How I Learned French In 15 Months (Step By Step Process)
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2024
- The other day, I learnt that I passed the DELF B2 French exam. This is a world recognised qualification which proves that you have an intermediate level in French, signalling that you’re comfortable understanding a large amount of the language and that you can communicate comfortably.
It was crazy to receive this news because, 15 months before I took the exam, I had a very basic understanding of the language and had only a few classic words like ‘bonjour’ and ‘au revoir’ in my French repertoire.
Growing up, I always thought that learning a foreign language would always be out of my reach. It was something reserved for very intelligent people, or those who had parents from different countries so were brought up on the language from birth. When COVID-19 hit in February 2020, and with all of the free time from staying inside, I decided to give learning French a crack. ‘What’s the worse that could happen?', I thought.
I remember the distinct feeling of overwhelm as I started on the journey. It felt like I was about to climb a tall mountain with no idea of the route to take, nor what equipment to bring. What was the problem that led to me feeling overwhelmed? I didn’t have a clear process to follow.
Over the next year and 3 months, I experimented with different methods for learning French. Some worked a treat and others weren’t worth the time of day. After a while, I realised that I was creating my own step-by-step process for learning the language. Finally, when I felt like I had progressed enough, I decided to test my skills by taking the DELF B2 exam which I subsequently passed.
Looking back, I remember how daunting it appeared to me trying to learn a foreign language without a clear process. So, to help others who might be in a similar situation of wanting to learn a language but not knowing where to start, I’m going to share my step-by-step process in this video.
The process that I lay out is by no means perfect and it can certainly be tweaked and refined to suit your individual learning style. It is just what worked for me, and I would follow this exact process if I were to learn another language like Spanish or Italian.
Links related to the methods and content covered:
Method 1: Learn French with Paul Noble for Beginners - amzn.to/3mpl4Sq
Method 2: Duolingo - www.duolingo.com/
Method 3: French music - open.spotify.com/playlist/3bS... (my French playlist)
Method 4: Podcasts - innerfrench.com/
Method 5: Grammar books - amzn.to/3zbbmXc
Method 6: italki - www.italki.com/i/ref/FCcBaD?h...
Method 7: French news - www.france24.com/fr/ (France 24), www.lemonde.fr/ (Le Monde)
Method 8: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in French - amzn.to/383h8ON
Method 9: HelloTalk - www.hellotalk.com/
Equipment used:
Camera (Canon 70D) - amzn.to/3k6esoV
Second Camera (Go Pro Hero 8) - amzn.to/3uN3NV8
Third Camera (iPhone 7) - amzn.to/3lNxbGw
Mic: Rodesmartlav+ - amzn.to/3dyq42v
Joby 3K Tripod - amzn.to/3jNk72N SAMTIAN 58 inch
Tripod - amzn.to/3b6QLZD
Credits
Mount Everest video - David Snow, • Everest Start to Summi...
Walking through Paris - Prowalk tours, • Paris Evening Walk and...
Stock footage from Pexels - www.pexels.com/
Music from Epidemic Sounds - epidemicsound.com/referral/5qaq9
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:10 Method 1
3:10 Method 2
4:26 Method 3
5:14 Method 4
6:01 Method 5
7:29 Method 6
9:05 Method 7
10:21 Method 8
11:29 Method 9
12:47 Conclusion
#france #french #learnfrench #language #languagelearning #learnlanguage #frenchin15months #français #lafrance #englishtofrench #bilingual #italki #hellotalk #harrypotter #duolingo #paulnoble #podcasts #news #music
Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that the channel may receive a small commission for any purchases made after you click on one of these links. This is at no extra cost to you, and it will be a way to support the channel. Thank you :)
Useful resources linked to each method can be found in the description. 📚
Amazing video. I’ve been learning French with a private tutor since January after doing it for my GCSEs over 30 years ago. I’ve set myself a goal to be fluent in 2 years. Your video has given me the clear outline of how to achieve this. Thanks so much!
Thanks for all the great tips. Congrats for passing DELF B2
Thanks for the kind words, glad to be of help.
Congrats on your achievement and thanks for sharing your journey! It's really helpful.
Thanks Igor, glad you find it useful!
Thanks for this video. I'm currently learning French in a similar way that you did. Your video gave some really good suggestions of other things I can do to progress.
This is so incredibly helpful! Thank you. I am basically going to follow your plan. 🙌
Thanks for watching. Glad you will find it useful and best of luck with your studies!
great Recommendations , thanks!
How do you have so little comments, your videos are great! I just randomly learned out the Paul Noble series and downloaded on Audible. I just kindof got a random desire to work on French this past week. Rock on buddy!
Thanks for the kind words pal! The Paul Noble series is an excellent early step in the French journey and I’d highly recommend his works, best of luck with your learning!
Some great tips. Thank you!
Had you not shown your DELF exam score in the beginning, I would have thought you were making this up. Great suggestions!
Merci! J'adore cette incroyable vidéo.
De rien :)
Your experience mirrors my approach -- even to the point of reading through HP in French. I have not jumped into the deep end yet of tutors/native speakers, but planning to add that in the next few months. Thanks for sharing!
Great vid learned a lot on how to learn.
