"By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate." -Joseph Epstein
Whether it's Russian, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, or French, the allure of a foreign language is irrefutably unique to beginners. Having said this, there is absolutely no real gain without the correct guidance and much practice and dedication!
Regardless of how intelligent you are, even basic French can prove challenging when it comes to comprehension, reading, writing and of course, speaking in French!
So if you are learning how to speak French, do not feel discouraged when faced with tongue-twisting vocabulary like fourrure, ecureuil, and grenouille.
There is no doubt, speaking in French will require the advice of experts and native speakers to help you navigate the road to fluency and confidence! Fortunately, regardless of where in the world you may find yourself, Superprof is able to help. If you want to learn to speak French with confidence, keep reading, this article is for you.
Immerse Yourself Completely
One of the most worthwhile things you can do in learning any new language is to immerse yourself as much as you possibly can. This is one of the best ways to focus on your French conversation practice. When you dive deeply into the traditions, cuisine, history, and everything else that goes into French culture you can be assured that you will be speaking in French in no time at all.
If your goal is to learn how to speak French, be single-minded in your approach to your French conversation practice. The way to do this is to try and spend as much time as possible immersed in the culture of French natives where you will absorb their accents, expressions, and even their eccentricities!
Not only will this method ensure that your progress is fast-tracked, but it is actually more effective and fun than being stuck in textbooks or repeating sentences handed to you by a digital device.
There’s absolutely no doubt when it comes to honing your French conversation skills, full immersion cannot be underestimated.
Having said this, before you drop yourself into French culture full time, make sure that you are armed with a few basic skills. For instance, if you can read in French and pronounce words correctly, you could have a very basic French conversation and be able to survive in a city like Paris while you continue to learn!
While full immersion is the gold standard for language immersion, it is not always practical for everyone to uproot their lives and move to France to learn to speak French! So if your French conversation practice feels restricted by your life in South Africa, we have all the tips to help you.
Listen to Podcasts
"There's millions and millions of people that listen and love podcasts that didn't in 2012." -John Lee Dumas
Podcasts on just about any topics imaginable, including how to speak French, are becoming increasingly popular.
These days there are a plethora of options for helping your French conversation come along by improving critical skills like pronunciation, grammar, tenses and listening!
Podcasts are a brilliant way to help you learn many of the basics without too much effort. And since podcasts can be heard on any device, they can make your time spent commuting to work, or walking for exercise very productive!
A main benefit of making use of good podcasts is that they can improve critical listening skills for learning how to speak French.
Use Online Resources
Thanks to the digital age where the internet provides information on just about everything, there are also good online resources available to help you to learn to speak French! Having said this, with so much availability, the question is, which are the best ones to help you with your French conversation practice?
Remember that there are new websites that claim to have you speaking in French in no time at all, but choosing the one that is right for you, will be how you progress with your fluency! Keep reading to find out more.
Assimil
While Assimil resources can be found online today, this is an organisation that dates back to 1929 and is therefore highly experienced in helping students to learn to speak French. Due to its success over many decades it has branched out from only French and today offers courses in Spanish, Hebrew, Italian and German.
So how does it work?
The Assimil method ensures that you learn to speak French, or any other language, by listening to audio recordings that are in your own language as well as the language you are trying to learn. You will be asked to learn full sentences gradually which is very organic French conversation practice. By repeating phrases and sentences provided by the recordings, you will be able to hone your conversation skills in no time.
Assimil’s options to help you learn to speak French include the following programmes:
- The Slang Series
- The Learn Series
- The Business Series
- The Idioms Series
- The With Ease Series
- Phrasebooks
Interestingly, even though learning different languages are vastly different by comparison, Assimil’s learning approach is the same. The beginning of each programme begins with a lengthy passive phase of listening and reading and then progresses to more active lessons.
Most Assimil lessons contain around 100 lessons with the active phase commencing at about class 50. This gives you adequate listening time to tune in your ear and pronunciation ability before the speaking parts of the course begin.
Fun fact: Assimil is derived from the word "Assimilate" meaning absorption of information into the mind.
Assimil's website is highly recommended if you want to learn to speak French or any of the other languages mentioned for that matter. Courses include fantastic learning tools like reasoning games, word puzzles and translation exercises to help you with your French conversation practice and prepare you for your trip to Paris!
Babbel
Famous all over the world, Babbel is a language learning beast that helps millions of people acquire fluency in French, Spanish, Indonesian, German, Portuguese, Chinese and Italian to name just a few.
Babbel offers award-winning French courses that focus on pronunciation and get results. This is further heightened by its French recognition tool which helps to practise and test pronunciation. There are also extra lessons to help you to learn to speak French and the way that this is achieved is by taking you through various levels of accomplishment that includes learning how to write in French too.
Babbel is available on desktop or as app that is downloadable for iPhone to enable you to learn on the go! Babbel is highly recommended for anyone who wants to enhance their fluency or supplement their private French tuition. In addition, its course structures are easy to follow and appeal to almost everyone.
Record Yourself
There is absolutely no getting around it, if you want to learn to speak French, you will encounter some of the toughest pronunciation rules available in any language. The challenge is that French is not phonetic, which means that it is not pronounced as it is read. Unless it is learnt from an early age, the throaty sound that makes it so distinctive can take years to hone.
Nevertheless, an excellent way for French fluency to be mastered is through the practice of recording yourself! The reason that this is so effective is that recording yourself and evaluating your pronunciation later with a French native can help you to iron out any mistakes that you are unaware of. This is useful whether you are self-teaching or as a homework exercise in between lessons with your French tutor.
It may seem strange listening to yourself, especially if you cringe at the sound of your own voice, but if speaking in French correctly is your aim, then this is an excellent exercise.
Find a Tutor
If you want to learn to speak French, one of the most obvious ways to go about this is to find a private tutor. There are many advantages to this approach, but the main one is that usually, French tutors are native speakers who you can not only mimic without judgment but also lean on to ask questions. Besides guiding you along a structured language acquisition approach, the French tutor is there to work through your mistakes and weaknesses so that you eventually know how to speak French!
If you know where to look, finding a French tutor is really not difficult. Take Superprof for instance which offers over 12 million tutors that cover 1000 topics, worldwide. Many of these are located in South Africa which gives you the option of in-person lessons close to home or online lessons with someone further away – all you need is an internet connection and webcam!
By working with a professional tutor, you set yourself up for success especially if they have had vocal training or are certified in teaching French as a foreign language.
Finally, as you can see, speaking in French when it is not your mother tongue is not only possible, but it can be fun to learn too. Bonne chance!
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