Best way to learn French.

[FiguringOutFlorida]

I'm interested in learning to speak French, mostly just for fun/because we holiday there a fair bit.

As it stands I just have some rusty GCSE French (from about 20 years ago) and a bit of duolingo.

What are the best ways to go about really learning?

Go to France

I find duolingo coupled with KS3 workbooks is a good combo for the basics. Plus going as frequently as possible. And ask on your local Facebook page if there are any conversation groups locally.

I am learning French as have a French husband and doing one parent one language with the children so learning passively. I find reading children’s books such as “Tchoupi” or “petit ours brun” are great for sentence structure- we also have some audio books of these. I think you need to practice speaking too so maybe conversational classes even if only A1 or A2 level.

This probably is the easiest way, but alas not possible for any significant amounts of time at the moment 😁.

Do a course run by the council or local university.

Duolingo, reading beginner and then internediate short story books in French (cheap/free on kindle unlimited), lingopie.

For me it's really important to memorise and pratise using all the irregular verbs, so they don't become bottle-necks to learning.

I'be been doing this for about three years and can get by quite well on my own in France, but TBF, French people will speak back to you in English, unless you request otherwise, so you don't always get the chance to practice with a native speaker when you do go.

Check out italki. You book sessions to speak with native speakers online at any level.

My polyglot dc is a big fan.

Do you have books from your teenage years that you remember well and enjoyed? Get them in French and plow through them with a dictionary + the English reference. I dont know many people who achieve fluency without spending a lot of time there - but this was my approach and it got me to fluency (obviously getting reading fluent isn't the same as getting speaking fluent. But once you're reading fluent the gap to speaking fluently is pretty small)

For 'really learning' nothing beats going to a class. There are fantastic resources online now, which are great for extra practice but nothing can replace speaking in class for a good solid grounding.

These podcasts from Coffee Break French are quite a good approach and break it down well. https://coffeebreaklanguages.com/coffeebreakfrench/

French boyfriend did it for me 😉 But could be problematic if you have a DP.....listening to French radio (like France Culture, all talky talky - which they do love to do - as it helps get the cadence of the language. And when to say 'bof' etc.