Yes indeed I did.
Someone asked further back which books I had been using. I started with the BBC course got the Michel Thomas cd’s and a number of GCSE and O’level text books. However E S Jenkins French Grammar a small Teach yourself book from 1961 has been the most helpful. I also have a series of French Books by W F H Whitmarsh from 1951 which is very old fashioned drill learning, I like them. As you can see I have access to a secondhand book shop and use it frequent. I buy magazines in topics that interest me and a local paper because I am noisy. I have spent 3 years with Duolingo so my vocabulary is fine , I have been receiving letters un requested from a religious group and I’m tempted to invite them in hopefully to improve my language skills as I doubt I could be converted.
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Could be of course, but the reason I like TV5 stuff is that it is real world conversations. So busy locations with background noise and people mumbling. Some of the online courses are brilliant for the building blocks, but don’t help you actually navigate real life. As our mothers always said, practice makes perfect!
Interesting - I don’t seem to have much of a comprehension problem in real life situations but I certainly do with TV or films. I gave up going to the cinema after a while because I almost always came out not having understood a word of it. Real people are different although of course group conversations are always tricky. That’s what makes me think it may be related to my hearing loss - frequency or something. Certainly makes it most unlikely I could get though that part of an exam, more’s the pity…
Same here.
Part of it is context - I know roughly the sort of thing they’ll say when I walk into a restaurant, or at the till, or wherever - whereas in fiction that isn’t often the case. But part of it is that, in a desire for realism, people talk much more naturally in film dialogues.
I’m enjoying this video at the moment: https://youtu.be/t88H8bOsVdg
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Do you have a flat screen TV.? I think their sound quality is dreadful! One day we might get round to investing in a sound bar, but reluctant to get yet another bit of electrical kit.
Our local cinema had good acoustics - but the megarama in town is horrid. So don’ blame it all on your ears.
It took a long time! Before we came to france it was evening classes, textbooks, read as much as possible, and best of all was a French Open University prof who held conversation classes in her dining room. In addition I really found the Michel Thomas cds good when i was travelling for work, and “coffee break french” 15 minute sessions. Since living here the best thing is scary as it means getting out there and taking part in local activities where you are part of a small group, one i go to is an all day event where 12 ladies all chat away about anything and everything! Politics to nuisance phone calls… My brain keeps up but gets fizzled by about 3pm!
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I agree about taking part in local activities! Since we joined the local choir and another group plus started a French/English conversation group, this has been more helpful than almost anything else, mainly because it’s not a “scripted” situation like, say, going to the bank or something like that when you know roughly what is being discussed.
When my partner was working over here on a building site, he said that the work was fine because of the limited range of vocaululary etc but the lunchtime sessions in the Site Hut were a nightmare, because they could be talking about absolutely anything!!
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Thanks for posting. I’m enjoying it too - she’s good. 
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I would imagine that most people have different levels for different things ie listening, speaking writing etc. Could that be the difference?
Kwiziq is a handy play along language learning tool. Much along the same lines as Duo Lingo but with less enforcement of the Americanisms. My big bugbear with DL was its insistence on the informal tutoiment and American grammar.
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Having had a go with several suggestions here and taken the tests, I am seen as A2 (or possible A1) by TV5, B2 by Frantastique and C1 by Kwiziq 
Hmmm…
Unless a test takes about 4 hours per skill and has many many varied questions so that as wide a range as possible of vocab and structures is covered, it won’t tell you that much.
Just discovered this thread - full of excellent links from many of you.
Especially https://www.litteratureaudio.com/ - what a great resource.
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It’s worth trying FrenchToday.com with Camille Chevalier-Karfis. Regular free emails and a series of audio books (to buy) with an on going story and grammar and pronunciation exercises and practise, building up from one book to the next.
I think Vero you are absolutely right. So I have been trying to analyse the situations when I will really need to measure up with my french. I suppose for me that is in bureaucratic situations and when ideas are being expressed about politics and the arts. If I can’t access these areas of life in France then my experience will be sorely limited. So I now have to work out if it’s possible to build up my confidence and vocabulary to satisfy my internal world. I think there maybe a lot of umming and arhhing.
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Another factor is your self-confidence. I know people whose French (or English, if they’re French) is weak, compared to mine, but who chatter away with zero inhibition much more confidently than I do.
Steve Kaufman (LingQ) has a series of videos on YT. One of his ideas is that speaking is less important than listening (and reading) capably. I suspect that this theory caters for people who are less confident in speaking, and encourages us not to give up, on the basis that there will come a point where we are (at least mentally) fluent.
Before I came to France I set aside one hour after breakfast to sit down and learn French.
I used a system called Hugo from Dorling Kindersley.
It consists of two books and cds and if you really work through the exercises you will really improve.
I still go back and dip in now again.
I subscribe to that… most of the day, we have French TV on and whilst not actually or actively watching it, subliminally its in the background and I’m sure that helps improve comprehension and the formation of French words, expressions and meanings.
Is it like Gutenberg, where ordinary people read the books, some better than others?