I completed the elementary level of French at NYU and fell in love with the language — it is charming and beautiful, and it gifted me with the excitement of learning about a new culture and part of the world.
However, I never felt I would progress to the point of watching a TV show in French without relying on English subtitles since we didn’t have many opportunities to practice our speaking and comprehension skills. We spend most of our time in class learning grammar rules that we will forget if we don’t actively use them.
Therefore, I looked for resources more interesting than grammar textbooks that could help me improve my French on my own. Here is a list of the materials I have used — in order of difficulty — that brought me from a beginner to intermediate French speaker.
- Inner french podcast
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While teaching French at the French Institute in Warsaw, Poland, Hugo Cotton had the idea of creating a more engaging learning tool for his students: a podcast entirely in French about topics ranging from Francophone culture to self-development and working life. I started listening to the podcast right after I finished my Elementary II French class, and I could understand it without any trouble. Since Hugo is a professor, his pace and word choice are intentionally chosen for students to understand. If you hear any word you do not recognize, you can check the podcast’s transcription for free on InnerFrench’s website. Or — even better — you can follow the transcription while listening to the audio.
Since the creation of the podcast, InnerFrench’s team has grown. Today, Anna and Ingrid, the other French teachers of the team, also contribute to episodes, making the tool even more interesting as it pushes you to understand French spoken with a pace and manner that is different from Hugo’s.
This podcast can be a great new activity to do during your commute.
- “30-day mastery: perfect past tenses” french edition by olly richards
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I came across this book when I was learning the differences between the passé composé and imparfait verb tenses. The author Olly Richards is an American polyglot that speaks eight foreign languages. Richards advocates for his language-learning method, StoryLearning, which involves learning a language through stories. ”Your job is simply to look out for (notice) where and how this language is being used,” he writes. “Over 30 days of intense depth and focus on the main language point, your brain will gradually get used to how the topic works, in just the same way as a child picks up the correct language from their surroundings.”
To follow the method correctly, readers should read no more than one chapter per day and complete the quizzes at the end of each chapter. On the 30th day, readers should be more familiar with the language — or in this case the grammar topic — of the book. He has written over thirty StoryLearning books in a variety of languages, including Japanese, Russian and Swedish. You can check more of Richards’ French books here.
- “Lire en français facile” (LFF) Books
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The book collection Lire en Français Facile (or ”to read in easy French’)’ is from Hachette FLE, an international French-as-a-Foreign-Language (FFL) publisher that offers over 900 titles for both teachers and students. The hallmark of this collection is that it offers adapted editions of fiction and classical works of French literature to learners of different levels, from A1 to B2. In case you’re wondering what this classification means, I will briefly explain it to you.
The nomenclatures of A1 to C2 are part of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), a scale that measures your proficiency in any European language. There are, in total, six levels in the scale as each letter (A, B and C) has two stages. In this system, B2 stands for upper intermediate. According to Alliance Française, an international French Language School, students at this level ”understand the main ideas of a complex text such as a technical piece related to their field, spontaneously interact without too much strain for either the learner or the native speaker, and produce a detailed text on a wide range of subjects.”
But, no worries if you are not there yet! You can read, for instance, a B1 LFF edition of Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” which contains only 88 pages. Alongside the stories, these editions include reading comprehension exercises relating to each chapter at the end of the book, important vocabulary in footnotes and a free audiobook you can download on your devices.
- passerelles podcast
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To be honest, the Passerelles podcast by FFL teacher Emilie was difficult for me when I first tried it. I discovered it at the same time as I started listening to the Inner French podcast. Since I could not completely understand the episodes, I saved Passerelles for later. It was only when I started my B1 French course that I gave it another try.
Emilie talks about a variety of interesting topics, from the history of the city Bordeaux to why people give presents to each other. As I could finally understand her podcast, I realized I had progressed in my language skills. So, if you are taking intermediate French classes, this podcast might be for you.
- section “apprendre le français” of tv5monde
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You might know Tv5Monde as a TV broadcast, however, its website also offers free online resources — including e-books, games and articles — to help you learn French and explore different cultures that speak French. What I like to use from their educational program are the listening comprehension exercises from the section ”Apprendre le français,” which means “to learn French.” There, you can filter the exercises by level and themes that range from cinema and architecture to politics and science.
Each thematic exercise is composed of a video that you can watch and rewatch as many times as you want — with or without subtitles — as you answer different types of questions that test your listening comprehension and help enhance your vocabulary.
These are just a few of many resources you can use to practice your French skills in less than an hour per day — even while doing quotidian activities such as cleaning your dorm or taking the subway. You can also read a limited number of free articles in magazines and newspapers, such as ELLE France and Le Monde, or watch interesting videos in French on Youtube, including TedTalks. Whatever you choose, I hope you improve your French while having fun. Good luck!