Learning Conversational French

[Elessar_44]

Just curious if anyone here has any tips or info on learning French for an Anglophone? I'd like to be able to converse somewhat-fluently with our French passengers and locals while on the road or at work. Took it in primary school but of course high school me to was to cool to learn French, so I have a very limited base to start with. Did you find private lessons were helpful? Local conversation groups? Online Skype sessions?

Duolingo is great but apps like that can only teach so much tapping words on an iPad screen. Wondering if anyone used any sort of online courses that have some interaction components? Flexibility would be a big bonus, so I could accomplish something besides watching Netflix while sitting in my hotel room on reserve. Thanks gang!

[AirDoan]

I was wondering the same thing yesterday. My french experience in highschool was taught by a drunk the school system dumped on our small town to get her out of sight, plus that was 20 years ago. Does anyone have a few suggestions short of moving to Quebec for a year? I am waiting for the application season to start as a fresh CPL and figured this would be a nice feather in my cap.

[Heliian]

Rosetta Stone or any other program is a good start.

French is a pretty subjective language, ranging from the Fringlish of Northern Ontario, to the anglicised city speak of Montreal, to the fast and loose jabber of the Gaspésie. Even more different is the French written and spoken in France, along with it's variants. Not to forget the creole, zouk and patois of many different nations.

Years of practice mon ami.

[LifeAt90Kts]

A combo of Rosetta Stone and Duolingo has been doing the trick. Between that and torturing my franco friends with my regular attempts to speak French to them, I've been picking it up pretty well.

[timel]

You could get a French speaking girlfriend I know two guys for who it worked very well.
The best way to learn is definitely by having conversations with others, that's how I learned my English, the learning curve became exponential when I was staying in Ontario.

[Black_Tusk]

I found DuoLingo and Rosetta Stone to work pretty well. I am working on French right now as well. I learned quite a bit of German a few years ago from just Rosetta Stone, and once I started using it daily (I was in Germany) it started getting pretty easy. I spent an hour a day on RS, and if you can force yourself to do that every day I think in a month or so you'll be pretty far along.

[RatherBeFlying]

High school French gets you the basics. Une blonde works marvelously. Failing that read lots of bandes dessinees. The pictures give you a good idea of what's being said. Best of all the French is spoken French.

Books, magazines and newspapers use a different French.

Find the local Radio-Canada frequency and have it on whenever you are driving.

[Meatservo]

I'm going to advise Rosetta Stone as well. As a product of early immersion I am happily bilingual, although rusty at French. My ability to speak the language is latent, and resurfaces after a short time while conversing with someone in that language. I think you need to drop the cash on a recognized program, and then engage in conversation with genuine French people. Both are equally important. I was never more grateful to be fluent in more than one language than when as an Otter pilot I found some French porn at a Major drilling site. It's wonderful stuff. Far superior to our watered-down Lilly-liveried Anglo shite.

[Elessar_44]

Thanks gang. I definitely think the having to force yourself to try and converse with actual Francophones is required, the learning is just super slow without it!

[DanJ]

Funny that this thread is at the top of the list as I'm listening to Kevin O'Leary announce his run for Conservative leader lol

[Bravomike33]

.

[Speedalive]

I'd recommend Rosetta Stone. I don't know about learning french with it, but I'm learning Dutch and it's been good so far.. If the French course is similar, I would recommend doing that. It's set up really well. There's lots of repetition which is important and you're even able to converse with native speakers of the language you're studying with over webcam. I am bilingual in french/english but I'm thinking of maybe doing the Rosetta Stone french course once I'm done with the Dutch just to brush up a bit.

[all_ramped_up]

All good tips mentioned here.

I just did a six month maintenance contract in Montreal and made a conscious effort to try to only speak French when out doing my errands. It doesn't take too long to pick up the basic common phrases and after that it's just practice practice practice.

Also listening to the radio during my commute to the Hangar en Français seulement est bonne idée. Found that it really helped train my ear to distinguish a lot more words.

Although my Quebecois roommate there said that I sound like a German trying to speak French when we tried to converse. (Probably because I ditched French in High School and took German for a number of years after instead.)

[xsbank]

Call Alliance Francaise. Most towns have one and the classes are free.

[Elessar_44]

Lots of good tips here, thanks all!

The last few weeks I've been doing a "learn to speak" program I purchased awhile back, totally forgot I had it. Also reading the book "Fluent in 3 Months" for some more inspiration.

Like a couple of you have said, I find just forcing yourself to speak it as much as possible is helping a lot.

[Prairie Chicken]

Some people are more adept at learning another language than others, and of course the younger you are, the easier it is. If you're older, and one of those without a gift in languages, you may not be able to even reach a bare conversational level.

In the fed gov't. French classes are often offered for free to employees, and as a requirement for many positions, depending on the geographic location. I know a number of smart, capable unilingual English TC inspectors who could NOT reach an acceptable level of competence, even with between 10 months & 2 years of full-time instruction. Others pick it up without too much difficulty. I think the ability to learn another language as an adult is something you have, or have not.

Being multi-lingual is truly a good thing though. Good luck!

[BeechjetYKZ]

Call Alliance Francaise. Most towns have one and the classes are free.

The Toronto Alliance Francaise branch (with several locations you can choose) is not free. Anywhere from $350-500 a course. https://www.alliance-francaise.ca/

[xsbank]

Time marches on...

[Leo G]

You could get a French speaking girlfriend I know two guys for who it worked very well.

absolutely
True, the best way is to get a French speaking girlfriend or wife
A friend of mine (having no relation to aviation) met a French girl somewhere on vocations; she spoke very basic English that time. He started to learn French, one day visited her and voala: they got married and live on the French Riviera. He picked a good accent within 2 years (as French speaking people say), but this is constantly living in the country and having a French speaking partner. The girl also turned out to be not so simple, and owns a restaurant somewhere on the coast around these kind of villas https://tranio.com/france/cote_d_azur/
Quite a good choice of spouse, as I see

[whits]

I have wanted to do this for a while now as well. I have found working in aviation and moving about, there have been countless times I felt inferior only speaking English. If the girl at the grocery store in Saguenay can speak English to me, I should be able to speak French as well. I have done the duolingo/netflix thing and I really don't think that it's sufficient enough to just cruise on over and start a casual conversation with someone. For this reason I am doubtful that Rosetta Stone is going to be some sort of miracle worker. However, I would love for someone with about a grade 10 (Ontario) level french education who was fluent after Rosetta Stone to prove me otherwise. Also, bare in mind that these courses are all France French, and from what I little I do know, it's hardly the same language as Quebecois, so after all the trouble you may still have a hard time communicating?

It seems like the best way to really learn enough, may be to go and do some sort of intensive immersion course. I am doing the float thing so I try to learn a new skill each winter off (this year was welding), so I have been looking at a few different options for next winter. Here is what I have found so far:

https://www.mcgill.ca/continuingstudies ... nd-culture
6 weeks, and $1700 for Canadians

http://frenchimmersion.uwo.ca/courses/five_week.html
5 weeks, costs twice as much and runs in the summer so not happening.

http://elf.uqac.ca/english/dates-and-costs/winter/
3, 6, 9, and 12 week ... tuition's not bad for Canadians either, and good location.