How To Learn French

[honeydip]

I have a private French lesson every week. I want to learn French so I can stay here. Is one lesson enough?

[mrs_overall]

Pour quoi?

[Barmaid]

Je ne sais quoi.

[boxtops]

I would have thought that as long as you are practising your new skills on the days in between, yes, it should be. You could look to buy a course from somewhere like Rosetta Stone, or Earworms, to listen to in between? There is no better way to learn to speak a language than to talk to the locals in their own language.

[shoota]

Get the Michel Thomas tutorial on tape/CD, its very good.

[EcclesCake]

The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the country and the culture. Spending an extended of period of time in your chosen country is the fastest way to learn the language.

Oh, you are living in France though........

[Anngel]

Ca depend....how fluent you need to be. Where are you staying? I learnt French up to O level and have recently started lessons at work once a week. It has been nearly a year and I have still not got the fluency I had when I left school...I would say one lesson is certainly not enough from knowing none at all... Bon chance.

[honeydip]

Boxtops unfortunately nearly everyone I meet speaks English even at work. I do try but still at the embarrassed to try stage.

[mrs_overall]

You want to learn French to stay here? Most of us speak English, and I think you would be better off learning Franglais

[honeydip]

I got a B GCSE and forgotton most of that. I have started fitness classes at the gym though and they only speak french there which will help

[boxtops]

Ah - you're in a Brit type of community. I wouldn't like that.

[shoota]

HD is in France Mrs O......
Keep up.

[mrs_overall]

shoota, how was I supposed to know that? I thought "private french lesson" was a euphemism

[Old_Geezer]

You didn't need to waste your money on one lesson. You just need to shout louder at foreigners. (Especially the French.) They just make out they don't understand.

[DTCwordfan]

I had this in Belgium, honeydip - what you have to do is put your "pied" down and say that you need to learn the language for obvious reasons, but in six months you won't mind helping them practise their English.........

being on here doesn't help you know as you are back thinking in English and that is the leap to make, when you think automatically en français...

[Tilly2]

What's French for 'twenty reps?'

[237SJ]

I would say No. When I learned French we did it the old fashioned way (verb endings etc). That style of learning gave me a very good understanding of the language to the point that if I didn`t know a word, I could figure it out for myself. From my experience (of learning Spanish) languages are not taught in that way anymore. You just launch into sentences without really knowing what you are talking about. Get yourself a private tutor who can work with your basic knowledge of the language and can build on that. I went from school French to being completely conversational within 3 months with a private tutor.

[honeydip]

I might join some French forum but really am not that good yet. I would end up using google translate probably

[grasscarp]

To practice Russian that I am learning I speak to Russians on skype. I went on a wesite I think was called conversation exchange and you enter a bit about yourself and what language you want to practice. After about a day I had to take my details off as I was swamped with Russian people. I still talk to 3 of them. It helps a lot.

[DTCwordfan]

Russian - I am impressed, carpy.....

[grasscarp]

I started it about 4 years ago DTC as we get Russian customers come to where I work and because they often speak very little English I decided to learn Russian. It is hard but I can't stop until I am better than I am now.