What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?

Uni student. Want to learn French and cant seem to find any resource that makes sense to me and while there are plenty of them, they all feel very scattered. I dont mind paying but is there any proper "self-study" track i can take on that provides a proper walkthrough of the language?

I study for an hour a day. Imo my studying is going really well because I’m able to filter out what to focus on the most in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Here’s a short text of what I can say right now without any tool, strictly based on what I’ve learned so far (corrections are welcome):

Salut. Je m’appelle Sam. J‘ai 24 ans et je suis bresilienne. J‘ai un chat qui j‘aime. Je parle portugais, anglais et italien. Je parle aussi un peu coreen. En plus de ça, j’ai beaucoup de hobbies: j‘aime lir des livres de fiction (pour me faire reflechir sur la vie), tenir un journal, écrire dans les cahiers ou dans l‘ordinateur, étudiér les langues et apprendre des faits completement random et écrire ce faits dans mon journal hahah. Hier j‘ai lu le petit prince en français, trop difficile mais j’aime apprendre grammaire et paroles comme ça. J‘ai une amie française, je l’ai rencontrée su hellotalk.

How I am studying:

I downloaded an app called French Listening & Speaking, and I watch one of their videos everyday. I learn the vocabulary and practice speaking line by line (it has french subtitles, translations and speech recognition). After that, I take that vocabulary and ask AI to write sentences using those words that (and here’s the trick) relate to my daily life, hobbies, and personality. For example, since I love reading, Chat GPT always sends me sentences related to stories or bookstores. It also generates sentences about my routine, but in french. If your AI doesn't know you well enough to do this yet, I recommend taking a short personality quiz (you can even ask the AI to generate questions to get to know you) and answering them.

I watch some free lessons on Youtube to grasp the grammar. I recommend memorizing the verbs to be and to have, at least at the beginning. They are VERY important. After that, learn the passé composé (compound past). I have to admit this part was easy for me because the logic is identical to italian, but it’s not hard. Over time, you get used to this past tense format and might even prefer it.

I’ve been practicing spontaneous dialogues with Google Translate’s beta feature. You put in your level and your goal for learning french, and it gives you everyday scenarios to practice with. It includes dialogue, a listening exercise, and then a speaking practice where you have to complete three tasks to finish the conversation, though you can answer whatever you want or ask for hints on how to respond. It’s really good.

I’m also using the wlingua app as a supplement. It explains a few grammar points and covers basic vocabulary as well.

I watch Peppa Pig on YouTube with french subtitles. It’s really boring, but I’ve learned so much vocabulary doing this. Afterwards, I do the same thing I mentioned earlier with the vocabulary: I ask AI to create personalized sentences for me. Then I import those sentences (with audio) into Anki and review them every day.

And lastly: shadowing, shadowing, shadowing. Pronunciation is the hardest part for me in french, so repeating everything I hear is super important. On top of that, EVERY new word that catches my attention and that I want to learn, I listen to its pronunciation and add its audio to anki too.

I hope this helps in some way! I still have a long way to go, but this is what I’ve been doing and what’s been helping me out. Please be mindful that I’m Brazilian, so it’s naturally a bit easier for me compared to a native english speaker, since french and portuguese are derived from latin.

If you have any advice or tips for me, please let me know!

I love French rap and RnB so much and I've been making a playlist of songs that combine French and English. Let me know what you guys think and if you can think of some more that I've missed please tell me!!

This is what I found so far but most of them are from the 2010s:

1. Depuis que j'étais enfant (feat. MF DOOM) - by: Klub Des Loosers ft. MF DOOM

2. Meridian - by: Dave ft. Tiakola

3. Special - by: Dave ft Tiakola

4. Eurostar (feat. Central Cee) - by: Ninho ft.Central Cee

5. Top Of The World - by: The Game ft.Rohff

6. Polémique - by: Freeze corleone ft. Central Cee

7. Plus Jamais (feat. Stormzy) - by: Aya Nakamura ft. Stormzy

8. No No No - by Tayc ft.Jason Derulo

9. Goodbye - by: No Limit, Dadju, Chris Brown, Skread

10. Noble Art (feat. Method Man & Redman) - by: EIAM, Method Man, Redman

11. Lunatic (feat. Akon) - by: Booba ft. Akon

12. Lay Back - by: Jazzy Bazz ft. Freddie Gibbs

13. French Riviera - by: Ateyaba ft.Jhené Aiko

I know there's many Booba ones (this guy made songs with everyone Imfao) but I love the chiller more melodic hip hop sound like Tiakola and Dave, or Stormzy and Aya Nakamura. feel like there's so much we miss by not listening to music from different countries/languages. I didn't know this until recently but France has the biggest rap music industry after the USA, I thought it would be the UK but it makes sense since France probably touches a lot more people internationally. Anyway what are your do you guys have any suggestions that I can add?

Learn French the easy way

Dear Francophone, I would like to ask a simple question about a sentence.

Context, I saw a interview of a female shop owner in Paris after the recent riot and her shop was vandalized and pillaged. During the interview she said something like this: "Ils nous ont meme mis des sommation, les jeunes en disant derniere sommation... avant de penetrer... On n'est pas du 440, on a une vraie... c'est un vrai outil de travail." (I apologize for omitting the accents)

From the context I guess that she meant some kind of enterprise category, but would you explain this to me? Thank you.

Send this video to your friend who always dash to catch the train lol🤫

I am pre-A1, about two thirds of the way through the paul noble audio book. Ive tried to read little A1 novels and watch A1 content on YouTube. But I am really not at that level. Is there any pre-A1 reading or material? Stuff that is basic vocabulary and basic sentences, ie I want, i have, I must. Go, take, buy etc.
Just very basic but that is for interest to add into the learning process.

