Looks like I’m going to be spending a bit more time working with a french client. Now they all speak perfect english to me, but quite reasonably revert to french whilst talking to each other. it would be nice to be able to at least keep up with the gist of their conversation.

Any recommended apps/courses etc for learning conversational french. Rosetta stone seems to be well promoted but isnt cheap. is it worth the money?

I’d say it depends how you like to learn. Do you just want to hear phrases and repeat, or do you want to break it down and understand the building blocks? Different courses have different approaches. Duolingo for the former, I think. But be prepared to switch around to find one that suits.

Oh and going beyond a few words takes a lot of hard work. Make sure you go outside the course and read websites and whatnot. Little kid stuff is useful for this, but there are also learner simplified websites for news and such that you can look at. Ok so you won’t get it all, but you can find certain phrases in it that help.

[video]https://youtu.be/GSeaDQ6sPs0[/video]

Bonne chance!

What happened when three French kittens tried to cross a river?

Une, Deux, Trois, quatre cinq.

You can get “beginners” Rosetta Stone courses that are cheaper than the full thing – might be worth it if you know little or nothing.

I’ve already perfected my gallic shrug.

The Michel Thomas courses are very good for learning how to speak basic French. They don’t really help when it comes to understanding it when spoken back to you though.
If you have French TV channels available, try seeing if they have subtitles available in French? Start with kids TV and go from there.

Having said that, if they’re talking amongst themselves they could be using all sorts of “argo” (slang) that will make them very hard to understand until you get very good.
I can do business meetings in French quite happily but when some of my colleagues get going I can barely understand them… 🙁

Bonnet de douche…..

I didn’t get on well with Michel Thomas tbh, it reminded me of the night school class I went to when the lady spoke french at us and I sat there going “mother***** I don’t speak french, that’s why I’m in a beginners french lesson” I got some basic pronounciation stuff which I still find helpful even if just reading stuff out, knowing when to silence and when to stress and that, but no real communication. And redoing it is very slow because there’s so much fluff.

It obviously works for some people but not for me.

Un peu effrayant Flashy

Dunno about watching subtitled TV, it just makes me realise how utterly at sea I’d be without subtitles. The Frencho’s don’t make it easy mind, all the slurring words together (unlike italian/spanish/generic scandi: “hi!” “hi hi”m, after enough grim but compelling dramas I recon I’m pretty much fluent in the latter).

I sat there going “mother***** I don’t speak french, that’s why I’m in a beginners french lesson”

You can teach like that, but you have to make it clear what’s going on so that you link the French words with the thing. So for example, teacher comes in says “Bonjour la classe” most people would figure out what that means. But as above, it comes down to learning styles.

I sat there going “mother***** I don’t speak french, that’s why I’m in a beginners french lesson”

Urgh I had that in a German class when i moved over there for a year. She just spoke german at us with no context. I learnt more watching kids tv, who wants to be a millionaire and baywatch dubbed into german

Not sure if that would help, I know every word of that book already…

My wife is French, also a teacher who teaches French and we are raising a daughter to become bilingual- which for her should come naturally.. and my own French language skills? appalling. I’m not proud of this. When in France I do ‘tune in’ to the language and find it a little easier but I find the biggest issue is a fundamental lack of knowledge with grammatical terms in ENGLISH. My wife will casually explain an error I make attempting French, and explain the grammatical structure to help me and all it does is confuse me further.. The critical emphasis on understanding grammar between the french and english education system is a galaxy apart it seems. c’est merde.

but I find the biggest issue is a fundamental lack of knowledge with grammatical terms in ENGLISH

That’s exactly what I find, I’m also to shy to use it and make errors.
My Wife is Danish and she is annoyed that after 8 years I still know more French than Danish, and I know very little Danish.

That’s exactly what I find, I’m also to shy to use it and make errors.
My Wife is Danish and she is annoyed that after 8 years I still know more French than Danish, and I know very little Danish.

yep! same reluctance here. Once told my French mother in law ‘i loved her’ instead of ‘i love it’ now she’s always popping round..

Used to date a Danish girl a few years back as it happens, found that a fascinating language to listen to but only ever picked up one or two words. Her father was Scottish like me, but would address his wife and daughters only ever in Danish. Always thought highly of that and it was very impressive to me at the time. I really should make more of an effort! next thing ill know my daughter and wife will be chatting away in French and ill be sobbing into my haggis..

Qu’ils apprends la Francais

Rosetta stone seems to be well promoted but isnt cheap. is it worth the money?

RS may be worth the money, but there are far a few superb approaches that I would suggest with greater enthusiasm.

In the first instance, Transparent Language products are excellent. I used to use the German programme so that I could understand, and speak with, my dad in his paternal language, and it worked phenomenally well. Of course, I mixed my use of it with watching films, listening to radio, and reading magazines, but the programme gave me an excellent start and a lot of confidence.

In the second, the Pimsleur Method is simply fantastic. It takes the ‘learn as a toddler would’ approach in the sense of introducing to phrases that you can speak immediately, and then repeating them even as you learn more and more. Very encouraging, as you are able to say things very quickly.

Indeed, if you could manage both programmes, and stick with them, you would find yourself doing very well after a fairly short period of time.

