Hi. Please can anyone tell me the easiest way to learn conversational French? Locally here there is zero help, we live in the beautiful back of beyond with the nearest town 40mins away etc etc. Lessons on Zoom won’t work because I have multiple rescue dogs who join in and if the door bell goes it’s chaos and barking black out. I actually get by quite ok but I really would like to be better when trying to decipher a conversation delivered at the speed of a machine gun even after the third time of politely asking them to repeat slower? I need more vocabulary and gender usage as I constantly get this wrong etc etc. Any experiences that lead to good ideas welcome. Thank you. PS my pension will not stretch to expensive private lessons, evening classes or long trips to and fro …. I just won’t stick with it. Many thanks
Do you have neighbours??
You probably have a foyer rural in your commune, ask them if anyone would volunteer for French conversation chats. Or join something, we have a sewing group which is 75% chat and 25% sewing, perhaps the local SPA? Or see if your EHPAD has a scheme to go and talk to the residents, who get bored and lonely - would be very good for your understanding of accents.
And if all that fails set up a group! @AngelaR has done that.
Hi and thank you for your reply. I think you could count the number of Brits here on one hand and we are scattered in small hamlets. I have asked in all the usual shops, medical, pharmacy etc but there are no groups. I don’t have neighbours seriously. The locals are very tight knit farming community and skiing in winter. The two other English people I have met have young children and therefore involved in school activities and one other retired couple who have been here on and for 20 years spend more time back in the uk these days. But I’m not giving up👍
If you decide to start a group yourself, talk to your local mairie and they’ll help you set up an official one, which could well be subsidised by the commune. We decided not to involve ourselves with subsidies but we could have done. The thing is that we seem to be attracting people over quite a wide area. One lady from 40km away said it was just what she’d been looking for for years!
Also it’s worth asking at the mairie in the nearest big town whether they have an Association for that sort of thing. There are a few dotted around…
EDIT:
That’s ok - what you need are amenable French people who want to improve their English (usually for travel but sometimes for work). What we do is have a subject, talk about it solely in one language for 20 minutes then swap to the other one. (Then repeat with a second subject)
Lessons as such are a wee bit pricey, generally, but practicing talking can be not far off free, depending on how you do it.
Thank you some positive points 
But you don’t want Brits for conversational French, just willing French people!
The other suggestion is that in early September most places have a Forum des Associations where all the groups set out their stalls. Look out for it (or ask the Marie) and see if there is anything that appeals.
My partner has a group of 5 or 6 French friends that once a month they meet for an english conversation class. And I’ve been roped in to help a school class of 10yr olds prepare a sketch in english for end of year performance. So people do do things - you just need it the other way round! So offering your english skills for free might help attract someone who will do the same in French.
there will be a Fete Committee, Football, something… bound to be… and they are always looking for volunteers (many hands make light work)… and if one is courageous, one can mumble along until the language flows… it’ll take time, but it’s worth persevering …
every visit to the Pharmacy, shops, whatever… is also an opportunity for a conversation…
good luck.
(and you are lucky to have few Brits around… 
it’ll keep you focused)
Thank you. Yes it’s true I don’t need English people around - our tiny local Mairie is closed for repairs at the moment but September should see it open again. I do bore the locals to death every time I go shopping but they are beginning to get the hang of me. Trouble is they are too kind to correct me and as I say I get by perfectly well in general but know I need to get a wider knowledge if I want to grasp more. Part of the problem is I’m fluent in Italian as my native language growing up and it’s always tripping off my tongue the minute I stumble in French 
I doubt they worry about you “boring them” more likely to be glad that you are making the effort to talk with them…
(even if a little spaghetti sauce enters the French conversation from time to time… 
)
@Alpina you’ve had some great suggestions already, I would just add “well done” for making an effort to improve your French - so many people don’t try!
I am not full-time in France yet so I have been using online resources like YouTube channels - OK they are not live conversations but they can help with vocabulary and the masculine/feminine issues you mentioned?
And unlike Zoom lessons or live online training you can pause them if the doorbell or dogs interrupt!
You have my sympathy. I lived in Brazil in the 70s for 5 years - worked there and was pretty much bilingual. so when we first came here every word that came first to mind that wasn’t English was Portuguese. please, thank you, excuse me - all Portuguese because my brain did know I shouldn’t be speaking English, so offered up a foreign word. 
I’ve lived in France now for 17 years and I participate in a weekly 2 hr Zoom French conversation session. Last lesson, I was rabbiting on about something and said in French (I thought) something about watching TV. To the bemusement of my fellow students the verb that first arrived in my head was “assistir” which is Portuguese. I have not lived in Brazil for nearly fifty years!
I wonder if you could get your dogs used to Zoom. Mine likes to join me - but then he is a French dog.
Cheers Chris I think you’ve nailed my problem and I never thought of uTube! Perhaps a combination of online and locals till I mosey on up to the Mairie and see if there is anyone around up there.
Try other Mairies too @alpina - generally each commune is independent with these things but are more than happy to have people from neighbouring communes join in. Not only does our conversation group attract people from far and wide (we always attend the annual Forum des Associations and people come from all over the place) but we are also members of an Association in another town…
Good point. That’s the place to go to find out what’s going on locally. We have a stall for our photo club. This year our forum is on Saturday September 7th.
Just a thought… there is often a Maison des Associations in larger towns… I visit the one in Perigueux every month… and there are lots of leaflets about Associations/Clubs in the surrounding villages…
“Maison des Associations” put into Google will bring up the nationwide official website and a map of where they are… and lots of stuff…
That’s interesting, Stella. I’d never heard of that so had a look at it and found out why I hadn’t . There’s only two in our entire region - Caen and LeHavre 
. Brittany seems to have lots though… not sure whereabouts @alpina is
sorry for such a naff suggestion… I’ll slink away and snooze by the fire…
Don’t be daft @stella - it looks like a great resource, just not for me 