forum for writing and learning, live streams, e.g. http://wwitv.com/portal.htm will give you lots of different TV stations. A decent French - English dictionary is essential but you'll soon need a French - French dictionary like Le Petit Robert.

The French girlfriend (la dictionnaire) is also a great way of learning - though many people are not very good at swapping from one language to another without resorting to an improvised version of franglais if they're immersed in speaking English.

It's a bit like hill climbing - it never gets easy, you just just get better at it - plus a chance to see the world from a different point of view. Bonne chance!

finchy

I suggest that you look in your local library to see if they have the Pimsleur course - the full, 3 level one, not the short course.

deptfordmarmoset

L'heure de Pims?

Escargot

I started learning French a year or so ago and used the BBC French Experience course (CD's and accompanying book). It was very good as a starter course as it covers a very wide range of tourist basics and some.

Once I'd gained confidence I then moved on to Michel Thomas' beginners and advanced course. I'd definitely recommend these as they are excellent for improving your oral skills. There's no book with these as it's all about conversation.

Fortunately I work with a lot of French people and ultimately I've found my biggest improvements have come from emailing. If you can get the basics and then find some French friends then this will bring you on no end.

Hope this helps.

dilemna

Mais oui bonjour mange tout!

Voulez vous.....s'il vous plait..... Je suis un rock star....

Il faudra trouver une belle amiee ou maitresse Francais ..........

Crapaud

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

It might be best to think about what you want your French for and then tailor your studies accordingly. Work French, holiday French, living-in-France French, whatever, might each suggest different paths. ...

^^^this^^^

If it's just reading and writing, there's loads of stuff on-line. The speaking / listening is more difficult, Roscobob.

I'd recommend a French language and cultural institute like the Institute Francaise in Edinburgh.

grahamcp

I would also recommend the Michel Thomas course. It has its faults but overall is extremely good. I tried it out first with a copy from the library. As well as foundation and advanced you can get language builder and vocab courses, although the vocab one is just the MT method not the man himself.

Aside from living in a french speaking country, try to expose yourself to as much french as possible. Evening class, pen pals(!), websites (eg www.lequipe.fr/cyclisme or book reviews on www.amazon.fr)

The Collins easy learning french series of books is pretty good also.

morgs2001

+1 for Michael Thomas French courses,
I stuck it on my ipod and listen on commute to work . a good common sense approach to learning conversational French.

spanielsson

morgs2001 wrote:

+1 for Michael Thomas French courses,
I stuck it on my ipod and listen on commute to work . a good common sense approach to learning conversational French.

I agree, I have the Spanish and found it good to get going with.

My Wife is a Modern Foreign Languages Faculty Manger, she has passed the German & Spanish versions on to members of her team who have found it good to start with another language.

Worth a look:here.

Crapaud

I've just noticed that BBC 4's repeating Spiral II. Double episode is on at the moment.

Yayyyy!

Escargot

I think you should find a great deal from ebay but fyi you can also buy a wide range of Michel Thomas courses (French, German, Spanish) from Costco for about £22 at the moment.

Bonne chance

Buckled_Rims

Apart from having a French fancy next to you....There's actually a HUGE gap in the language market in the sense few teaches you about specific areas. Personally I find Michel Thomas course the best, but I really do hate the "students" trying to speak the language.

The very best simple French course I took was by Berlinz Basic French. ISBN: 2-8315-1676-5

Listen to Euronews in French, Radio in French etc.

I don't like Rosetta Stone, because you can't mp3 them onto your player. I used the Russian and Chinese and don't like any of the Rossetta stuff.

The very BIG factor with all learning is to learn something each day and remember it.

The big mistakes are going to be finding which gender matches the nouns. You'll just have to learn by rote or trial and error.

finchy

The Assimil series is also good for learning languages. I don't know about the French version, but that's how I learnt Hungarian.

RedJohn

Don't know your situation, but if you can arrange it I can strongly recommend taking a couple of months in the country in a language school for foreigners. I did this in both Italian and German many years ago, fantastic experience and really beneficial.

