Institut Français vs self-study

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matt4
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Institut Français vs self-study

Postby matt4 » 2015-08-16, 17:14

Bonjour,

I plan to live in Belgium at some point but will need French as a second language.
Currently I study with Institut Français at A1.1 level. I'm finding it a tad hard going as it's grammar centric and a few in the classes are linguists (able to speak several other languages).

Is self-study a good option to become fluent? What books? Would be recommended? I need some opinions on what's best here.

Merci,

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Liootas
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Re: Institut Français vs self-study

Postby Liootas » 2015-08-18, 19:00

From my own experience I highly recommend you to pick up some French on Duolingo. After finishing the French course on Duolingo you won't be fluent but you certainly will be A2.3-/A2.4. Most importantly, Duolingo is absolutely free and is quite good at teaching the basics!

After that you can take some French classes (you could start with B1.1 I think) and step by step reach the fluency:) You'll save A LOT of money that you would have spent on A1-A2 courses.

In other words, I'm pretty sure you can get the basics of French online and keep the money for French intermediate/advanced classes :) It worked for me with Spanish.
[flag=]lt[/flag] native
[flag=]en[/flag] B2/C1
[flag=]fr[/flag] B2
[flag=]es[/flag] A2/B1
Picked up some [flag=]eo[/flag] and [flag=]ru[/flag]
Interested in linguistics and conlangs:)

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Tonic
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Re: Institut Français vs self-study

Postby Tonic » 2015-08-31, 16:55

Try this http://www1.rfi.fr/lffr/statiques/accueil_apprendre.asp

News in easy french. You have the transcript as well. That works if you are looking for something more centered on listening. But it would be good for you to work on the text before listening.

Also, I always think that having a tutor or two (once or twice a week at least) is good to develop your speaking skills and get immediate valuable feedback.
Please correct my mistakes.

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Re: Institut Français vs self-study

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-01-07, 21:31

matt4 wrote:Is self-study a good option to become fluent?

I learned most of what I know in French through self-study, and people seem to agree that I'm fluent.
What books? Would be recommended? I need some opinions on what's best here.

I would recommend french.about.com. If it's a book you're looking for, how about Teach Yourself Business French? It has lots of advanced vocabulary but starts out assuming you're a beginner. On the downside, I seem to remember them not translating everything, so it might be best to have a dictionary with it, too, though. Also, it's pretty dry reading material, not to mention very outdated by now (at least the edition I have is).

Personally, I just used a whole bunch of old school textbooks. I can tell you which ones if you're interested, but sorry if this doesn't help you much.


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