Best Ways to Learn French | Top Tips and Resources

Have you decided to learn French and found yourself in a quagmire? Maybe the spelling of words is hard to make sense of, and the vowels make your tongue twist.

Maybe those actors in French movies are speaking too fast for you, and you need to repeat more than one time to understand what is being said properly. This can be really frustrating.

Well, learning languages is hard. This is natural. But this road had been tread by millions before, and they have much advice to give.

Lucky for you! The internet has also made it possible to reach expert advice by typing a few words in a search box.

You must have done exactly that, and now you’re here. So welcome, and here is your list of the best ways to learn French:

French Learning Resources

Courses are structured and designed by experts who know what is suitable for every level of language learning.

Beginners, for example, should start by learning the most common words and phrases. Similarly, intermediate-level students should not be busying themselves with college-level vocabulary before they are able to hold everyday conversations.

If you are self-studying, on the other hand, you may decide to write down and memorize words you see in an article that you are very unlikely to encounter anytime soon.

This will only frustrate you because you will still find yourself unable to understand daily conversations although you’ve practically been stuffing your brain with vocabulary. You will also feel lost and confused.

You may be shaking your head now, saying that there’s no way you can pay or spare time to attend a course. But luckily, technology has you covered.

The internet is overflowing with great language-teaching websites, apps, and YouTube channels. Many of them are for free or at a reasonable price. Choose one that you like and enjoy all the valuable lessons.

Top 5 YouTube Channels for Learning French with free courses

• JeFrench
• FrenchPod101
• Learn French with Vincent
• Learn French With Alexa
• Radio Lingua Network

Top 4 apps for Learning French

• Memrise (For Android and IOS.).
• Busuu (For Android and IOS.).
• MosaLingua (For Android and IOS.).
• Babbel (For Android and IOS.).

Tips to learn French fast

Listen and write words:

French spelling is notorious for its silent letters and for being different from the actual pronunciation of words. For example, the final letters in manger and fromage are silent. Moreover, the word eau, which means water, consists of only a single vowel sound.

This means that you cannot simply figure out pronunciation from spelling, especially as a beginner. Instead, you should listen to a native speaker and then repeat. It’s also a good idea to record yourself as you repeat. This will help you master speaking in French.

Learn the words with their gender:

Unlike English, every noun in French has gender. It controls the article that precedes it. For example, moon, or lune, is female in French, so it’s preceded by the female articles une (indefinite) and la (definite).

Depending on your first language, you may think of the moon as male. For this reason, learning how French classifies words from the beginning is important so that you won’t start confusing articles as you keep learning new words.

Be aware of cognates:

Cognates are words that are similar in two or more languages. For example, the word “Document” in English is also “Document” in French. Contrary to what you may be thinking, however, seeing a familiar word in another language will not necessarily make it easier. Cognates are tricky. First, they are pronounced differently, but learners may make the mistake of using their native-language pronunciation. Second, they often mean different things, so pay attention not to use such words before you are sure of their meaning.

Avoid wrong translation:

Languages have different ways of expressing ideas. Sometimes words correspond directly and sentences can be translated virtually literally without affecting the meaning. But this is not always the case. Different cultures have different ways of thinking, and these are reflected in the languages.

For this reason, relying on translation is a bad idea because you may end up missing the true meaning or connotation of some expressions. You may also produce sentences that do not make any sense in the target language.

It is also exhausting to think of everything in your native language and then translate it. You will sound awkward and slow to speakers of your target language.

Immerse yourself in French:

There is an infinite number of ways you can expose yourself to French, and none of them is boring. For example, you can watch a French show or movie with subtitles.

You can also join social media groups of French speakers on websites like Reddit and Facebook.

You can watch YouTube videos in French; they are relatively short and many of them have captions. Songs are also a great way of learning languages. They are easy to memorize and can help greatly with pronunciation if you sing along.

Read also: Best Free Translation Apps for Android and iOS