Of course, may be easier said than done in which case the advice above is good.
Also try to get French TV, radio, books. magazines once you're at a post-beginner stage.

deptfordmarmoset

Buckled_Rims wrote:

The big mistakes are going to be finding which gender matches the nouns. You'll just have to learn by rote or trial and error.

+1. French-speakers, from their very first moments of learning language, follow an often arbitrary splitting up of nouns by gender and this becomes automatic. This is exceptionally difficult for an English-speaker to follow and you will make mistakes. This is a simple tip for minimising the errors:

Instead of dividing the world and its things up by le and la, do it by un and une - this will help avoid the uncertainty about nouns that begin with a vowel (and some h-words). Words like l'article or l'aube, do not give you a clue as to gender whereas un and une do.

Luckily, many words follow patterns: big words that end in -tion are all feminine (I can't think of any exceptions), and if they end in -ment, they're masculine. There, that's several thousand words taken care of already...!

geoff_ss

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

Buckled_Rims wrote:

The big mistakes are going to be finding which gender matches the nouns. You'll just have to learn by rote or trial and error.

+1. French-speakers, from their very first moments of learning language, follow an often arbitrary splitting up of nouns by gender and this becomes automatic. This is exceptionally difficult for an English-speaker to follow and you will make mistakes. This is a simple tip for minimising the errors:

Instead of dividing the world and its things up by le and la, do it by un and une - this will help avoid the uncertainty about nouns that begin with a vowel (and some h-words). Words like l'article or l'aube, do not give you a clue as to gender whereas un and une do.

Luckily, many words follow patterns: big words that end in -tion are all feminine (I can't think of any exceptions), and if they end in -ment, they're masculine. There, that's several thousand words taken care of already...!

We once stayed 'en famille' in a French B&B. There was a game show on the TV in which contestants had to guess the gender of various (unusual) nouns. They were no better at it than I was

I just scraped French 'O' level way back in 1956 but I remember quite a lot of it and just about manage to scrape by when we visit France. As we cycles or drive along I translate all the advertisment hoardings for practice. I'm much better at the end of the month than the beginning but the following year it all starts again.

Geoff

timdanaher

Buckled_Rims wrote:

The big mistakes are going to be finding which gender matches the nouns. You'll just have to learn by rote or trial and error.

Not entirely true.

A fair few common nouns have to be learned by rote, but otherwise, the word ending will tell you the gender:

(off the top of my head)

Masculine:

-age (except for 6), -ion, -ment (ex. la jument), -eur (animate nouns) -aire, -oire, -ée (if derived from Greek nouns, heh), -é

Feminine:

-té, -tié, tion-sion-cion, -elle, -ette (mostly), -aison, -eur (inanimate nouns), -euse, -ine, -once-ence-ance (ex. le silence), -ée

There are more, natch, can't remember them at the moment. Not having to learn genders by rote was one of the biggest reliefs when I was learning French.

MrTapir

i'm learning french at the moment by going to an evening class once a week, there are 5 in the group and its pretty worthwhile cos you get to speak with other people. I also supplement that with visits to french.about.com which is good although a bit scattergun (its free though) and i also have some of the Collins easy learning books (verbs and grammar) as well as a french dictionary. play.com has the books for cheap prices. I have a mate in Lyon and i would go and live with him if i could! total immersion is definitely best way to learn

MrTapir

TimDanaher wrote:

Buckled_Rims wrote:

The big mistakes are going to be finding which gender matches the nouns. You'll just have to learn by rote or trial and error.

Not entirely true.

A fair few common nouns have to be learned by rote, but otherwise, the word ending will tell you the gender:

(off the top of my head)

Masculine:

-age (except for 6), -ion, -ment (ex. la jument), -eur (animate nouns) -aire, -oire, -ée (if derived from Greek nouns, heh), -é

Feminine:

-té, -tié, tion-sion-cion, -elle, -ette (mostly), -aison, -eur (inanimate nouns), -euse, -ine, -once-ence-ance (ex. le silence), -ée

There are more, natch, can't remember them at the moment. Not having to learn genders by rote was one of the biggest reliefs when I was learning French.

dont forget mostly all the shops, ending in 'erie', eg la boucherie, la papeterie, la quincaillerie' etc

snakehips

Some French radio stations can be picked up in the UK. I improved my French a few years ago by listening to RTL whenever I could.
I am currently trying to improve my Italian. I access the online version of La Repubblica every day and subscribe to free email circulation lists on various topics. I am sure you could find some online French publications that interest you. The benefit of this is that you see how the language is actually used , which can be vastly different to the way you are taught it in school.
I find Michel Tomas unbearable to listen to !

