by Lynn Halladay
Have you decided on learning French? If so, there are a few tips that will make things much easier for you. Here are a few of the best ones to help you make the learning process more exciting and to assist you in grasping the language much more easily.
No matter why you’re thinking about picking up French, you probably feel just a little bit intimidated. Most of the students we talk to feel like the journey is impossible, and that it’ll take them years to learn to speak this new language.
Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case. Although many of the schools and courses rely on out-of-date methods that make learning French seem like a chore, there are now some superb self-study courses that use a wide variety of learning methods that have been developed by psychologists and proven to cut your learning time by over 300%.
While you might be thinking about enrolling in a course at a school or hiring a tutor, remember that these might not give you the kinds of results you want. That’s because most classes have too much of a focus on reading and writing, and not enough on speaking.
This is frustrating to many students as their first and foremost goal is to be able to actually speak the language. Your best bet is to find a self-study program that lets you learn on your own time and that focuses on making you conversational in French.
Here are three tips to further enhance your learning experience:
1) Like you mom always said, make sure to listen!
It’s amazing how much your mind will pick up just by listening to another language. Even though you don’t necessarilly understand everything, there’s still a huge benefit in listening to other people converse in French. You get a better idea of the “flow” of the language and gradually you will also pick up new terms and the structure of the language.
Watching movies in French with English subtitles can also help, since you understand what’s being said at the same time that you hear it.
One student actually downloaded an entire season of a French television program and watched the whole thing. At the end, she had much improved French skills, a grasp on slang and idiom, and a better understanding of the nuances of the language.
2) Don’t OVER-practice
You’ve probably heard that practice makes perfect, and this is true in many situations. However, one of the big reasons that people give up on learning French is because it begins to feel boring and like a chore.
You want to vary the ways you practice and do what it takes to keep your motivation level up. Don’t set a strict “learning schedule” unless you learn best that way. Instead, just try to make a point to include some form of French in your day.
Choose to include a little French in your day, and you’ll be engaging yourself in the language without restricting how you learn.
3) Vary your practice and mix things up
Remember, you want to try to include French in you daily routine, but you don’t want to get bored by doing the same thing each day! Mix it up!
That means you could listen to a French program on television or on the radio, or do a lesson from your class or course. If you have French speaking friends, you can have a conversation. Daily newspaper readers can choose a few paragraphs and review how to translate them into French.
There are many different ways to engage with this language.
This last point is a crucial step in truly learning the language. By varying the way you learn, you are using different parts of your brain which helps you not only learn faster, but retain it much more effectively as well.
This is one of the reasons that some of the online courses for learning French have been so successful. They provide a wide variety of material, which helps keep students interested, at the same time as they provide good stimulation.
Learning French shouldn’t feel like a full-time job - in fact, it can be fun and exicting if you go about it the right way. Find a proven study course, follow the above tips and stick with it! You will find yourself able to speak the language in no time - all the best!
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