Congratulations! Great video. I’ve just moved to France and the struggle real! Starting with paul noble today 👍
Thanks Alex! Wow, sounds incredible to have moved to France. You'll be talking the language in no time I bet. I think being immersed in the language day in day out is key for being fluent. Best of luck!
Why I only got this recommened now? Great video, thank you so much!
Thank you, hope it helped!
great advice, thank you very much))
Happy to help, cheers!
Thank you
J'adore la musique t'as choisi!
Well this was very reassuring because I started with Paul Noble (and agree completely with your assessment) and I have now just reached my 100 days on Duo Lingo and again it has proved a game changer in my learning. I will certainly follow your advice and hope my journey proves as successful as yours has clearly been. Merci beaucoup.
I'm a B1 in English, but now I'm going to learn French because I want to move to Canada :D
Tomorrow I'm taking my first French class, wish me luck, guys :3
Are you still learning
Loved this video. I am currently at B1 of Spanish and just finishing A1 of French. Doing both simultaneously from English as my base. Will definitely be using the methods you suggested. I have been studying through Duolingo too and contrary to the opinions of most people, I love the app. I have a 960+ day streak and they are very helpful to expose you to the language.
Thanks for the kind words. I agree, Duolingo is awesome if you have the patience. I think there's a lot of value in repetition through different contexts, like the app does. That's a good streak, congrats
Just starting out. Seems like a mountain to climb but your video was very inspiring and helpful. Thank you. Here goes....
Good luck, you got this!
I had zero french knowledge. I actually started with Duolingo for three weeks then started with Paul Noble. I feel someone like me would benefit from picking up some basics from Duolingo first before listening to Paul Noble 🎉
I was the other way round. Really valued having Paul Noble's simple explanations of the basics first before I ventured into Duolingo, but whatever works for you is the best thing to do. Hope your journey is still going well
Paul Noble's audio book is excellent. He's quite dry and sarcastic too
Agreed. Love his communication style
Thanks for sharing your process. Im curious, on average how long did you study per day? And how long did your Duolingo take to complete? Thanks again!
Happy to help. I'd say probably an hour or two a day on average when I was in the early stages. When I was close to my B2 exam, it was quite intense possibly a couple to a few hours a day. Duolingo took me a good year to complete I think, it depends how much time you have. As it was the start of the pandemic, everyone was inside so I blitzed my way through the Duolingo tree.
What I was looking for. This is first time I am learning a new language French, alone by myself. I am like 7 months into learning. Right now I use Audio course Mitchel Thomas + Duolingo + Assimil Reading ( just started Assimil a while ago as Duolingo reading is becoming just too simple for me). I might add news or other article reading too later in my learning process after some time.
Glad to hear it mate, sounds like you’re on the right path for learning this language. You’ve got this
Can anyone help me in finding where to download Paul Nobel beginners French audio book
HI! thanks for the tips. I am just curious, what was your daily average time? 1hour? 2 hours?6 hours a day? Thanks.
Thanks! It varied a lot but as I was approaching my exam I would say it increased significantly to like at least 2-3 hours a day.
Remember that you can get in some extra practice time by listening to french podcasts and songs in place of English ones
I’d like to learn French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Not sure where to start. I feel Spanish would help with learning some Italian and Portuguese but which Spanish?
I'd highly recommend picking one and learning it intensely first. Especially if it's your first foreign language. Learning too many languages at once can become overwhelming, which I know as I initially started learning Spanish alongside french but I quickly dropped the Spanish.
Can you recommend a tutor on Italki?
It's hard to recommend any one tutor as everyone has different learning styles and goals. Also, I'm pretty sure my iTalki tutors that I spent most time learning with are currently not teaching.
In terms of tutor selection, I looked mainly at the reviews and the tutor video where they explain a bit about themself and what kind of content they would be willing to cover.
One of my my main criteria, which I told my tutors each time, was to stop and correct me every single time I made a mistake and explain why. This was frustrating and time consuming but 100% worth the effort in my opinion.
Good luck!
will you go for the c2?
I will one day soon. I need to get back into my french. I'm spending some time in France this summer so I'm looking forward to some quality immersion. C2 is basically perfect fluency so need to get used to interacting on the fly comfortably
First of all, congratulations for your effort. I'd like to hear a presentation in French in your own words. I was somewhat astonished that you mispronounced some names of the mentioned French artists: Françoise and not François Hardy, Joe Dassin (not dàsseen but dassein). I hope you'll forgive me.😁
Thanks. I am still learning, and I only passed the DELF B2 exam but you could say these are pretty basic pronounciation errors. My bad.
Deeply gives different translation to what my native French tutor taught me 🚮
No translator is perfect, but DEEPL is miles better than Google Translate in my opinion
@@runningcafe1 Hindsight, I wasn't grasping the language well days ago, it's on me. It was correct all along...
Lol, 15 months is a lot
hope your house wasn't built with bricks and glue
Lol! You can tell my knowledge about construction is pretty limited haha
Thanks for sharing. I listen to Inner French, but I highly recommend LanguaTalk Slow French too, to mix it up.
Thanks. I've never heard of that one, but to be honest I understand pretty much most things that are said verbally now so it's probably more useful if you're just starting out. Good luck