Bonne chance

Hanches de Serpent

jc4lab

Learned Spanish Portugeuese and Italien for 3 months before a visitn to Brasil,Central America etc..Well worth it cos you go off the beaten track with more confidence..Surprising how you cope knowing nothing though..It slows you down at worse..
My way was to create your own phrase book for the phrases you will need.and laerdn them.. and just borrow stuff from the library for practice..Chances are on a course you learn such useless stuff like how to order water without gas..Useless..Sorry I have already been mugged today is more useful...

deptfordmarmoset

snakehips wrote:

Some French radio stations can be picked up in the UK. I improved my French a few years ago by listening to RTL whenever I could.
I am currently trying to improve my Italian. I access the online version of La Repubblica every day and subscribe to free email circulation lists on various topics. I am sure you could find some online French publications that interest you. The benefit of this is that you see how the language is actually used , which can be vastly different to the way you are taught it in school.
I find Michel Tomas unbearable to listen to !

Bonne chance

Hanches de Serpent

Though I'm not sure how good the radio reception will be for Roscobob , who gives his location as Fife. There are hundreds of radio stations available on the net though - I use a simple free radio player - it's less cumbersome than iTunes - called http://www.screamer-radio.com/ and there are probably lots more available.

And here's a list of French online papers: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/france.htm

Cressers

Be perepared for the language in real life to be unlike the classroom exercises. That said, once immeresd in french you will learn a lot very quickly.

Allez!

Crapaud

snakehips wrote:

Some French radio stations can be picked up in the UK. I improved my French a few years ago by listening to RTL whenever I could. ...

I used to listen to RTL On one occassion they were doing one of these random phone calls, to a member of the public, where you have to respond with the 'phrase that pays':

*phone ringing*

French presenter: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. (or les blah if you prefer).

*long pause*

French presenter: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

*pause*

French presenter: Est-ce que vous parlez francaise?

*pause*

Listener: Nein!

French presenter (panics in english): This conversation is not possible!!!

*hangs up* [fx] brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... [/fx]



There're loads of French radio stations on the web:

Radio France
Radio France International
RTL
Radio Grenouille (frog radio)

A, possibly, useful threadhere.

I found TV5Monde (Apprendre TV) pretty good, the videos aren't too long and you can print out a transcript to check out any new or unfamiliar vocab before listening.

symo

Pimsleur,

I learnt Portuguese with their CDs. Which have a strong Rio twang too, so now when I say things the locals find it amusing as I sound a little like them.

pneumatic

I learned the words and grammar at school and read the literature and culture at University, but I only really learned to speak it by spending lots of time in France living with French people.

One thing to note, especially as an adult learner of any language, it is not a forebrain activity (logical, thinking, working it out); it is backbrain stuff (holistic, feeling, trying it out.) You have to throw yourself into it, like a good actor. You have to form your vowels with a mouth like a goldfish and you have to deploy all the physical gestures (like the gallic shrug) to make it real.

The reason for this, apparently, is that you use the motor skills bit of the brain for second language acquisition, which is different from the bit that processes your mother tongue. This is also what impersonators do when they learn a new celebrity character.

Bonne chance, mon pot!

CHRISNOIR

Another vote for the Michel Thomas guide.

Failing that why not try going to France, pointing at things and speaking in English only louder than normal and waving your arms aound? Make sure you become super-exasperated when the dim natives fail to grasp what you are saying - this always helps...

Buckled_Rims

I also forgot to mention the free language courses in the public domain for those who like to penny pinch

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

Roscobob

Thanks for the advice folks. Really appreciated.

I shall keep you updated with my progress 8)