I don't like routines. I am not at all the type of a person who will get up at 6:00 am and study a language for 30 minutes. I'd love to, but with me it doesn't work.
And maybe not with you either. But is this the only way to learn a language? No.
Hi! Hi! Hi!
Welcome to a new episode of French Mornings. If you are learning French, you have come to the right place. I am Elisa and on this channel, I help you improve your French and speak more naturally.
Today, I'll share with you some strategies to follow to progress in French quickly. Make yourself comfortable, have a little coffee. Remember to activate the subtitles if you need them.
And here we go! When you learn a language, you are often very happy at the beginning, very enthusiastic. We quickly make progress and afterwards, we tend to be a little less organized than at the beginning and to leave the language a little bit behind.
In this video, I will explain how to start from scratch and get to an advance level in French without losing motivation along the way. And to begin, the question I would like you to consider is not how long can I study french every day but rather how can I integrate French into my daily life. And that changes a lot of things.
The idea is to make sure that you are surrounded by French without being able to escape it. Obviously, the reason I recommend this is because it works for me. I hope this is a strategy that inspires you.
But we are all different. And so I advise you to adapt it according to your needs and preferences. I will therefore propose a path in six phases with defined objectives at each stage.
The very first phase, even before learning the language, is the preparation. And the objective here is to acquire some grammar notions. If French is the first language that you learn, I advise you, to begin with, to understand some grammar, at least the main principles, because I know that sometimes it is quite complicated for some people.
The first step is to understand what is a noun, what a verb is, what an article is, the principle of conjugation and all of this in your own language to begin with. It will allow you to, when you learn vocabulary in the new language, in French surely, to understand to which category of words it belongs. In English, for example, a word can be both a verb and a noun.
So when you're a complete beginner, my advice is to begin to understand how your own language works before starting another one. If you want to improve your grammar and really just learn these little basics things, you can find plenty of resources by simply doing a few Google searches. And now the strategies that I will share will allow you to create a world in French.
It is always said that the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the language. So, learning using only an application or only a book, it's not really enough. It's best to combine all of these.
The second phase, when you start learning French is to become familiar with the language. And the goal here is to start identifying new sounds and intonation in French. And the more time you spend listening to French, the more you will become familiar with these new sounds and this language.
And to start, I therefore advise you to simply listen to music in French. It is a very good way to immerse yourself in the language since to appreciate music, you don't need to know the meaning of the words. I therefore recommend you to create a French playlist and listen to it as often as possible in the shower, in the car, while cleaning, etc.
And little by little, as you progress in French, you can begin to learn the words of the songs by heart. The second thing to do, is to start watching movies or series in French. And you can keep subtitles in English or in your native language for now if you wish.
You can watch one or two, or even more per week. And again, it will help you feel more comfortable with the new sounds and also to passively learn new vocabulary. We're coming up on phase three.
The basics. The goal here, is to reach a beginner's level, so knowing how to introduce yourself, be able to describe simple things and talk about your daily life. You have to start somewhere to learn a language and when it's from the ground up, it's better.
To achieve these three objectives, you will start by learning how to create very simple, very descriptive sentences. You can use the applications of your choice. To get started I think it's very nice.
And on YouTube, you will also find many videos for beginners in French. But above all, the most important thing here, is that you have to start talking. To talk but with whom?
Well, on your own, with yourself. Talking to yourself is an excellent way to progress in a language. And the sooner you get into the habit, the better, the faster you will feel comfortable speaking French.
So yes, at first, we feel a little ridiculous, but we get used to it. I reassure you. There, you see?
And if you really feel uncomfortable talking to yourself, (I can understand) you can also read a short text aloud from time to time. During phase four, we will try to reach an intermediate level. Here, the objectives are to be able to to tell a story without blocking and to know how to give your opinion on topics.
Now you can put the French subtitles on all videos and movies you watch. It will allow you to make big progress in comprehension and spelling. And the advice I'd like to remind you of here is that you don't need to understand 100% of the words to understand a situation or a movie.
If you understand the most important words in the sentence and you also have a visual context, that's more than enough for understanding. It's also time to start to communicate with native speakers, with French speakers. You can try to find a partner for a language exchange, for example.
It's something that can work, but sometimes it's quite difficult to find someone who is able to explain things in a clear way and who is as motivated as you to continue this exchange. The good alternative is to take classes with teachers who will have a more pedagogical approach. By now you know that I recommend often the Lingoda platform which I like very much.
I take Spanish classes with them and I thank them very much for sponsoring this video again. What I really like about Lingoda is that the courses are held by native teachers who are really lovely. You have the possibility of taking private lessons or courses in small groups of five people maximum.
The courses are very good and the teachers are very motivating and very careful to get each student to talk. What's also great is that the courses are categorized. Maybe you want to improve grammar, or rather oral communication.
And in this case, you can choose the course that suits you by category. And after the course, you have the possibility to continue to practice with online exercises. So you see, it is really a very serious platform where everything is done so that you progress quickly.
And the best for last. You can benefit from all this for free. This summer, Lingoda is organizing the Lingoda Sprint Challenge.
This is a two-month challenge to help you progress even faster. If you attend 30 classes per month for two months, Lingoda will reimburse you 100% of the challenge. This is the super sprint.
This is truly an incredible offer. This means that you will benefit from 60 courses of all exercises online and all for free. If you have a busy schedule and that one class a day is a little too much for you.
You can also take fifteen classes per month during these two months and at this At that time, Lingoda will reimburse you at 50%. This is a really great opportunity to motivate you and make rapid progress in two months. If you wish to participate in the challenge, you can register using the code ELISAJULY or by clicking on the link in the description and you will receive $25 or €20 discount when you register.
In phase number five we will try to reach an advanced level. And the objectives here will be to understand more and express themselves with more nuance. Now that you have reached a level that allows you to express yourself easily, the goal, is going to be to understand more complicated topics.
For this, you can watch videos of YouTubers in the fields that interest you. Last year, I made a video about this subject you can go to for ideas. I also advise you to listen to podcasts in French.
Unfortunately, I don't really have any to recommend because most of them are of the podcasts I listen to are not in French. But if you have any, don't hesitate to write them in down in the comments, it will help everyone. Overall, this is really a time to try to experience as much as possible in French, to create a French-speaking world.
So here is a list of ideas I can share with you: subscribe to French content creators on Instagram and YouTube, do your Google searches in French, follow recipes in French, listen to the radio and podcasts in French, listen to audio books in French, keep a journal in French, receive news in French if you have time. I also advise you to write a small summary of the content you consume in French. For example, if you are watching a movie or video or if you read an article in French, I advise you to try to write a short summary of what you saw and give your opinion on it.
In phase six, we reach the expert level. The goal here, is to achieve a near 100% understanding of French speakers. To really go further, you can focus on on the slang expressions and words used in French.
You can write them down them each time you listen to a podcast or watch a movie. And every time you learn a new phrase or word, practice using it yourself in a sentence. In French, we really really use them, a lot and I think it's essential to understand French speakers.
And finally, my last piece of advice is to train with exercises grammar if you want to, to further improve your spelling. Wait, this is not over. To help you continue to progress in French this summer, I have prepared a little vacation workbook for you.
It is an activity book where you will find games and expressions, exercises, etc. that will help you to continue to practice your French, even at the beach. To download it, you just have to click on the link in the description.
Thank you all for watching this video. Don't hesitate to comment and tell me what is your level in French and what are your objectives. And I'll see you very soon.
