OPTIONS
ON THE WEB:
If you try a Google search for a phrase like 'Speaking French' you will find there are 100s of websites dedicated to learning French online, most of which are free. Some of them combine their courses with forums where you can communicate with French people who are learning English which is a very good way to practice your written French but not so good for your spoken French.
COLLEGE COURSES:
Courses on spoken French are offered at
many Further Education Colleges. If you don't already know what your
local
college is in the UK, you can search for it on this
site.
There are also websites that list regional courses in
France for those
that choose to throw themselves in at the deep end and move to France
first and then learn to speak French. You can find one of
them here.
AUDIO COURSES ON CD:
Better for your spoken French but not a cheap option. For instance, the complete 16hr French Language course by Linguaphone costs about £175.00 on Amazon.
BOOKS:
- HUGO'S SIMPLIFIED SYSTEM
French self tuition in three months - SBN 85285 025 5. - COLLINS FRENCH DICTIONARY plus GRAMMAR - ISBN 0-00-472368
- FRENCH VERBPACK - www.oup.com - ISBN 0-19-860338-X
- DICTIONARY OF FRENCH BUILDING TERMS - Summersdale
ISBN 978-1-84024-494-6
This is my preferred option, combined with
starting conversations with as many French people as I can.
Complete strangers, drunks, idiots, madmen, tradesmen, villains, or
even estate agents, if they are willing to have a French conversation
with me I don't care who they are.
For
books, a trawl of your local second hand or
charity bookshops is the best first step. I managed to pick up Hugo's
Simplified System from this source, and found it so useful that I later
managed to find a second copy which I keep in the house in France. I
also found a really good hardback English - French, French - English
dictionary at a car boot sale.
The VERBPACK is a must as it not only includes the conjugation of
Fench verbs,
but also gives examples of how they would be used in conversation.
I've thrown the last one in in case you've purchased a French property
'in
need of renovation' or 'a bit of a wreck' as we say in plain English.
In
which case you will find this book extremely handy.
If, like me, you find one of the hardest aspects of learning French is
not
so much speaking it but understanding the torrent of French that
sometimes comes back to you in reply, one thing I can recommend is to
keep one of the presets on your car radio tuned into a French station.
This helps enormously in this respect. There is a station
with very clear reception in the UK at about 162 long wave which
largely
consists of conversation as opposed to music. Very good practise trying
to understand what they're on about. MORE
ABOUT LEARNING FRENCH.
