Learning French

[mr ailsbury]

I've been wanting to brush up on (pretty much totally re-learn) French for a while now but haven't got the time to commit to a night class due to work commitments. I thought of maybe getting one of those Cd's that you can listen to in the car/in bed etc but there's millions to choose from :/

Just wondering if anyone on here has tried to teach themselves a language, what software/books they used and what other tips and tricks were useful whilst trying to remember words/sentences... Did you learn with a friend? if so, did you find it helped because you had a physical person you could practice with?

cheers for any help guys

[davey1991]

Rosetta stone, its good and even though the adverts say it, it does work.

[JT!]

Je viens de découvrir ce, non seulement il est précis, mais il parle à vous aussi.

[davey1991]

The grammar, word order, tense and gender is always wrong with translators.

[JT!]

This one seems to be more advanced though, it's user suggested and seems to work more from sentences rather than just translating words. It also seems to reverse translate with 100% accuracy as opposed to other where after 5 translations back and forth you get a mess of words.

[Ben Swales]

As CDs go, the Rosetta Stone ones are supposed to be really good, but I've had no experience of them. The Michel Tomas ones are also excellent - a mate of mine taught himself Spanish while he had a data entry job and is pretty good at it now! He can translate written stuff very accurately and speaks/understands it pretty well. He was raving about the method that he uses - it's done as though he's teaching to a class of three (two people on the CD and you) and you only have to listen and repeat. I'm thinking of getting the Portuguese one and using it to get me started as I want to add another language to my repertoire to improve my translation CV.

I wouldn't bother with Google stuff (not yet at least). While it's handy for getting the jist of stuff, it's often wildly inaccurate and far too literal. For example - JT!, did you use that Google translator to get that French? While it's understandable and would allow you to get the jist of the sentence, it's not quite correct.

We regularly get jobs where someone's used Google translator to translate a website or a flyer and it's been so bad that their business in that country hasn't improved (and in some cases has gone into a decline!).

That said - it is improving and the products that they are talking about bringing out look pretty good - which is pretty worrying for people in my profession!

Edited June 16, 2010 by Ben Swales

[Tony Harrison]

I'm just starting to make a bigger effort at it. It's a good language to learn, but it's frustrating each time I go to France and come back, as I learn useful things but I'm not there enough for it to stick and develop. I'm about to properly try out the Michel Thomas stuff, and also have a French textbook for reference.

[1a2bcio8]

I'm currently teaching myself Sanskrit ahead of uni and I've found it a managable process, despite the difficulties in dealing with a very different kind of grammar. I've used two different books to do so and therefore I consider books to be an effective method. This is even true of pronounciation which can be taught through examples in your own language. Probably it is best to ultimately check though with actual sound examples.

The single most important bit of advice I would impart with regards to learning a language is to make sure it's a daily practice. It is far better to spend 15 minutes per day learning than it is to spend 3 hours once a week. I found this out first hand. I've found that when I spend 1+ hours each day I really excel at learning and remembering. I'd recommend that as an ideal but probably I'm just a bit geeky

Edited June 16, 2010 by Ben Rowlands