Any good and to-the-point French course?

All about language programs, courses, websites and other learning resources
sanjiu27
White Belt
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:59 pm
Location: Basque Country
Languages: Spanish (N) | English (prod. Intermediate) | Russian (Beginner).
x 112

Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby sanjiu27 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:38 pm

Hi! I'm looking for a French course that covers, at a minimum, levels A1-B1. As a Spanish speaker I've already a good deal of passive understanding, so I'd love to find anything a that goes a bit faster than Assimil and the like. Any ideas? :D
0 x
Corrections are welcome.

Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
: Watch 100 films: 0 / 100

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
x 4050

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:27 pm

sanjiu27 wrote:Hi! I'm looking for a French course that covers, at a minimum, levels A1-B1. As a Spanish speaker I've already a good deal of passive understanding, so I'd love to find anything a that goes a bit faster than Assimil and the like. Any ideas? :D
Fun Mooc has some courses targeted at immigrants living in France.

Vive en France, 3 different courses A1-B1, Travailler en France, one course, A2-B1.

https://www.fun-mooc.fr/cours/#filter/s ... e=1&rpp=50
2 x

sanjiu27
White Belt
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:59 pm
Location: Basque Country
Languages: Spanish (N) | English (prod. Intermediate) | Russian (Beginner).
x 112

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby sanjiu27 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:37 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
sanjiu27 wrote:Hi! I'm looking for a French course that covers, at a minimum, levels A1-B1. As a Spanish speaker I've already a good deal of passive understanding, so I'd love to find anything a that goes a bit faster than Assimil and the like. Any ideas? :D
Fun Mooc has some courses targeted at immigrants living in France.

Vive en France, 3 different courses A1-B1, Travailler en France, one course, A2-B1.

https://www.fun-mooc.fr/cours/#filter/s ... e=1&rpp=50


Thanks!! The website is very cool, but I think that "Vivre en France" is a little slow for Hispanic audiences. After a few weeks of exposure I'm able to understand like 95% of what I read in Le Monde, and 90% of what I listen to in the Inner French podcast, and I'm not an exception in this regard among Spanish speakers. Do you know by any chance any tougher, systematic approach to the French grammar? :)
1 x
Corrections are welcome.

Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
: Watch 100 films: 0 / 100

Kraut
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2600
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:37 pm
Languages: German (N)
French (C)
English (C)
Spanish (A2)
Lithuanian
x 3204

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby Kraut » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:18 pm

They claim it's free, but there is also a fee-paying element. It's not clear to me what you lose if you don't pay.

https://cursosgratis.cl/2020/07/05/el-c ... -y-aleman/

El club de idiomas de Miríadax ahora ofrece cursos gratis de francés y alemán
Cursos de francés

Francés Nivel A1
Francés Nivel A2
Francés Nivel B1
Francés Nivel B2
Francés Nivel C1
Last edited by Kraut on Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
3 x

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2354
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14196

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby iguanamon » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:48 pm

sanjiu27 wrote:...I'm looking for a French course that covers, at a minimum, levels A1-B1. As a Spanish speaker I've already a good deal of passive understanding, so I'd love to find anything a that goes a bit faster than Assimil and the like. Any ideas?...I think that "Vivre en France" is a little slow for Hispanic audiences. After a few weeks of exposure I'm able to understand like 95% of what I read in Le Monde, and 90% of what I listen to in the Inner French podcast, and I'm not an exception in this regard among Spanish speakers. Do you know by any chance any tougher, systematic approach to the French grammar? :)

I'm sure, that as a native Spanish-speaker you can understand Catalan; Portuguese and Italian quite well too... but that doesn't mean you can speak them. I have never studied French but my most recent experience learning Catalan was much the same. I can read non-fiction and the news easily, thanks to my language repertoire. I can read novels without too much slang. I can watch and listen to media with few difficulties. My problem is production. Perhaps I can make some recommendations based on my experience which may help you in your situation.

I didn't want to put too much effort into learning Catalan. I thought it would be easy because, like you, I could already understand most of it after a few weeks reading and listening. I was soon disabused of that notion. It's another language for a reason and it requires work even if I already have a huge head-start. Production takes more work. While I am not a huge fan of Assimil, I do find their Catalan course to be useful for stimulating production. Also I use "Digui-Digui"- a monolingual Catalan course from the 1990's. Understanding is one thing. Production is another. To speak and write, to use grammar, I need to practice those facets of learning a language. Doing a basic course is what activates those abilities within me.

