How do I improve my language skills?

Question

I am just about to complete a home study course in French and feel I now have a fairly good idea of how to construct sentences.As living in France is not an option can anyone tell me how do I proceed from here.I work shifts so I cannot go to eve classes .I am not studying for A levels etc so being technically proficient is not that important.At the moment I cannot understand French spoken unless it is clear and precise and as I cannot "emerse" myself in the language I wonder if anyone has any ideas on how to move on to a more intermediate level.Eventualy I would like to be able to understand spoken French in the same way I understand English and read novels in French without difficulties.
Any advice will be gratufully accepted

Answer 1

Read the specially graded novels for students, they often come with a CD so that you can also listen to them. Reading out loud is a great exercise. Listen to books on tape in French (also for students, choose your level) You can find this stuff in any bookshop with a language section.

Answer 2

Definitely watch films in french, try putting on french subtitles at the same time if you find they are speaking too fast for you to understand. Maybe you could look into getting a private tutor to come to your house and teach you? Also there are websites where you can meet people of different nationalities and practice in a language exchange. Perhaps you could even host a french student for a few weeks or months, there are lots of companies who arrange this, such as www.enfamilleoverseas.co.uk. Good Luck!

Answer 3

The Rosetta Stone folks have the best at home training system to increase your ability to understand spoken French. You can either buy the whole package for like $500, or try their web based service for $50 per month. Once you have gotten further ahead, you might try watching some movies in French to further increase your ability. A lot of movies have extra languages available on the DVD, so check out your collection.

Answer 4

The best way to learn to understand a spoken language is to actually listen to it. Watch French channels, listen to their radio, songs in French, get their lyrics from the Internet and sing along. See if you can make friends with any French-speaking people, not necessarily from France, North Africans would do, watch French chats and try taking part, telling people that you are learning, they will be eager to help. See if anybody in your family or friends ever learnt French and if they want to dig it up and dust it off with you.

Answer 5

When I did A-Level French, we had to spend half an hour each day listening to french radio. It really helps you to understand the language and also the regional dialects. Sorry, I can't remember the frequency, it was a few years ago but you should be able to find it. Good Luck!

Answer 6

You could try hanging out on French websites, reading as much as you can, first silently then aloud, then going to a web translation service like world.altavitsa.com. Called AltaVista Babel Fish (geekily very cool!), it translates text and web pages from one language to another.
Another great vocabulary builder is the game 'Bookworm.' You many have seen it here on Yahoo. In Bookworm, you spell words using adjacent tiles, which then disappear and are replaces by new tiles. It's fun, and it's available in different laguages. For French, go to this site:

http://www.fr.zylom.com/game/121/bookworm.html

Also, Yahoo itself is available in French! Go to http://fr.yahoo.com , and you can practice your french with email, chat, and all the other amenities that Yahoo offers. (I don't work for Yahoo, honest! :) )

Answer 7

Go to the botom of the page, click on the french flag in the international answers section and you will be able to ask and answer questions in french, this will help, you could also ask about learning to a higher level in that section.

Answer 8

I think watching movies in French (and maybe with english subtitles for starters) would be a good way and quite an enjoyable too.
Chatting online or writing emails in French helps too I think. - that was basically how I learnt English -

Answer 9

Move to France for a few months.

Answer 10

im 14 and i speak french, german and italian. basically wot helped me was to get someone else to speak to me in the language constantly and keep on doin it til i understood it. if no1 else can spk that language you have to write then say the sentences, but b patient because it takes time to get it!!!