How to practice French while traveling?

[golyplot]

Recently, I have been studying French again and am planning to go on vacation to Paris by myself soon. Of course, one of my goals is to practice speaking French, but based on past experience I'm not sure if I will actually be able to do that, given my natural introvert tendencies and the awkwardness of talking to strangers, especially when you aren't comfortable speaking. A couple years ago, I visited Berlin but hardly spoke German while I was there. I also understand that Paris is a tourist heavy city and thus will probably encourage me to speak English.

So now I am trying to think of activities I might plan to force myself to speak French. Does anyone have any tips?

P.S. I plan to spend around a week there.

[rdearman]

I am using my phone so copying URLs can be painful. But I did write a blog post about crazy secret missions you can use to force yourself to speak the language.

http://rdearman.org/blog.html#org077d3a5

[DaveAgain]

The guided tours around museums and churches often have different language options. You can choose the french option there to place yourself within a french speaking group.

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One of the YouTube french teachers (Home Language) recommended that french learners living in France consider volunteering for french charities as this would place them in group of french speakers. Perhaps you could try a one or two day experiment there?

EDIT
You could do an emergency first aid course, in the UK [SJA, Red Cross] these can be just a morning.

EDIT2
Language exchange website ConversationExchange.com has a "face to face conversation" option. To facilitate this you can search for conversation partners by country and town. Half your conversation would have to be in English, but the other half would be in french, with a co-operative partner you've chosen yourself. (NB I've not used this website myself, but others on this forum have.)

[javier_getafe]

Something that never failes is going here:

https://www.internations.org/



However, it is only for people looking for spending a fun evening. (althought you can also find morning events).

My expat france friend has been going there a lot in order to learn spanish with very good outcomes.

[gsbod]

Get the TGV somewhere. Every single time I end up in some kind of discussion with someone who can't count, either which carriage or which seat they are supposed to be in!

[Arnaud]

Walk your dog in a park
Sooner or later a native speaker's dog will approach yours and a conversation will naturally start...

[Cavesa]

Bookstores!

Not much of a problem with people switching on you because of prejudices towards the foreigners. If you are in a store with the French books, it is somewhat subconsciously assumed you can use the language.

And you can also fill your luggage with tons of books to read at home! Perfect!

Also, people who talk about books (on almost any topic) are usually worth talking to.

I'd like to second the guided tours in the language, that could be a great opportunity. Also, why not enjoy a bit of live culture? I have yet to do this, but it must be great to find a local concert or theatre and get tickets for an evening while you are staying in the city.

[zenmonkey]

Speaking of bookstores - do not forget to go to St. Michel station and visit the "LANGUES - LETTRES - LIVRES EN V.O." Gibert (Number 6) on the right as you are facing the fountain. Probably one of the better language libraries in Paris. There are 11 buildings from the same company along that street focused on other topics. Some of them are of little interest except to specialists but it is something to see.

[Cavesa]

Speaking of bookstores - do not forget to go to St. Michel station and visit the "LANGUES - LETTRES - LIVRES EN V.O." Gibert (Number 6) on the right as you are facing the fountain. Probably one of the better language libraries in Paris. There are 11 buildings from the same store along that street. Some of them are of little interest except to specialists but it is something to see.

Yes, it is the best street in the whole city! And there are also a few more bookstores, unrelated to Gibert, with lots of awesome second hand books for great prices. I loved it there!

[garyb]

Bookstores!
...
Also, why not enjoy a bit of live culture? I have yet to do this, but it must be great to find a local concert or theatre and get tickets for an evening while you are staying in the city.

I agree about bookstores. I had a couple of good chats with staff last time I was in Paris.

Live culture is a good one, but be careful... in Nice I thought I had booked a pleasant relaxing evening at the theatre but it turned out to be a tiny venue with an audience of 20 or 30 people and lots of audience participation! Good idea if you really want to challenge yourself, but I hadn't realised what I was getting myself into and I was on edge the whole time in case they asked me something