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Learning French From Scratch?


aspiringdoctor14

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Watch movies, series, documentaries and/or the news in French! Do it every single day if you can, and you will pick up a lot of stuff. You should also read a lot. Just pick your favourite subject, find a well-known French author, and try to read his book.

Now for the speaking... It is often said that you have to speak to become good at speaking, and that "practice makes perfect". Well... there is some truth to this, but it's really not necessary to practice a lot to become quite good. You can pick up the most important stuff simply by hearing the language through conversations, movies, documentaries, etc. You will necessarily repeat some sentences in your head as they are being spoken and this, I believe, helps to develop as a speaker.

I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I began learning English at around 13-14 years of age by reading and watching a lot of movies. I have lived in a Francophone environment all my life and now, over 15 years later, people tell me that my English is "very good" and that I sometimes sound like a native speaker, albeit one with an accent they can't recognize. Unfortunately for me, things can get unintelligible pretty quickly when I'm really tired :(.

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Nothing really beats some time being completely immersed. But yes, music, reading books you've read in english but now in french, and the news are good avenues. Just seeing it everywhere makes me want to learn it and understand it.. I feel like a kid again at times when I look up words I don't know. It's nice, but it can get frustrating when you're tired.. some days I tell myself.. no not today no french today.. some days I make a full blown effort to not speak english.. some days in between :) 

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