If you are in the USA and belong to a library, check out Rosetta Stone - or you can pay for it, as well. I have been using it, Duolingo, and Babbel for the last year. Rosetta is the most helpful, then Babbel. My sub to Babbel just ran out, so I will likely start italki or local lessons this Fall.
The advantage of local lessons is (hopefully) picking up the local accent. When we first came here OH really struggled. His French is the equivalent of āReceived Pronunciationā. The accent and huge emphasis on the final syllable in rural Lot et Garonne is anything but. Bilingual friend had to hand the phone to me because she could not understand a word of what the dĆ©pannage guy was saying.
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Something Iāve found useful from ālistening-inā on some local āconversationsāā¦
is how the listener makes certain noises (surprise, sadness, happiness et al) without actually saying anythingā¦ 
and I find I can now do that myself. 
so when the narrator has finished his/her story/tale of woe/whateverā¦ I can just say a suitable goodbye/see you soon/whatever and thatās it!
This is probably not relevant but Iāve tried a lot of apps plus all the other resources I could lay my hands on.I actually finished the Duolingo French course because I hate being beaten by a machine, even though I wasnāt finding it very helful. In the end, I would say that it helped with vocabulary, although other things helped more. As a Brit, I found the translations unhelpful because my knowledge of American English was decidedly patchy.
The last series of lessons supposedly got me to B2 level but it most emphatically didnāt. The lack of explanations meant that I am now more confused about where to use the subjunctive than I was before. The other thing that was particularly difficult about it was that it spanned all levels of French vocabulary without distinguishing context. i.e what you might say to your elderly prim neighbour and what a teenager would say to their mates.
Iām now going back to rather more formal methods of learning, just to clarify things for myself. Back to Kwizik!
I realise that this probably isnāt the best way of learning, and certainly not for younger people but for me, I need both an understanding of the structure and a familiarity born of functioning in a social/business/formal context.
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I think if I hadnt done french at school and learned the structure then, I would have found DuoLingo less useful. Iāve only been using it a week and already its coming back to me. Iāve accepted it isnt going to make me fluent, but I hope it will give me enough vocabulary to move onto the speaking apps. My son is also on DuoLingo and I thought getting him to get started would be hard, but heās already beating me and is very competitive. Both my children did French up to GCSE and my daughters boyfriend is French/Canadian and she is over there for months at a time, they all speak french to each other and she says she can understand most of it now. (I do get that its not french/french) but she says it is helping.
Since there will be a lot of us going over, I will hire a french teacher to come to the house for dedicated lessons, but Iād rather not show up knowing nothingā¦ I think that would be a bit embarrasing! The village we are looking at moving near is tine and only has about 20 people there, so I wanted to invite everyone over for a welcoming party (luck willing we can buy the place)! Again Iād feel a bit rude if I couldnt speak just a little french, though like I said I really dont mind making a fool of myself
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To be honest, I think that is essential! we get used to being competent, professional adults in our native land and to arrive in another country where our level of communication is that of a 5-year old, or probably less, can feel very humiliating if we donāt just get on with it!
I do hope it all goes really well for you @Denise_Field
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Reading this thread it seems to me that nothing mentioned or recommended would solve my problem. Age related comprehension. I have little difficulty in speaking French, and being understood despite my accent being, of course, English, but heavily pointed towards local (I eat pam and drink vam (bread and wine)) but the replies now (they didnāt use to be) fly straight over the top of my head.
I have almost accepted that this isnāt going to get better but I am surprised and somewhat mortified to not hear of others with the same problem.
BTW I can read French fairly rapidly with understanding and my friend Christine who is 16 years younger, has no problem keeping up, even on the telephone (my real bugbear, no face reading) but has a famousely fractured English accent when speaking. One French friend says that whenever C speaks to her she pleads with her to change to English. 
So is there no-one else here who is worse off listening now than they were 20 odd years ago? 
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Of course. We both are - and in English as well. Also individual words slip from my grasp. I suspect it is so true for many of us that we donāt even think to mention it.
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You are certainly not alone @David_Spardo . I think my battle with French is a little different from yours in that youāve been here a lot longer and therefore had developed a lot of understanding and skills. Iāve only been here on a permanent basis for 9 years (remember Brexit, anyone?) although Iāve had a house here that I visited regularly for over 30 years.
Because Iām trying very hard to get my French to a competent level, Iāve noticed that I learn stuff and lose it at approximately the same rate so am not really progressing. This is most definitely age-related as I have all sorts of other memory issues as well.
Iām still fighting thoughā¦
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Well done!
I sometimes come across folk who are too scared of making a fool of themselvesā¦ that is their excuse for insisting on not speaking French, but continuing with English and sticking to English-based groups and activitiesā¦ 
Quite often, in ānewā French companyā¦ I will apologise in advance for my ghastly accent and all my errorsā¦
and, God Blessāem, theyāll answer with assurances that they donāt care about errors or ghastly accentā¦ and often go on to say that I speak much better French than they do Englishā¦ and they think I am very braveā¦ !! 
Making a decent effort is what itās all about I reckonā¦ and little by little some things get better (and sometimes some things get worse)
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So true, in a way that is the only consolation, that I am not alone in losing my English as well, though I am not happy that others feel the same way, the loss of language in any form is the most severe punishment of age.
The little restaurant I mentioned in another thread this evening was Italian run by Italians but who spoke French because of their proximity and the fact that their main customers were French frontaliers, lorry drivers from France who crossed the border almost daily. As French speakers all but with allowances made by the French we all got on famously.
I am going to see if it is the same owners, I would love to eat Italian while speaking French with my favourite friend, Jules, alongside me.
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I think whatever methods or apps one uses, it will be better than nothing- and thatās the biggest advantage of some like Duolingo: their gamification model sucks you into a daily habit. And just like small children acquiring a language ( I watched my own two do this), we all need hours and hours, every day.
I have been on Duolingo for years now (1520 days in this āstreakā) and I just passed the TCF exam for naturalization with the highest score they permit. But speaking with anyone I come across is also a big part of my French development over the last decade.
I went there to do an exam from school, I got whatever it was, probably A1 
Are you Australian?
Iāve started using Busuu as I struggled doing the lessons on kwizzik I didnāt apply myself enough and found Duolingo too easy / boring. Busuu is a bit between the 2, questions not lessons but explanations that Duolingo. Enjoying it this week,!
My beef with Busuu was that - when I did it, anyway - there was no quality control of the native speaker feedback. It may have changed.
I reckon about a third of the English feedback was wrong. Either the person responding praised a wrong answer, or criticised a correct one. It rather undermined my trust in the app, which otherwise I thought good.
Today Iāve finally completed Duolingo (2241 day streak) and although itās been good for grammar and reading, Iāve needed lots of other resources for listening to conversations.
Grammar is my big problem. Perhaps Iāll give Duolingo another try. I think the issue is when I do the position tests my terrible writing knocks me down but I then find the content so boring as my oral and written comprehension is far higher. I also manage enough with my speech to hold down a job
I wonder if for my grammar what I need is an old fashioned paper workbook? Any recommendations?
The following title shouldnāt be taken too literally, but itās a clear and simple progression with clear explantions
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My (French) French teacher in the US recommended that I get books for cycles 6, 5, 4, and 3. I have just barely started. I bought them in the āeducationā department at a bookstore in Tours. I have Hachetteās Cahier de franƧais books.
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Thanks for your recommendations. Iāll have a look!
So are they literally what French college kids would use?