It is almost impossible to find a course that doesn't begin at the beginning. Obviously, anything that I already feel I know I will skip through quickly. When I learned Portuguese after Spanish, I used DLI (US Defense Language Institute) Portuese Basic Course. It's a multi-volume course and I was able to skip ahead to volume four. I liked the course because it is very thorough and quite comprehensive. It is an audio-lingual course that concentrates on drills, a short dialog, more drills and a reading followed by comprehension questions and a short grammar review in English. It is a mostly monolingual course. There is a DLI French Basic Course available too at the Yojik site. It dates from the same era around fifty years ago and is free to download with audio. This course follows the outline of the Portuguese Basic Course I used and is mostly monolingual with minimal English.

French In Action is an older video course designed for US Public Television back in the 1980's. It too is mostly monolingual and has an audio component as well as textbooks. The accompanying book and audio materials are not necessary as long as you are using another course alongside it simultaneously. FIA is online and free.

Assimil French for Spanish-speakers is a translation. I don't know of any other courses developed specifically for native Spanish-speakers... which is why I think DLI French Basic and French In Action, will be better choices for you than the typical English-base courses most members are familiar with here. Planeta Agostini has a very thorough French course for Spanish-speakers that you may wish to research. Perhaps Pons has a French course.

Speaking for myself, I had to give up on the notion that I would learn Catalan quickly without much effort because of my Spanish, Portuguese and other languages. With that notion, I was frustrated. Now that I have accepted that I have to treat Catalan as a separate language in its own right- Estic aprenent/I am learning. It will take longer, but that's ok.
6 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby Cavesa » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:36 pm

I think you'll be best served with monolingual resources. No Assimils or French in Action will seem enough to the point, and why not use the advantage you've got. That's one of the best things about learning the second or the third romance language anyways :-)

The Progressives are the golden standard. Grammaire Progressive, Vocabulaire Progressif, Communication Progressive, those are the best, but some others could be helpful too, if you want. Start with the level "débutant", the even lower "débutant complet" is a new invention and adds little value to the series for the money.

As far as the classical courses go, I think Édito is one of the best series on the market right now, even though I've recently seen and was impressed by Vite et Bien for the low levels (but you'll need to switch from it around B1)
4 x

sanjiu27
White Belt
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:59 pm
Location: Basque Country
Languages: Spanish (N) | English (prod. Intermediate) | Russian (Beginner).
x 112

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby sanjiu27 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:59 pm

First of all, thank you for taking time to write in this post :)

iguanamon wrote:I'm sure, that as a native Spanish-speaker you can understand Catalan; Portuguese and Italian quite well too... but that doesn't mean you can speak them. I have never studied French but my most recent experience learning Catalan was much the same. I can read non-fiction and the news easily, thanks to my language repertoire. I can read novels without too much slang. I can watch and listen to media with few difficulties. My problem is production. Perhaps I can make some recommendations based on my experience which may help you in your situation.


As for this, of course. I didn't mean that I shouldn't approach French as I'd do with any other language, but rather than there are resources which can be more or less appropriate for you depending on your own background. For example, I found myself making progress at a very slow pace in Russian because even after a few hundred hours I quite didn't grasp some cases and the noun declensions. In that case, my needs were naturally different from those of a native Polish speaker, for instance. Actually, this applies to anything in life. As a software developer, I don't read the same books when I approach a new language or paradigm than a newcomer to programming.

No language is "easy", but definitively there are some languages easier for you than others. For me, French is really being a breath of fresh air, the learning experience is going very, very smoothly in comparison to other languages I've been learning previously :D

iguanamon wrote:While I am not a huge fan of Assimil, I do find their Catalan course to be useful for stimulating production. Also I use "Digui-Digui"- a monolingual Catalan course from the 1990's. Understanding is one thing. Production is another. To speak and write, to use grammar, I need to practice those facets of learning a language. Doing a basic course is what activates those abilities within me.

It is almost impossible to find a course that doesn't begin at the beginning. Obviously, anything that I already feel I know I will skip through quickly. When I learned Portuguese after Spanish, I used DLI (US Defense Language Institute) Portuese Basic Course. It's a multi-volume course and I was able to skip ahead to volume four. I liked the course because it is very thorough and quite comprehensive. It is an audio-lingual course that concentrates on drills, a short dialog, more drills and a reading followed by comprehension questions and a short grammar review in English. It is a mostly monolingual course. There is a DLI French Basic Course available too at the Yojik site. It dates from the same era around fifty years ago and is free to download with audio. This course follows the outline of the Portuguese Basic Course I used and is mostly monolingual with minimal English.


By this moment I'm working on podcasts mostly and other audio based content, so I was looking for a friendly and structured approach to the French grammar. I've read some introductions and outlines so far, but I'd love something like this. I think that the production part will come naturally after I speed up my conscious knowledge of the inner workings of the language, and work my way forward through hundred of hours of native content. This strategy have worked quite well for some friends in some closely related languages such as Catalan.

