Posts Tagged ‘learning french’

Are you looking to learn how to speak French? If your answer is an emphatic YES, I can tell you that you are not alone. If you are travelling to a French speaking country, speaking their language marks an enormous respect. This respect can go a long way once you are in need of any help or just information. Whatever reason you have, the most important factor to learn how to speak french is how committed you are.

The best first steps you can take to ensure that learning French will be easy and painless are:

Step 1: Brush up the BASICS of your own language structure and grammar.

That’s right! I am not saying that you have to go back to your old grammar book and review it from beginning to the end. I am just suggesting you to review the main components of a sentence and how you use them and in what order to compose a sentence. The reason you have to do that is because when you learning french you will continuously looking for similarities with your language. This way it will come much easier when you will try to understand and remember new vocabularies and parts of the sentences. This is called Similarities Analogues and it happens when between the two languages there is an analogous use.

For example, in Italian, prepositions words like over, under, in, around correspond in many ways on how they work in English. With the only difference that in Italian prepositions can have many meanings. Besides if you forgot what is a preposition in your language, all those analogies will mean nothing for you, and it will be more difficult to comprehend prepositions in the French language. It is necessary to open your mind to new rules and concepts that you might find nonsense and just need to master them for the way they are. For example when everything you come across in French has not similarities in your language, it will put off the majority of the people that try to make sense of it using the rules of their language. At that point you just need to memorize it without questioning.

Step 2: Listen and repeat French in a quiet place if possible.

After you have brushed up the BASICS of your language you can go to the next step. Listening and repeating French if possible in a quiet place as to forget the outside world for the time being. The fastest way to start developing your listening is the two way approach:

First is the Slow approach, where you need to listen to French with a beginner audio course where the pace of the speaker is usually slow. There are many courses on-line that you can download or on a CD. Free courses tend to be limited.

Second is the Fast approach. While you listening to your beginner French course you should try watching few french movies, with or without subtitles, as to get acquainted with the speed and pronunciation. Also if available you could listen to french radio or TV channels even if with little or none understanding.

As you are listening you should repeat the words or phrases immediately. Try repeating the words and phrases immediately concentrating on the sound of the words. Stop and repeat anything you like. Usually finding how to pronounce the alphabet is the first thing one should do. Repeat it singing and notice the similarities and the differences to your alphabet memorizing the latter. If necessary you can make a new song out of it.

Step 3: Start Talking

You can now begin making easy conversation be it real or simulated. Yes even if you can only say ‘hello, what’s your name’ you need to begin doing that at the very start of your learning. If you wait to get to that country before starting you are risking to never begin. It may sound funny at first but you need to start taking the embarrassment you might have to your advantage. Simply say to your audience that you are learning with a smile and you will be rewarded with ‘patience’. Be Humorous like ‘Sorry my French is bad’ and you will disarm anyone.

Here is an insight on how to learn to speak french. Again my name is Joey Silvestri and I want to help you learn French easily. Visit my site http://www.languagelearningsecrets.info/french for a free 6 day email French course to get you started.

Author: Joey Silvestri
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Smart cooker

The best way to learn French is a commonly asked question, typically from those who are starting to learn the language. The good news is that learning French can be an easy – and very rewarding – process when done correctly. If you are a beginner to the language, or have never taken a French course in your life, the methods listed below will have you speaking French in no time!

First, though, you must promise yourself that no matter how frustrating it may get you will always be committed. The only way to learn any new language, not just French, is to completely immerse yourself in it, which means you should eat, sleep, breathe and talk the language.

Ask yourself, “what am I willing to do to learn French?”. Would you enroll into a French course? Or have a French exchange student live with you and your family for 6 months? How about live in a French speaking community for 1 year? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then nothing is stopping you from learning French by this time next year. Set a goal for yourself and reach it…

Here are the three most effective ways to learn French:

1. Move to a country (or community) where French is their first language. France and Québec are two prime examples; however, other countries such as Belgium, Francophone Africa, and Monaco have smaller, more targeted French communities. Typically, living in an all French community for one year is enough time to give you the skills needed to be fluent in the language – keeping in mind that everyone learns at a different pace.
2. If moving is not possible, hire a French tutor. Tutors can be more effective than instructor lead classes because it gives you the opportunity to work one-on-one. Since you are the only student, the tutor can dedicate all their time to teaching you properly. This type of training usually wont come cheap, though. Be prepared to spend time and money! If this method appeals to you, try to get at least five nights a week study time.
3. Internet-based courses: This includes online forums and chat communities, as well as e-books and French audio books – the latter being a personal favorite. Audio courses will allow you to learn at your own pace. Every night before bed, pick up an audio book and follow along. This method works well for beginners who are having difficulty with grammar and pronunciation. It will take a bit longer, but is also significantly cheaper than methods 1 and 2.

If you are really serious, combining these techniques will help you even more. For instance, have a tutor come every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and listen to an audio book every other night. Or, while living in Québec for the summer, hire a tutor a few nights a week.

Whichever method you use, be rest assured that it will work! To reiterate, you must immerse yourself in the language! If you want to read a book, read a French book, watch the French version of your favorite movie. If you’re a beginner, try watching French cartoons with your kids.

Bonne Chance!
Joshua Stone

Author: J S Stone
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty