Improving spoken French

[C8PPO]

I have a basic level of French, in that I can understand the basics, and can make myself understood most of the time when speaking French, even if I use a different combination of words to get my message across. However, I'm now potentially about to be assigned to work in Paris for a while, with French-only colleagues, so I need to sharpen up as quickly as possible.

I've looked on Amazon but so far not found what I'm looking for - a CD-based "French for improvers" or "French for Business" which I can listen to in the car and on the iPod. I don't want to start with the basics as I have those already. Anyone got any recommendations?

[catmartin]

Why not try this site: http://www.sharedtalk.com/ It's owned by Rosetta Stone. You sign up for free and swap your English with someone else's French. Typically everyone in Europe is far better at English so they will just be honing their skills while you are picking up a lot from them. There is voice chat, normal instant messaging, emailing etc. I did it last year when I broke my leg and had nothing else to do. Picked up Spanish again very easily!

[TuxRacer]

A while back I scraped a bunch of these and put them on CD for use in the car: http://www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com/

I assume they're still free. I got irritated by the jingle at the start of each one eventually. You might be better off piping french internet radio off your phone through the car stereo if you can, or recording chunks of radio at least so you have something a little more realistic, relevant to current events, etc.

[itsnotarace]

Maybe get yourself a tutor, otherwise just get yourself out there with your basics - you'll be fluent within a couple of months

[C8PPO]

Great ideas, thanks. Just looking at the podcast suggestion - seem to be lots of options for that on the LFBP website and also from Google.

[Smashed]

You could try http://www.livemocha.com/ as well

[plg]

Can also help to retune your car radio to French stations - longwave 164 (I think) to further saturate the brain