French Language Course Online - a guide to help you choose

With the rapid growth of the internet, more and more people are choosing to investigate a French language course online .

There is a vast choice of online French language courses and some are excellent.

Some are also FREE (which we all like to see!). However bear in mind that if you choose a learn free French online course that it may be a little limiting and will reach only to a basic level. If that is all you are after then go for it.

Some people think that they should start with a free course and and then progress to buying a better French course. My only comment with that is you are likely to make less effort with a free course and then give up as you feel "it's not working and French is obviously too difficult".

In that case it would have been better to pay for a decent course - if you pay for something you are much more likely to work at it.

Every French learning method has its pros and cons and for each one of us the pros and cons are different. Below are a few things to think about.

Pros

Cons

Some courses are free

You can quickly access information

Free courses may suit beginners or those who want basic French or just a quick revision

Some courses will have an online forum

You can learn at your own pace and at a time to suit you

You may get email support from the site owner

Some courses will offer audio and video French and even webcam teaching (this is quite new).

You need to be quite disciplined if you want to progress

You need access to a computer and the internet

You may feel a bit isolated if you prefer to learn with others

Some courses (especially the free ones) may be too basic for you

TELL ME MORE is renowned for its language learning speech recognition technology software. However they also offer a very comrehensive on-line learning programme. It doesn't matter what level you are as you do an intial test which then generate a presonalized language course for you. You can subscribe for just one day or a month or year. The yearly subscription works out at just over $1/day so not bad really.

Daily French - Linguaphone Offer a subscription based online resource of French newspaper cuttings, radio and TV news clips so you can see and hear the language in everyday use. It is a great way to build up your vocabulary and gets you used to hearing and reading everyday French. This is NOT for beginners and would suit intermediate to advanced learners. You pay a 12 monthly subscription.