Learning French online

I’ve done my DELF qualification, but never finished the DALF. Which has never really mattered in day to day life except occasionally when a french friend of ours who is a French teacher looks tortured the latest horror I have inflicted on the French language.

Anyway, I thought I would try to iron out the glitches. So I have started an online course that I’m finding amusing so far. Based on animation and maybe 20 minutes a day. Goes up to C1 level so covers quite a lot of the basics.

You can get a free trial. If you use this link and anyone goes on to subscribe I’ll get a couple of weeks free.

https://www.frantastique.com/r/referral/C45KPHB

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I bought kids textbooks too, the type where you fill in the answers, quite consructive.

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I find that the vocabulary and themes of things aimed at kids aren’t very interesting. Anyway, my vocabulary is good it’s more that I mangle more complex grammatical structures from time to time…as well as other gaffs like forgetting that Mr Putin has same pronunciation in French. I accidently pronounced his name as putan over new year’s eve dinner!

Hopefully new year resolution will last long enough to do me some good.

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I think maybe you mean Putain !

Oh yes! :grinning: I think text checker might have been having a priggish moment!

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I’ve been Frantastiqueing for nearly two years now, 398 lessons, 99% participation rate :slight_smile: . It’s a great little reminder to do some work on one’s French everyday.

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@ John_scully That’s great to hear that it’s stayed interesting for 2 years. Do you still get stories about Victor Hugo, as I think he’s a great and slightly sexy character!? What level have you got to?

Yes, Victor makes a regular appearance. my score is…

I’m a bit lazy on a few grammar issues which is impacting my score :roll_eyes:

Laura at Lawless French (laura@lawlessfrench.com) is free.
You can sign up to receive the lessons which are always varied and interesting.

I think I am besotted by Victor Hugo and his extra terrestial friends. Lawlessfrench looks as if it might be quite dry & serious?

Thanks for sharing, and well done!

I don’t think so, if you are serious about learning.
There are lots of colloquial sayings, french everyday life as well as grammar.

You can be serious about learning whilst still preferring to have something with a bit of lightheartedness and humour in it.

I tried a couple of the lawless french lessons and found them too text heavy, with layout having a mix of fonts and pages that got in the way of reading, and with subjects that I found rather mundane. Sorry, but not for me.

Learning is individual and we each have our own styles.

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Frantastique features in this article as well… https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/01/how-to-get-better-at-french-victor-hugo-becomes-a-sex-god-in-my-mind

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That is true and on looking again I see that your course is based on animation, which is a real turn off for me.
I will pass it on to Jim.

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Well the day after David and I viewed the house in France and put in the offer we started French lessons using the Duolingo App we are both over 100 days in now and haven’t missed a day since we started. It’s quite fun and a good way to learn the basics again. As whilst I did French as an option at school I haven’t really used it since. It helped me remember how much I used to struggle with the masculine and feminine but I think I’m getting there now. Once I have the basics of it again I’ll move on to something meatier but it’s a good start to get us back into things. We don’t want to be the sort of people who just speak English louder and slower. We want to make a real effort to fit in. So I will definitely check out what you guys have been using here to to help improve my French too.

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I use Duolingo, I find it useful as it highlights my weakness and reinforces the basics while being straightforward and fun to use. My real learning tool is not online and I’m lucky that I do not live with a British partner and in any period of time the majority of the conversations I hold are in French not English. The people I talk to most keep me on my toes.

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That’s good to know others use Duolingo. I’m sure it does help also having a person at home who converses in French must be really helpful to.

I have been using this course on Audible:

It seems to do a good job of taking a very small amount of vocab and enabling you to hold a basic conversion.

Well I have never come across Duolingo before, thanks SF !

I have been trying it today and I have found a couple of things that I need to pay attention to.
No frills or animations, so far, so it suits me fine and is great to remedy those little errors ! :slight_smile:

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