I may be back in Singapore but I’m still learning French! After all, ten months in Nice was a great way to start learning and practising French and I don’t want to lose that. So today, I thought I’d talk a bit about how I’m learning French and share some resources that I found useful.

My strategy for learning French is really to find ways of adding French into my life. Even when I was in Nice, it was easy to be in an English bubble since most of my classmates aren’t French and all our lessons were in English. So here’s what I’m doing:

French classes

In my opinion, this is the key for everything else to be useful. 

I used to take French classes at my school, but they weren’t very useful. I really didn’t like how there was no follow-up to the lessons and things felt random. So now, I’m currently taking French classes every day from a private tutor! I really like that I have homework after each lesson (and it also includes listening practice) which makes it easy for me to revise what was taught during the week.

Duolingo

Duolingo is a really popular app but to be honest, I didn’t find it very useful at first because it doesn’t seem to teach grammar in a very structured way. But now, the exercises are more or less at the same stage of what I’m learning in class so I’m finding it useful as a way to revise what is being taught and learn vocabulary at the same time!

I like that the French course has the option for speaking practice in the podcast section – that is super useful for me! 

Frantastique

This is the only thing I’m paying for besides my French lessons. It’s kinda pricey but I find it pretty worth it as a daily form of practice. What I like about this website is that you have the option of doing the entire lesson in French (or have English explanations) so it can be very immersive. They also explain the grammar points pretty thoroughly and they will reteach the grammar if you got the questions wrong the first time round, so there’s no need to worry if I missed something the first time.

You can access the lessons through a link in the daily emails or through their app, so it’s pretty easy to learn no matter where you are (as long as you have an internet connection).

I have a referral link for a free trial (I’ll get free lessons if you sign up after the trial, but that’s it) so I’ll leave it here if anyone is interested in trying it out. I personally found this more helpful than Duolingo when I was first learning French without a teacher, mostly because the grammar is explicitly taught instead of making you just translate things.

Anki

Anki is a Spaced Repetition Software and not specifically for French but it’s useful for for learning vocabulary! 

I started with some pre-made decks to learn numbers and basic vocabulary, but I find that the decks I create myself are the most useful. Basically, whenever I learn a new word in my French lessons, I put it in a deck. I also have a deck for verb conjugations, but Frantastique also tests you on that so it’s not as necessary for me. I tend to use Anki as a way to make myself memorise things faster, so it works for vocabulary and some conjugations, not so much for grammar.

One thing I noticed about using Anki is that while it helps in my French to English recognition, it doesn’t necessary help me with English to French. In other words, I can recognise the meaning of the French words I learn, but I won’t think of the word when I’m trying to speak/write. I suppose I could create new cards that test the French equivalent of English words, but that is an extra step.

Podcasts

The website and apps above help me in learning new words and grammar. But because spoken French sounds so different, I’ve also been trying to use some podcasts to help with that aspect.

Coffee break French 

My friend recommended this to me and it’s pretty good! The first season teaches the basics of French grammar, but from the second season onwards, they started using radio plays in their lesson. Because I’m not a huge auditory learner, I find the radio plays and journal extracts (the texts for season 3) to be more useful as listening practice than as my main form of learning.

Radio France

This was introduced to me by my French teacher! I don’t use it a lot, but they do have stories and other programmes for listening. Since this is a separate app, I keep forgetting to use it – I should, though!

Given my fairly beginner status, I find the “enfants” section of the app to be the place where I’m most likely to understand things!

Duolingo Podcast

This is actually pretty good for listening practice. The host of the podcast uses English to explain the French sections, so it’s possible to understand each episode as a beginner listener! I find relistening to the episodes to be a very helpful exercise – I pick up a lot more vocabulary on the second listen, probably because my ears are getting used to the French! I find that the first time I listen to any podcast, everything tends to just go over my head!

YouTube 

When I’m feeling really motivated, I go on youtube and try to watch something in French. Here are the top 3 channels that I watch:

1. Easy French – This channel interviews French people on various topics and it’s a good way to practice listening.

2. Piece of French – Piece of French is a a French YouTuber who makes vlogs for French learners. I like the speed at which she speaks, and while I’m not a vlog person, I like that she puts in some vocabulary into her videos.

3. French mornings with Elisa – I love Elisa’s series of 3 minute learning French videos where she explains one grammar point! These are often things that are French learners get confused about frequently, so having a video that specifically talks about it is very helpful.

And that’s about it! I’m not using all of these every day (not for the podcasts and youtube, anyway), but I find these to be helpful ways to increase my exposure to the French language! Honestly, the French lessons are probably the most helpful for me, but having all these supplementary resources help by letting me listen to French in various contexts and accents.

Let me know if there’s anything you’re using that you find helpful! I’m currently trying this language exchange app that my sister recommended, but I think it’ll take a while more before I can tell if it’s truly helpful for me.