Learning Spoken French: A request for links

[Deepwaters]

I made a discovery recently.

My ability to read French is coming along very well. My written French is still awful and full of mistakes, and I still have to look up conjugations and so on, but I can deal with it. But when it comes to understanding spoken French, I'm hopeless.

But lately, when listening to spoken French, such as Alizée's interviews or audio recordings in on-line newspapers, I have found myself just listening to the words and mouthing them, not trying to understand. Occasionally I'll recognize a word, but it goes too fast for me to understand it the way I can when I'm reading, and mostly I'm just hearing and learning the sounds themselves, and imitating them.

What I realized is that that's the way I learned English as a child. I didn't have another language, and I wasn't trying to understand what was being said, but there were all these noises around me and I would hear them and instinctively imitate them. Eventually I started to connect meaning with the sounds, and it all fell into place.

So -- what I'm going to ask for now, is links to anything French, audio, and non-musical, so I can just immerse myself in it. Music's not as good for this, I need the rhythms and sounds when people are talking, not singing.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[ggin]

I know you are looking for links, but another thing I do is watch movies (DVDs) with the french audio tracks. In most cases you can put subtitles on if you want to also.

[ALS]

I'd say use a torrent and down load Rosetta stone French 1 and 2.

[Deramo]

io accordo! Rosetta Stone e' il piu meglio!

It is because of Rosetta Stone, that I'm nearly 100% fluent in Italian, and have secured a job in Roma to begin later this year!! Just don't fly through the course though. Take your time and go over everything several times. Having the text material version to go with the software helps alot to!

I took my time & actually translated word for word every text excerise in addition to the software audio course....After I finished Rosetta Stone though I found through additional studies that Rosetta Stone barely hits at the verb tense though...and I had to do a whole workbook of Barron's on verb's to understand them better. Still to this day....I'm learning verb tenses in italian.

I like Berlitz to, but Rosetta Stone is so in depth!

Wanted to chime in on this because, I also decided to learn French now...thanx to Alizee & Audrey Tautou!!...lol.....

Well not only that...going to France in late september/early october for several weeks taking in Paris for Fashion week and then hopping around the country for two weeks! Decided to want to learn the language as much as possible before my departure! Doubt in 6 months that I will be fluent though, it took me 1 1/2 years to reach my fluency in italian as i am now.

Because of my success with Rosetta Stone. I immediately got a used version of level 1&2 on ebay for $50, and have been going for about a week now on lessons.

Ciao

[garçoncanadien]

you neeeeeeeed to look at French news streams http://www.alizee-forum.com/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif

je te recommande vivement de te diriger vers les sites suivantes:

www.france2.fr
www.tv5.org
www.lci.fr

il faut les regarder comme tu regardes la télé ;)

[espire]

garçoncanadien is right. You won't learn a thing about spoken French from any popular software, nor will you learn it from any text-based resource. The way to learn to comprehend spoken French is to listen to it constantly.

If you happen to be trying to understand a specific thing, such as an interview with Alizée, simply watch it over and over. Only understanding a handful of words is exactly where you might expect to be right now, but each time you watch the interview, you'll pick up a handful more.

Just be glad you're not trying to learn Quebec French (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibgkLNN7q9c)! :D

[Deepwaters]

MERCI, GC ! That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Yes, Espire, I had already come to that conclusion. This is the way we learn our native languages when we're children. It's really the only way, in the end. Studying grammar and so on is what you do once you already know how to speak a language, to learn how to speak it "correctly." :p

And I can't afford Rosetta Stone right now anyway.


Just be glad you're not trying to learn Quebec French (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibgkLNN7q9c)! :D

LOL one thing at a time. :)

[lefty12357]

Thanks guys ! Understanding spoken French is what I need to work on as well. Thanks for the links, Garçon...

[garçoncanadien]

Guys please say screw slang if you are still learning French, it is no help at all, you can live very comfortably without knowing slang French expressions

And listening to an interview over and over again is ALSO no way to learn French, you will only learn the words in those interviews, which is only 0.00001% of the whole French language. You need to listen to DIFFERENT French every day.

when i was a toddler i said "screw French slang" and "screw English slang" http://www.alizee-forum.com/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif because i honestly had no need to learn it. now i just know a wee bit of slang in both languages, yet I can get on quite comfortably with Frenchies. I know more than enough of both languages to correctly guess the meaning of slangs anyway.

[soik]

Get french movies with subtitles that match the audio word for word.
Here's a partial list from the following link(i hope it's okay to post non-alizee links) :

http://www.greencine.com/list?action=viewList&listID=5419


Get netflix then rent and burn to pc. Otherwise pay at least $20 each DVD.

[Deepwaters]

I'm going to concentrate on non-slang French for now, although if I pick up some colloquialisms on the way that will be fine with me.

I'd also recommend not going with the subtitles. I find it difficult to listen and read at the same time, even in the same language; in two different languages it would be impossible.

I like the links that GC presented. It's got visual content as well as audio, e.g. news broadcasts, so I can pick up a lot from the visual context. Plus words I recognize, of course.

My feeling is that if I just keep listening, for an hour or more every day, it will start to gel. Especially since I already have a fairly decent French vocabulary from studying the written language.

[Toc De Mac]

Another resource introduced to me by my French teacher is the Champs-Elysées program, which centers around contemporary French issues (which, according to this month's issue, include "Le restaurant d'Alain Ducasse sur la Tour Eiffel," "Moulin Rouge et French Cancan à Montmartre," "Jean-Jacques Aillagon Président du Domaine de Versailles," etc.) and includes an audio CD and an accompanying full text transcription which includes various footnotes and possible unknown terms.

Here's the site if you're interested: http://www.champs-elysees.com/

I still mostly learn spoken French by listening to news reports on sites like those provided by GC. ;)