There’s a podcast called Coffee Break French that I used. It’s free. 20 minutes per lesson, so easy to fit in during a commute.

I was in the same situation as you 2 years ago. I had GCSE French from 20 years ago, and this course got me up to what I would call conversational. I suppose it wasn’t just the course, as I was spending 4 days a week in France also.

I think with language you’ve got to be realistic . I’ve been in Sweden now for five years and my Swedish is ‘advanced’ but not fluent. I lived in Spain for three years and got to decent level, but when I moved I thought yeah fluent in a year. I am of course one person and I may be crap at languages however!

Anyone can learn a language, it’s not hard, but it takes time and commitment. Also, Rosetta is available for free on Pirate Bay. Good luck OP!

You might want to also consider an open university language course, it is expensive, but it is also a qualification worth putting on your CV.

Duolingo app is quite good. Helped me a lot.

To some extent you might need to think if you want to “learn French” or “understand conversation” ….

Ultimately these might be the same but in terms of your priority may well be quite different….

I can read Russian passably but barely understand anything when spoken… I learned in a formal setting

However I learned French in bars/TV and for a long time I could listen/speak quite well whilst struggling to write at all and finding reading more difficult than speaking… however this was very good for the situation you describe when having meetings especially due to the French habit of cross talking across meetings. I made mistakes on grammar etc. but could understand what was going on and also reply in French when it was better.

I later had to do a lot of catch-up work on grammar and also just writing/orthographie… but

Never been a better time to learn languages… I’m planning to do a modern languages degree in a few years when I retire/ go part time. Did O level French and German 40 years ago, and teaching was poor. O& A level Italian 20 years ago when it was better, and doing GCSE Spanish at the mo, and A level next year, then going to swing back and resuscitate my French. I may be slower and older, but methods are getting better.

So, things that seem to work…

Well my partner is fluent in Spanish, and was in French, and given her experience I’d suggest a relationship with someone from France as the best method… 😉

Failing that, lots of great podcasts out there, for instance, News in Slow French, and online foreign language radio stations. Also lots of websites and web resources.

I’ve done evening classes and they are ok, but all the people need to be on the same level.

Currently spending an hour 1:1 with a teacher each week, and that forces you to communicate and talk in the target language.

Duolingo is good for getting some vocab into your head in odd moments, although you look like an idiot doing it on trains.

I’ve done the Michel Thomas thing and found it rather annoying. Paul Nobles CDs were way better.

The most intense way of doing things I’ve tried was a week in a Madrid language school, 3 hours group each am, and 2 hours 1:1 in the afternoon at the end of which my brain hurt, but I will do it again.

For you, I’d say, Duolingo, possible the Paul Noble CDs, listen to some podcasts and get yourself a decent grammar book for reference.

Bonjours tout le monde / bonjour à tous (et à toutes)
Qu’ils apprennent le Français.

If you have trouble understanding people who speak phonetic languages have a thought for how they feel when they hear a non phonetic language such a English and hear things like:

W?d?y?w?n?d?

Comb, tomb, bomb, womb.

I found Michel Thomas’s Spanish excellent and enjoyable. I got to the point where people would answer my question in Spanish. Which didn’t help at all. The trick is to phrase your question so you’ll get an answer you understand. Like “yes” or “no”.

I’ve already perfected my gallic shrug.

🙂

Given my terrible French you should take my advice with a pinch of salt …

This book is quite good (excuse Amazon Link) linky
I find read articles about things I am interested in helps, eg Rugby on L’Equipe sports pages, plenty of social media stuff to follow too.
Films (in French with French subtitles, anniying that subtitkes are often not direct translations)

Edukator – Reformed Troll
Bonjours tout le monde / bonjour à tous (et à toutes)
Qu’ils apprennent le Français.

If you have trouble understanding people who speak phonetic languages have a thought for how they feel when they hear a non phonetic language such a English and hear things like:

W?d?y?w?n?d?

Comb, tomb, bomb, womb.

mais mec tu as mis un s à bonjour?!

I find the biggest issue is a fundamental lack of knowledge with grammatical terms in ENGLISH.

When I was learning French at GCSE our teacher would talk about things like the pluperfect tense, I didn’t realise at the time it was possibly supposed to be a frame of reference. It was utterly nonsensical to me, just yet more stuff to learn and doubly annoying given that his wife was our English teacher.

c’est merde.

Please to not try to evade the swear filter.

you should take my advice with a pinch of salt …

Film at 11.

OP Adult Education / night school is another route, cheap and usually easy to sign up to.

You can book an intensive summer school week in France somewhere interesting, take a bike too – you’ll need a ride to clear your head every evening !

The OP needs to speak/listen/understand spoken French

The best way to do that quickly is to concentrate solely on oral….
As they have a decent background … (much better than I did)

Radio, TV and spending time in France….
All the grammar, reading, orthographie can come later….
Actually constructing a sentence without grammar is a bit harder but I used to reuse the speakers …. It’s far from perfect but does get you understanding oral much quicker…. and able to reply even if you make errors…

Once you have that … you can start reading more…

I didn’t mention earlier but I have a friend fluent in Cantonese (parents) but he can’t read a word….