How can I improve my French during lockdown?

[BoogleMcGroogle]

.... with not much time and a house full of children?

Any ideas of podcasts, programmes or books that would help me turn my French from functional to more confidently conversational? I could make a bit of time in the evenings and can listen to stuff on my daily walks/ short runs. Things I could read?

At the moment, my level is such that I could, for example, chat to a lady in a cafe when we were skiing who remarked my French is 'good', but I can't differentiate more complex verb forms and my vocabulary is really patchy ( yesterday I would remember 'hedgehog' but not 'stripy' or 'ladder.). I understand precisely nothing of fast French radio talk!

Duolingo and watching French films with subtitles e.g. The Truth

There are so many great online resources if you google them.Start with Youtube. Look for Lawless French for some really good stuff, or go on to a French online publication such as Madame Figaro. Online exam resources for listening practice- I like the Scottish Exam papers, Keep a notebook for all new vocab and write it down to improve your recall. 'A little and often' is the motto for successful language learning, so allow yourself 30 minutes a day to do some listening, read at least a couple of pages of a French newspaper, and if you know anyone who speaks some French, ask if you can have a brief chat every few days-socially distant, bien entendu! Bonne chance!

search on youtube for intermediate french... good resources there.

Duolingo!

Came on here to say duolingo

Bonjour, si nous ne parlons et répondons qu'en français, ça pourrait être amusant.

get a vpn and put on french tv

Another vote for Duolingo. There's another site called Memrise - its pretty good but asks you to upgrade for the paying version.

The Open University are offering a huge range of free short courses at the moment. Languages are one option.

Google slow french and you'll get a lot of options for podcasts of french news read out slowly. Or watch french programs on TV with french subtitles.

There are some good derective series on Netflix in French with subtitles eg La Manque and I just watched a really good one called The disappearance on Sky (the one about a missing teenage girl not the other series with the same name in English).
I think there are a few on Sky

Another vote for duolingo, it's really helped me!

Thanks so much! DH has said he's up for watching a Netflix series in French so that's on the list for this evening. His French is dreadful but he's bilingual in Italian- il be really unimpressed if he overtakes me!

I've found slow news in French- but the website I found was quite expensive - twenty dollars a month. I listened to the taster and understood everything but hate theatre feeling if simultaneously translating into English in my head. When my French was much better ( 2 decades ago now), I didn't really have to do that in the same way. I'm going to try a 7 day trial and see how it goes.

I wasn't sure about Duolingo but I'm going to give that a try too now.

Thanks so much, this has been really helpful 🙂 🇫🇷

Duolingo is great. You can even turn off the audio / spoken questions for a set period (half an hour maybe?) if you’re somewhere you can’t do those or it’s too noisy around you. My French is already much improved!