Suite à notre premier post sur Reddit, une trentaine d’apprenants nous ont rejoints et les premiers jeux et activités prennent forme.

Le but est de réunir des apprenants pour parler ensemble, s’entraider et faire vivre le français.

Je suis français et, avec J, on est là pour t’aider et organiser des activités.

Ça te tente ? Et t’as plus envie de parler, jouer ou débattre ?

Recently got my DELF B2 certificate but my native French listening skills are so poor. I want to improve my comprehension to the faster speed of native French people instead of the slow educational pdocasts I've been listening to thus far. I wanted to get into French TV shows and movies for comprehensible input but I just couldn't find anything interesting that would help me.

I mostly like watching animation or funny commentary videos on movies/TV shows I've watched and watching TV shows I've already watched in dub sometimes sound weird. Any recommendations?

Hey everyone

I’m starting to learn French from today, with the goal of taking either the TEF or TCF around January/February and hopefully getting a good score.

I’ve tried learning French before, but the problem has always been the same: I start enthusiastically, become inconsistent, jump to some completely different topic, and eventually realise I’ve learned basically nothing.

I’m a fairly fast learner, so I don’t think the actual learning is my biggest problem — consistency is. I also have ADHD, which makes it ridiculously easy for me to get distracted by a new resource/course/topic every few days.

So this time I want to approach it differently. I’m thinking of making this an accountability journey where I post here regularly (ideally daily) with:

What I learned that day

New vocabulary/grammar

How much time I studied

What I struggled with

My progress towards TEF/TCF

I’ll probably be using AI quite heavily as a learning/study partner, but I’m definitely open to videos, courses, websites, books, podcasts, TV shows, YouTube channels, etc.

For those who have successfully learned French, especially if you prepared for TEF/TCF, what actually worked for you?

I’d especially love recommendations for:

A structured course or YouTube series

Good websites/apps

French shows/movies that are actually useful for learning

Resources specifically useful for TEF/TCF

Methods for improving listening and speaking

Anything that helped you stay consistent

And honestly, any “do this every day and you’ll improve” type of routine

My biggest priority is not getting overwhelmed by 50 different resources and constantly switching between them.

If anyone has gone from beginner → decent French → TEF/TCF in a relatively short period, I’d love to hear exactly what you did.

Day 1 starts today. 🇫🇷

Hopefully I’ll still be posting here months from now instead of disappearing after Day 4. 💀

Hi, A1 learner (half way I would say) here, I want to hire a French tutor with a goal to reach level B2 but I don't feel good for private class (a bit bored actually), anyone would like to take online class together and learn together ?

My timezone is UTC-4 / UTC-5, preferably weekdays evening :)

His name is Nicolas Bay, and I couldn't find anything from his upbringing that may explain this unique pronunciation. Am I going crazy?

hello guyz we all had tried different websites to practice listening and reading questions and we all know questions get repeated i just want to know do u people think that there's need to make some changes in these websites to better memorize the questions and practice then for our exam

Hey guys as we all know in TCF canada exam listening and reading questions get repeated but I think there must be some changes in mock test websites for better memorizing them ....what do you think what changes they need to made in their websites

Elon Musk dit qu’il donnera une action SpaceX à chaque enfant des États-Unis l’année prochaine. Lundi, une action SpaceX valait environ 150 $. Avec environ 73 millions d’enfants aux États-Unis, le projet coûterait plus de 10 milliards de dollars. Musk n’a pas expliqué exactement comment, ni quand les enfants recevront les actions. SpaceX fabrique des fusées et possède Starlink, un service d’internet par satellite.

Vocabulaire : action (f) = share\ / chaque = every / prochaine = next / valoir = to be worth / environ = about / projet (m) = plan / milliards (m pl) = billions / fabriquer = to make / fusées (f pl) = rockets / posséder = to own*

\dans ce contexte*

English translation

Musk promises SpaceX share to every US child

Elon Musk says he will give one SpaceX share to every child in the United States next year. One SpaceX share was worth about $150 on Monday. With about 73 million children in the US, the plan would cost more than $10 billion. Musk did not explain exactly how or when children will receive the shares. SpaceX makes rockets and owns Starlink, a satellite internet service.

You can read more news stories at Le News, In Easy French.

I was in search of apps, websites and portals that are authentic and reliable, that have models with samples and simulations for practicing Alliance Français based test format ( listening, speaking and writing). The samples should be with Transcriptions and Model Answers.

If anyone could help!! Would really appreciate it!

Merci Beaucoup✌️

I recently got my first bilingual job about a month ago, and although I'm starting to see why people say its not going to teach you much of the language, it has helped me notice a bunch of vocabulary holes I have that I never noticed before

I don't know how to properly close a call, or reasure a client, and using a translator feels like it would lead to mistakes. I know that set phrases and formality are more common in french. All call center workers out there do uou have any advice, insight and resources?

Watch a short France 24 video, jot down two arguments and an example, then give your opinion out loud. For remote work, you could discuss saving time on commuting and feeling isolated at home.

Le Lab B2 app also has arguments and vocabulary by topic if you need a starting point. Practise explaining the ideas in your own words rather than memorising a whole answer.

Do you struggle more with finding ideas or expressing them in French?

When do you use one over the other? Are they synonymous?

I am planning to go to university next year to complete a bachelors of language studies which allows for the selection of up to two major languages. My minor of choice is going to be in linguistics. What language would pair well with studying French? Is it better to choose something with no relation to make each language distinct in study or is it better to have familiarity but risk mixing them up? My options are Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, German or Indonesian.