With the advancement of technologies and innovative applications, the efficiency of teaching methods to learn a new language on your own has expanded.
If you have invested this thought in learning French then we are here to support that decision by providing you with some of the best ways to learn French all by yourself.
Perks of learning French on your own
1. Freedom of choice: You get to choose your own resources according to your learning pattern. You are free to study at your own pace and alter your schedule accordingly.
2. Save time and energy: You save a lot of time and energy as you aren’t constrained to be at a particular place on time.
3. Save money: You can cut down a huge sum of your expenditures and finish your course for free or at a minimal budget.
4. Focus: You get to prioritize the topics according to your needs and pay more attention to learning those concepts.
5. Variation: You are open to a wide variety of resources that will expose you to different sides of the French language and culture.
5 simple guidelines to study French by yourself
The sheer volume of resources out there can be really useful but they often leave us in a dilemma as to where to begin. We do not want to put our feet into every door and end up learning nothing.
We need to balance out our resources between the base rules of the language and the current evolution of slang and terms to comprehend and speak French the way it should be.
1. Youtube is your friend
Youtube has been one of the most popular and easily accessible resources to learn anything that we possibly can imagine. We get to travel virtually across the globe with people for free.
These virtual experiences expose us to understand much more than any classroom or book can. It is loaded with a mixture of seriousness and fun wherein you can switch from deliberate lessons by professional teachers to a normal guy vlogging his daily life in Paris.
Nevertheless, it is important to find your strengths and interests to gravitate towards the right channels to learn as much as you can. Though there are a number of awesome YouTubers, we need to narrow our list of youtube channels to learn, explore, and evolve.
2. Sign up for language learning apps
Though youtube might seem like a solid platform to learn French, we all require certain ground rules to set a strong foundation. This can be achieved with the help of language learning apps like Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, Babbel, Busuu, etc.
These apps keep track of your progress and motivate you with many badges and rewards. There are free and paid apps that vary with the subscription plan you choose.
Moreover, there are several interactive and language exchange apps that connect you with other language learners and native speakers to get instant feedback. Certain apps are designed with speech recognition features to work on your pronunciation.
Some apps provide offline services so that you can take your lessons from anywhere. You can also make use of free online websites to further practice your French lessons.
3. Change the language settings on your gadgets
If there is one thing that we all constantly check into, it is our phone. We spend a lot of time with our phones but the productivity meter may go up and down.
By changing our language settings to French, we turn our countless hours of unproductiveness into a useful French lesson. Moreover, the words that you learn will be relevant to real life. It will expose you to the most commonly used tech words.
This is also applicable to your social media as we spend a lot of time on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. In social media, we follow a lot of things that stir our interests so reading them in French will be an added advantage.
4. Expand your vocabulary with French books
Before we start reading novels we want to get into the habit of reading and understand the French sounds and words. This is why it is advisable to start with audiobooks recommended for kids.
A website called “The French experiment” has put together a list of children’s stories in collaboration with “the fable cottage”.
It has the option to view the English translation and listen to the audio of the whole story which is voiced by a French native speaker making it the ideal choice for avid readers.
5. Engage yourself in cultural media
We all prefer entertaining content to learn the language we love. So, I’m not going to beat around the bush instead I’ll suggest my favorite platforms to watch and listen to the language at the beginner level.
You can watch unlimited movies with subtitles in TV5Monde Plus and filmfra for free of cost. You can also watch many movies on Netflix with a membership plan.
You can enjoy French songs on Youtube and curated playlists on Spotify according to your level. You can also listen to online French podcasts and tune into radios like RFI which has special lessons for beginners.
Learn French like never before
Take advantage of the resources around you and set reasonable goals to contradict all the traditional methods of a classroom. With a little bit of motivation and consistency, the above 5 guidelines will help you to learn French like never before.