100-110 million students of all ages, not living in a francophone
country, have learned/are learning French.
(La Francophonie dans le monde 2006-2007)
My Top 4 Courses to Learn Beginners French
(in no particular order)
Advice: Be wary of methods that say you can be fluent within a month. - Not so!!
Before You Know It Deluxe 4.0
is great for getting started in learning French. It helps you to learn words and phrases almost effortlessly. It is best suited to beginners or those with a limited amount of French and the very reasonable price makes it definitely worth considering.
TELL ME MORE offers a complete pakcage in that you get a boxful of goodies that will take you fromm beginners to advanced. Also inlcuded is a headset and mircophone.
What makes this package really special is its speech recognition technology that recognizes and analyzes your pronunciation and tells you where you have gone wrong.
You will need a computer.
Linguaphone
have been around for a long time so they have a lot of expertise behind them. They work on the principle of listen - understand - speak.
They have 2 types of basic French language courses: French allTalk which is a totally hands-free language learning course,
consisting entirely of audio CDs and French Pro which really is the creme de la creme. Whereas French allTalk will take you to average
conversational standard, French Pro will take you far and beyond. This is serious stuff. The basic French language pack contains CD's, course
books and access to their online resource material.
Rocket French
"Who Else Wants to Learn to Speak French Confidently and Naturally In Less Than 8 Weeks?" - that is their opening phrase! Too good to be true?
I think not.
This French language course has a good following and some excellent reviews.......
Set yourself realistic goals.
Can you really practice 3 hours every night when you have a family?
Mastering spoken French
is always the hardest. Find someone to practice with. If you can't find someone, practice reading a
text in French out loud. Look in the mirror when you do it and pretend you are talking to someone.
Watch a French film once a week or listen to French songs. You may not understand much
but it will do wonders for improving your accent.
Put sticky name labels on items around the house or at work. You will eventually remember them.
Learn 5 new words every night before going to sleep. That's 35 a week and 1,825 per year! Plenty to
have a conversation with
Log on to a French news website.
See how many words you can recognize on the main page. As time goes on
you will suddenly realize you are recognizing groups or words and then sentences and then.....
When you feel confident enough, get a Pen Pal.
It's a fantastic way of improving your written French and the other person can improve their English.
