A Practical Guide to Learning French

(For Non-Linguists)

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee that things which helped me will be useful to everyone, but I have never been a natural when it comes to learning languages, so maybe at least some ideas here are universally useful :)

Be prepared to start small

Before arriving in France, my preparation was essentially Duolingo. It's good for learning a bit of basic vocabulary but what I found very frustrating was out 'in the wild', I couldn't understand anything. Even the few words and phrases I did know, they just escaped my ears all of the time. The most difficult was with a group of people speaking French. It was also difficult after going from always living and working in an English-dominated environment to now being the foreign one! It was also incredibly humbling going from being a recent PhD graduate to basically having the communication skills of a 3 year old... which brings me onto the first piece of advice. You are essentially a child in that language, so if you want to use books and/ or TV to help learn a language... you have to stick to things suitable for your 'French age'. Content aimed at young children speaks more slowly and clearly, avoids overly complex words and grammar and, importantly, constantly gives clear context so it's easier to follow along. It's more like 'see a thing', 'describe the thing'. Lots of TV aimed at very small children can be annoying or just not at all interesting to watch as an adult, but I found one that I thought was cute and amusing enough to watch quite a few times and funnily enough, it also happened to be my baby niece's favourite TV show at the time. In French it was called 'Hé Ouaoua', in English 'Hey Duggie'. I never used to watch many TV series before but it is a very valuable tool for learning languages and in a more relaxed manner than with textbooks and exercises.

Find media/ literature content adapted to your (evolving) level

Find opportunities for non-time-pressurised socialising

Be prepared to actually study

Try to kill two birds with one stone...

French Python games, reading news in French, ...

Useful resources