need to re learn french
 

French was the first language that i was taught to read and write in elementary school but now that I'm in high school they stopped teaching french to me. now i got less than two years to be fluent in french because i live in montreal . by now i have forgotten a great deal about speaking french so im wondering what are some good ways to learn french without taking courses? I was thinking about reading a lot of french novels .

Reading is one of the best ways to get back into French. In fact, doing everything you can to make your lifestyle more relevant to the French language will help. Listen to Radio-Canada or other French radio stations instead of CBC and English stations. Change your computer's language to French. When you're in downtown Montréal, speak in French.

Do you need to become fluent in French to get into a certain CÉGEP or UQAM, or something like that?

As you can see, I'm a huge Montréal nut. One day I hope to move there :)

thanks for the advice any good books you would recommend?

The Count of Monte Cristo or as they say it in french: Le Comte de Monte Cristo

Le Petit Prince? :p

Recently I've seen a lot of commercials for Rosetta Stone (a computer-based language program) on television and I was wondering if anyone has used them or another similar one?

I've been using Rosetta Stone for about 6 months and I think its great. Its a little pricey but well worth the money imo.

I think taking courses is the best you can do ;). Here in toronto we learn french in school, but not me, Im taking some english lessons.

But there are many people as some mexicans who comes to the US or Canada and dont know anything about english , and 1 or 2 years later they speak english very well without taking lessons, maybe it could be the same with french :D. (I speak a little english because I took some lessons in Mexico, but I still need more :rolleyes:)

I think I will tell my teacher I want to learn french instead of more english.:D

Ohh yes, there are many french tv channels on Rogers tv. sometimes I watch them, and I understand some words, wich I hear in Alizee's songs :D. Like 3 weeks ago I was watching Amelie :p. *Amelie a de l'or a donner, melodie de vie..*

I figure since I already mentioned it in this thread, I'd put an update in here. In a message above, I was inquiring about Rosetta Stone. Anyway, a few days ago I decided to get French Level 1. It's a Christmas gift, so I won't actually get it until then. But I did make the order myself. Anyway I'm excited and even a little nervous. I'm not entirely new to French as I took two years back in High School. But that was a long time ago and so I'm sure it will be difficult re-learning it. But I really want to do this. And yes, my discovering Alizée has something to do with this. But I've wanted to learn another language for a while and it just seemed to be the right time to do it. :D

I'm trying to decide between learning French or Russian.

Do you know any Russian people?

Nope I don't.

Aren't you Russian, Tchai? If you are not, why did you choose that user name :D? I can't even pronounce it :p.

No, I'm not Russian. I am of German descent. I chose Tchaikovsky as my username because he is my favorite composer.

And it's pronounced chai-kawf-skee.

Well learn French first, Its pretty easy to learn compared to Russian.

But with Russian, you may be able to haggle discounts and make yourself more intimidating overall. I've given a 50% off to a Russian once buying cologne back when I worked in retail part time. :p

Alizée knows Russian?!? :confused:


:p

"Moose and squirrel!" :p

I took two semesters of French when I was in high school and then stopped because the classes were getting more and more spoken as opposed to reading and writing. That's the way it should be but for someone who's hearing impaired, it wasn't exactly ideal and the classes weren't required so I dropped it. However, I picked it up again back in July and even though I forgot 99% of what I learned in high school, I re-learned the rules that I had forgotten very quickly. The vocabulary, however, is a different story and I'm working on that. When I got to new concepts that I never covered such as past tenses, it took a lot longer to learn the new concepts as opposed to re-learning the other concepts. The only drawback to my method is that I haven't worked on my pronounciation because I can't just hear the sounds from CDs, I have to have someone show me how to make it face to face. In other words, I'm going to sticking to writing messages if I ever go to France. :(

We always could use the Ventrilo channel to practice spoken French together... :o

Please do! :D
Jung isn't paying for nothing!

I know how you feel, I'm hearing impaired as well. I wish I could get french subtitles for all Alizée's songs.

The Rosetta Stone program is amazing! I still need to read the manual but I did one of the lessons and immediately got myself into speaking, listening and translating. :D

I just ran across this link and found it interesting. For Americans, it answers the question, "Why learn French as a second language?"

http://www.fll.vt.edu/French/whyfrench.html

For anyone learning a foreign language or thinking of picking up one, here is an excellent forum filled with study methods, personal experiences and testimonies, etc.:

Thanks TDM, that's a great link you posted.

how long??
 

I took a french class in high school. I no longer remember anything. I need to learn french in a short period of time very well.

Realistically how long will it take?

assuming I bear down.

I know it varies.

Just a range if anyone could.

I've read a lot of reviews on rosetta stone and most of them were negative. The languages I were looking at weren't french though. I figured I would do spanish or korean first since I have a stronger basis with either of the 2. Spanish from high school and Korean from my mother. But the French version is pretty much on point? How many volumes do you have to purchase to be able to fluently speak it in a predominantly French speaking region?

As many as you are willing to waste your money on.

No, really, there is nothing special about Rosetta Stone. The most important factor in learning a language is desire and perhaps good learning material (which certainly does not cost hundreds of dollars).

I absolutely agree that desire is the key. But even if you have that, if you don't have good learning material, you don't have a chance. That's where I do think Rosetta Stone is important. Say what you will about the cost, but it is good learning material. It starts with the very basics and it's structured. It's laid out in such a way that it forces you to learn the material before moving on. I took some French back in school and while I do think that was also helpful, since it was a school setting, if you didn't understand something, you were in trouble. Rosetta Stone lets you work at your own pace.:)

I tried Rosetta Stone and I don’t think its very good. Michel Thomas is much better. He teaches you how similar English and French are and you have to "think it out" not just memorize a bunch of words. It worked great for me however, I kind of lost the desire to learn and I haven't finished the tapes. Plus his method is free and you can listen to it on your iPod wherever you go. Its great for long flights and bus rides.

A french lesson I found on failblog.org. :D

<a href="http://failblog.org/2008/08/25/french-lesson-fail/"><img src="http://failblog.wordpress.com/files/2008/08/fail-owned-french-lesson-fail.jpg" alt="fail owned pwned pictures" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3915" /></a><br />see more <a href="http://failblog.org">pwn and owned pictures</a>

It's taking me a while to learn French but I'm getting there. It's getting easier to translate random French quotes or sentences I come across so I know that I'm learning. I started last July and I still have a bit of difficulty in reading the dual language French/English books I have. About half the nights, I don't work on French because of whatever reason and when I do work on it, I probably spend only about 45 minutes to an hour each night. Typically, I work on French during the commercials of whatever show I'm watching unless there's nothing on so I just turn the TV off. I sometimes catch up a bit on the weekends but it's not enough to make up for not working on it every night. If I actually spent 60-90 minutes every night, I'm sure I'd be a lot further along than I am now.