Bonjour mes chers amis! I hope you are all fine. In that Covid times, we all dream to travel or at least go outside just for coffee. So, imagine you have a ticket and it’s going to France so would you like to go to France? Or you had already visited France and saw the Eiffel Tower? The magical love city Paris… Who doesn’t want to go there? I mean I really want to travel to France and saw their historic places. However, if we want to go to France the first thing for us to do is learning French. Like their country, their language is interesting and sounds musical, at least for me!
So, I have been learning French for two years but still, I cannot say that French is like my mother tongue. I am good at writing but speaking is kind of difficult for me because I am a little bit shy. If you are like me, trying to learn French and make it like your mother tongue, I am here to help you. I will share with you some channels and applications. I hope it will be helpful for you. However, do not forget that learning a language requires patience and lots of practice. Even if you are alone in the home, try to talk in French with yourself, watch French tv-series, and repeat every word loudly that you hear in French. Do not lose your passion to learn French day by day, it will get better!
Learn French with Alexa
Alexa is a great French teacher who teaches us French using English. She has more than one million subscribers on Youtube and her channel is incredible. It is divided into grammar, vocabulary, or street conversations in Paris. Also, she has a website and on that website, you can pay a little price and follow her curriculum. Her videos are not too long and easy to focus on.
Memrise
Memrise is a great application if you want to improve your vocabulary. While I was trying to talk French with my professor, I realized that I couldn’t remember some basic words. So, I searched for an application to help me and I found Memrise. On Memrise, you can learn vocabulary and sentences every day, if you remember the word wrongly the app sends you notifications to remember that word until you learned it. Also, there are so many languages and levels of Memrise. You can use it for other languages too.
Duolingo
I am one hundred percent sure that all of you heard Duolingo already. However, I have a suggestion for you. Duolingo is better if you have just started to learn French. I mean that if you are in the Beginner level, Duolingo is a really useful application until A2. However, after that, it will be useful for you to use better applications and some grammar books. Duolingo is easy to use and good for hearing the words with the French pronunciation.
Learn French by Podcast
In that podcast series, there are some basic conservations that you can learn some phrases and use them when talking with a French for example like talking about work, ordering food, discussing your interests… As I told you before I am so focused on talking perfectly because of that I am afraid of making mistakes and it creates me to become shy and not talk at all. Just think what can be the worst scenario if you use “la” instead of “le”. French people will understand you and they will appreciate as a foreigner you are trying to talk their language instead of English. Podcasts are the best if you want to hear French phrases, when you are walking, laying down, etc. I highly recommend you to listen to podcasts immediately.
Le Monde (Online Newspaper)
If you want to go to France, before going you should know what’s happening in France. If you are too lazy to use applications but you have an intermediate level in French you should definitely read newspapers. You would be shocked when you realize that you understand almost everything in the newspaper. In the beginning, my professor suggested me to read newspapers and I told her that it’s impossible for me to understand it. Then, I realized I read the news about French in a Turkish newspaper why I shouldn’t try to read it in French? So, I started to read to Le Monde for at least 30 minutes. I really enjoy it when I am reading and also sometimes I search the words that I don’t know.
I suggested some websites and applications that I am using so far. I hope those suggestions will help you in your learning journey. Just do not give up and always try to add new things to your French. If you practice too much, one day when you will be in France and talk French when ordering your croissant and coffee in a coffee shop.
Bonne chance!
Sevgi Bayraktar
StudyIngram Editor
