I am going to try to learn French. Any helpful tips?

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   emichaelposted 14 years ago

   I am going to try to learn French. Any helpful tips?
   
   I took one semester of it in college, and I just really enjoyed the language. I think part of it is that I just want the challenge.
   
   My question is for those of you who took on the task of learning a new language in your post-college days. What sort of study regimen did you follow? Did you use a program such as Rosetta Stone? How long did it take before you became fluent enough to carry on a conversation in the language?

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   Raison D'etreposted 14 years ago

   The philosophy behind Rosetta Stone is great, but the product itself is actually not worth the amount one would spend on it. A really good site with a really solid language learning method similar to that of Rosetta Stone is LingQ.com. While, fundamentally you're still paying, you're also paying for the ability to hold conversations with native speakers who correct your speaking as well as your writing. It also is community based, so you could essentially earn your "LingQ" credits by tutoring others in your spare time.

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   emichaelposted 14 years ago

   That sounds awesome, I will definitely check out that site. Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the price of the programs is what has kept me from starting yet, so I wanted to look into alternatives. Community based learning is great, especially if you get to learn from native speakers. Thanks again!

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   editorposted 14 years ago

   You only need one product, get Learning French With Michel Thomas. This guy makes it so easy you'll have basic French within a couple of hourst - seriously.

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   Second Languageposted 12 years ago

   Actually there are lots of critics of the Rosetta Stone language learning philosophy. Basically, they believe that the best way to learn a language is like we learned our first language as a baby: full immersion, no explanations in English, watching images, hearing sounds, imitation, figuring things out as you go along, and helping you think in the language, rather than translating from English to French.
   
   Sounds good, right? The problem is that there is lots of research that says children's brains (especially baby's brains) are different and adults can't learn like children. So other software like Fluenz, TellMeMore, and Rocket French, for example, rely on other philosophies.
   
   You can see a review of the different software and their approaches here: http://ebestlanguagelearningsoftware.co … rn-french/
   
   I also wrote a hub about the psychological differences between the French and Americans, which I believe is important to communicate effectively in French. You can find it here: http://secondlanguage.hubpages.com/hub/ … -in-French

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