I skimmed Assimil: French With Ease and watched a bit of French in Action not too long ago, and they're definitively not what I'm looking for. They're simply too slow and short of grammar. I think that this applies to the FSI's course too, judging by their courses for other languages. I didn't know the course by Planeta de Agostini, I'll have to give it a look. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I believe that, in this case, a grammar based course and intermediate native content is all I need to keep making good progress :D
1 x
Corrections are welcome.

Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
: Watch 100 films: 0 / 100

caledi
White Belt
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:01 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (fluent), French (intermediate), Levantine Arabic (beginner)
x 47

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby caledi » Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:19 pm

I think I was once in a similar situation to you. I started learning French after already being able to speak two other Romance languages and having lived on the border with France for a few years (which meant that I was able to do basic interactions in French). The coursebook I used when I finally wanted to really learn the language was Living Language Ultimate French - Advanced. I chose this one because basically it was available at the library, it looked reasonable for my level, and it had accompanying audio. I personally really liked it -- I think there is a good amount of grammar but not too much.

But I also want to reiterate what others have said -- make sure that you don't get lulled into a false sense of security by thinking that because you can get the gist of what you read, that means that you know the language! In some ways, it is easier to learn a language that is totally different from the ones you speak, because then you are more aware of what you don't know :lol: .

Have you looked at French courses that have a Spanish base? If other French courses you've looked at aren't appropriate for you since you are a Spanish speaker, won't Spanish-based French courses take that into account a bit better?
2 x

sanjiu27
White Belt
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:59 pm
Location: Basque Country
Languages: Spanish (N) | English (prod. Intermediate) | Russian (Beginner).
x 112

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby sanjiu27 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:57 pm

Cavesa wrote:I think you'll be best served with monolingual resources. No Assimils or French in Action will seem enough to the point, and why not use the advantage you've got. That's one of the best things about learning the second or the third romance language anyways :-)

The Progressives are the golden standard. Grammaire Progressive, Vocabulaire Progressif, Communication Progressive, those are the best, but some others could be helpful too, if you want. Start with the level "débutant", the even lower "débutant complet" is a new invention and adds little value to the series for the money.

As far as the classical courses go, I think Édito is one of the best series on the market right now, even though I've recently seen and was impressed by Vite et Bien for the low levels (but you'll need to switch from it around B1)


Oh, I've been reading a bit of "Grammaire Progressive Du Franáis, Niveau Débutant", and I think that it is exactly what I were looking for. It's a classical textbook on steroids, but that's what I need in this precise moment. Muchas gracias, majo, de verdad.

When I'm a little more advanced I'll give you my opinion about the other resources that you've suggested :D
3 x
Corrections are welcome.

Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
: Watch 100 films: 0 / 100

sanjiu27
White Belt
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:59 pm
Location: Basque Country
Languages: Spanish (N) | English (prod. Intermediate) | Russian (Beginner).
x 112

Re: Any good and to-the-point French course?

Postby sanjiu27 » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:26 am

caledi wrote:I think I was once in a similar situation to you. I started learning French after already being able to speak two other Romance languages and having lived on the border with France for a few years (which meant that I was able to do basic interactions in French). The coursebook I used when I finally wanted to really learn the language was Living Language Ultimate French - Advanced. I chose this one because basically it was available at the library, it looked reasonable for my level, and it had accompanying audio. I personally really liked it -- I think there is a good amount of grammar but not too much.

But I also want to reiterate what others have said -- make sure that you don't get lulled into a false sense of security by thinking that because you can get the gist of what you read, that means that you know the language! In some ways, it is easier to learn a language that is totally different from the ones you speak, because then you are more aware of what you don't know :lol: .

Have you looked at French courses that have a Spanish base? If other French courses you've looked at aren't appropriate for you since you are a Spanish speaker, won't Spanish-based French courses take that into account a bit better?


Although I took French at school, as a matter of fact, I'm not quite aware of which kind of courses are available for learning French in Spanish. In any case, it is not that they're going to be any better (necessarily). It is only that I was looking for a grammar based course rather than a dialogue based one. There is no point in looking for anything like Assimil when I'm already working on real podcasts. I'm not "getting the gist" of the contents, but understanding every word in there by the second or maybe third time I listen to them, even the grammatical particles.

As suggested by @caledi I think that I'm going to start with Grammaire Progressive Du Français :D
2 x
Corrections are welcome.

Russian - Full Challenge, 2020-21
: Read 100 books: 0 / 100
: Watch 100 films: 0 / 100


Return to “Language Programs and Resources”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests