Looking to learn French

[spaximus]

We have family who now live in France and their kids and partners first language is French.

My wife and I want to be able to speak to a good standard rather than the limited vocabulary we have at present.

Looking on line Bable and Rosseta Stone seen to be big players anyone used them or better suggestions. Cannot do French classes at the moment or for the foreseeable future

Any advice welcomed.

[alorotom]

I’ve used Rosetta Stone before, it’s very well structured and perfect for in-car learning (appreciate thats more for when we aren’t locked-down!)

[Googie]

Found Babel pretty good for Dutch but really needs a session everyday to be of real value- a lot more for anything approaching fluency

Bonne chance !

[Lotus Notes]

When I leanrt French many years ago, I bought a verb book and a Larousse French dictionary.
I would read the local newspaper and watch French TV - Documentaries in particular.

Then you need to put in the hours..

[Cliftonite]

To learn to speak French one has to speak in French.

This is the solution that works for me: https://www.italki.com/

[Einion Yrth]

Phone up the new francophone family, and speak to them. Whatever French language course you choose to partner that with will be nowhere near as useful as having patient native speakers on hand.

[Plastic chicken]

It's canard.

[Bodo]

Lotus Notes said:

When I leanrt French many years ago, I bought a verb book and a Larousse French dictionary.
I would read the local newspaper and watch French TV - Documentaries in particular.

Then you need to put in the hours..

This helped me learning another language (not French) when I was a student: I spent lots of hours reading the news, then joined a forum for a topic that interested me. Reading and especially contributing helped me to widen my capabilities in understanding and speaking significantly - with ease.

Using an online dictionary w/ browser plugin to translate words with the right mouse button menu makes this very comfortable too.

[Spare tyre]

Ooo err le piscine

[Church of Noise]

Have a look at Duolingo, it's an app to learn languages in a game-like way (called gamification).
Should get you going for some basic vocabulary and sentences.
Once you reach a certain level, you might need something else though as I found that it isn't great to pick up on grammar (my experience was with another language though)...

[Sophisticated Sarah]

DuoLingo is fantastic, you don’t realise how much you’re picking up (learning Japanese).

However the best method of learning is to chat with a speaker of that language, which is pretty easy via FaceTime/Skype etc

[vixen1700]

I have these set of CDs which I'd read good reviews about. They work well by repetition apparently.

I'd hoped they'd work with working from home, a kind of in the background subliminal thing, but it ended up just annoying me after ten minutes.

Will get around to it...

[tr7v8]

Sophisticated Sarah said:

DuoLingo is fantastic, you don’t realise how much you’re picking up (learning Japanese).

However the best method of learning is to chat with a speaker of that language, which is pretty easy via FaceTime/Skype etc

That is what I am doing during lockdown, Easy to do at anytime, I wait for a quiet 20 minutes & do it then. Needs a headset for the spoken bit, the laptop mic doesn't work well enough. My vocabulary is coming on & my confidence which is a big bit.
Once I'm a bit further on will inflict myself on one of my French colleagues & see how I am.

[littleredrooster]

A word of advice:

Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous...

[jamesson]

Try Michel Thomas. You can find it on YouTube. Basically it's him with two students and it's all aural with no writing. I'm not saying it's completely comprehensive but I learned a lot of basic German with his product which enabled me to progressive to more complicated material.

Bonne chance!