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My French is pretty much at order food or a room for the night level and I'm a bit embarrassed about it. I fancy improving my grasp of the language through an app. Does anyone have any recommendations?
I use Duolingo for Dutch and it works well, assume it would be as good for French.
If you have a rudimentary knowledge of the language, there’s a podcast series called Coffee Break French which I’ve used. 15-20min episodes. It’s actually helped quite a lot. You might find the first few episodes a bit basic, but stick with it.
[Sorry, just realised you asked for an app and I’ve recommended a podcast. 😀]
Started using Learn French by Paul Noble and really liking the style of learning!
I’ve been using Duolingo to learn French for the last month. C'est très bien! You can pay to remove the ads but they don’t bother me tbh.
All you need is one word...
That aside, I like the idea of a podcast, as suggested by DD. Listening to the radio/tv news in French is also a nice immersive approach.
listed to CBF (aka Playschool teaches French 😂) on the way in to work this morning. Despite feeling that it covers about 10% of the stuff that the same amount of time on Duolingo, I thought it was pretty good & probably a useful addition to the arsenal (can't really do Duolingo on the commute anyway!) I [I]did[/I] learn something ("Je suis en forme"!) and they spend a lot of time on pronunciation which is good (my "r" needs a LOT of work lol).
I've tried this before, but as a beginner my vocabulary just isn't extensive enough (and/or they speak too quickly) to pick out more than a few isolated words & phrases, so I feel my time is better spent elsewhere at the moment!Listening to the radio/tv news in French is also a nice immersive approach.
French subtitles on films may help build vocab.
I've spent hours listening but I still struggle to put a sentence together, I think actually writing and speaking are key. I keep meaning to go through Benny Lewis's language hacking book.
I've been using Germanpod101 but i'm sure there'll be a frenchpod101 to.
It's a website, not an app but I find Kwiziq quite useful. There are tutorials and small test exams. If you use it a lot you see the same questions repeated, but if you get them right second time around you're still learning I guess...
Again, not an app, but the Michel Thomas CD learning guide is very useful.
Use Duolingo if you must but if its anything like German Duolingo all you'll be learning is stuff like "the spider eats the flies" and "the man is strong"
I suggest you check out some YouTube courses. I've found a couple of German ones which are pretty useful so there's likely to be some French equivalents.
It's pretty basic so far but I think it's exactly what's needed as a complete beginner. Think it's doing a good job of teaching grammar, verb conjugation etc. If necessary I'll move onto something else once I've got a good grasp!Use Duolingo if you must but if its anything like German Duolingo all you’ll be learning is stuff like “the spider eats the flies” and “the man is strong”
Duolingo is genuinely excellent at getting you some of the way to A2 standard, but you have to do it every day, and you need to do other stuff on the side, too. Watching kids' telly in that language helps, having subtitles on Netflix helps, and if there's a translation of your favourite book? Yes, that helps as well!
Coffee break french is good, but I find I need to actively learn, so I'm currently using the 'practise makes perfect' books and in particular 'French verb tenses' which has been extremely useful in improving both my understanding and writing of French. There is an app that goes with it so you don't miss out on the crucial listening/pronunciation element. The book was only £12 so a pretty good investment.
Duolingo sounds like a half decent option then. Anyone used Rosetta Stone?
I find having a french girlfriend is a great app for learning french. Have you tried getting a french girlfriend?
There's a girlfriend for every language you want to learn 🙂