Reader Tip: Five Proven Ways To Learn French

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

From the beginning of this year, I started learning French. I do this with the help of English, since I began to speak English confidently, I can say I found the key to the numerous resources of the Internet.

Below I want to list and describe how I learn French:

1. Duolingo

The site was founded by the creators of CAPTCHA and RECAPTCHA, students of Carnegie Mellon University. By the way, every time you enter recaptcha, you help digitize thousands of old books. The main idea is that people simultaneously learn languages, translate the Internet into different languages.

All material is divided into various categories.

In each category, there are exercises.

After you finish the exercises, you will be given real material taken from the Internet for translation. Simple sentences at first, more and more complex as you study. By translating sentences you strengthen your knowledge and help translate web pages. You can also look at the translations of other users.

Exercises include translating text, speaking, listening. As such, there is no emphasis on grammar.

In addition to French, you can study - Spanish, German, English, Italian and Portuguese.

There are applications for the iPhone, and they promise for Android in May this year.

By the way, I recently read that learning Spanish with Duolingo can be much more effective compared to colleges and the Rosetta Stone program. You can read it here. Probably, this can be said not only about Spanish.

You can follow the duolingo news at the office. Twitter - @duolingo.

You can also watch the TED talks by the creator of duolingo:

2. Michel Thomas method

Michelle Thomas himself knows more than 10 languages and is known for teaching Hollywood stars.

On the Internet, you can buy or find Michel's audio lessons, besides French, there are other languages.

Audio lessons are held like this: 2 students come to him who do not know French. It turns out that you become the 3rd student. Michelle has a conversation with students and this is how they learn the language. He explains the difference between English and French, first talks about new words, then asks to translate from English into French.

The main difference and rule of Michel's method is that you don't have to try to memorize words, phrases, etc.

I don’t know how to explain, but after the first lesson, on an intuitive level, you yourself begin to guess how it will be in the target language.

I personally really like this method.

3. Memrise

I use the memrise site to build my vocabulary.

On the site you can find a lot of different courses, you can even learn Morse code. I am learning - Hacking French.

By learning new words, you are "growing flowers." Planting seeds, watering, etc.

The main point is that you create memes for unfamiliar words and associate with the English language. I did not create memes myself, I use the creations of other users.

You grow flowers like this: at the beginning you memorize the meaning of words, then repeat it several times. Click on the correct answer, write the translation yourself, listening to the phrase, choose the correct answer from the list. This concludes the first part.

After 4-5 hours, you will receive a notification by email that you need to repeat what you have gone through. Repeat the above, if you make a mistake in the translation, the word goes to repeat. This is how everything happens.

4. News in slow french

Thanks to Twitter, just recently I found a link to another great resource.

Very cool site for French learners - newsinslowfrench.com/french-for-beg … They have grammar for beginners and News in slow french for intermediate

There are 30 acts in total, in each act there is a conversation between a teacher and a student. At the very beginning, the conversation is mostly in English, using a few French words. Further more. They promise that at the end all conversations will be only in French.

After the opening speech, another conversation, there is already an emphasis on grammar. Then pronunciation, expressions, etc. Well, at the end you can take the test.

I have been using it for the third day and am very satisfied.

5. Podcasts

If you have an iPod / iPhone / iPad, you can find various podcasts for language learning in iTunes. There is even a dedicated section for French. I'm listening - French for beginngers.

And finally … To learn a language you need to practice every day, make it a habit. I try to spend 20-30 minutes. Since all of the above is difficult to master in 30 minutes, I combine them. I listen to audio lessons on the road, and at home or duolingo, or memrise, or, more recently? News in slow french.

From my experience of learning English (thanks to SDU Summer Language School), I know that you need to plunge into the language completely. Watch videos, films and series with subtitles, then without. Listen to music with lyrics, audiobooks. Books for beginners, magazines, newspapers, …

For example, now I almost all foreign TV series, I watch films in English. It's already a habit. There is no need to wait for this or that series to be translated.

Almost in a month I will defend my diploma, so at the moment it is not always possible to systematically learn the language. I think it will be possible to tackle this more seriously in the summer.

P. S. I wanted to learn French as a child, probably the work of Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo prompted me to do this, and when reading Russian classics, I often met phrases in this beautiful language. Since childhood, I wanted to, but prompted me to start this post by @freetonik.

If you have experience, tips for learning French or a new language in general, share in the comments. I would only be glad.