Hey, I like that Yabla thing MonMaquis was recommending! (But warning - it ain`t super easy)...
Actually, there are so many way to learn other languages these days - and you don't even have to get out of your easy chair, or spend any money or anything! It's all sooooo easy these days! Just a few years ago, everything was still the old-fashioned way. You'd have to find and go to a class, buy books, spend six months, and then wind up saying "Bonjour, je m'appelle Rick" very poorly. Just try to imagine!
But nowadays there's the internet. And MOVIES, too! And multilingual packaging! It's hard
not to pick up at least a few words in some other language these days. Here's a few tips from someone who'd learned French the old-fashioned way, back in grade school. Then forgot.
MOVIES - ANY movie you might watch at home may also be able to help you with your French. If it's an English-speaking film, often you can switch the language track to French. Or, if not, you can at least put on French subtitles and try to follow along. Or watch French movies! There are quite a few, and so easily available here in the XXIme siècle.
MUSIC - (Obviously.) Lately, I've been yootubing all different French singers and musicians from the past decades, and noticed that nearly everybody has a few "subtitled" vids posted. Check out Jacques Brel! Amel Bent! Avoid Axelle Red!
ONLINE - Language courses abound! Some people swear by Rosetta, but to just pick up a few phrases, try some freebies, first. This has been discussed here before, so I'm not going to start listing them all.
ALSO ONLINE - French newspapers, magazines, stories, games... It's like they've got
everything over there, but in French! When I was learning French in the seventies, we didn't have access to stuff like this. At all. To really get some world news, don't just listen to American sources - try lemonde.fr or liberation.fr (or at least the BBC!)
AND GOOGLE TRANSLATOR - Can be very helpful. It's gotten a lot better in the last few years, although it still makes a LOT of mistakes. So when you use it to translate something, try comparing the 'output' with your 'input' and see if you can spot any!
FRENCH WIKIPEDIA - The recent blackout had me discovering this: all the different-language wikipedias really are
completely different! Each base is built individually, by its own contributors, there is no "mechanism" automatically translating anything added to the other wikis. So if you want ten completely different reports on a subject, you could go to Wikipedia and select English, French, German, Russian, Italian, etc... That also means that the
ENFOIRÉS entry in French wikipedia is
ten times as long as the English entry! Huge charts and everything! Exhaustive! Check it out!
But remember - it still isn't instantaneous. You can learn any language so much faster and easier these days, it's just beautiful. Just perfect. But it will still take some time, so don't get frustrated!
