I’ve really enjoyed and benefitted from both the Welsh and Spanish courses here but now face a need to improve my French, partly for work.
I’ve A Level French and S Level (remember those?), go to France fairly regularly and my French reading is fine, OK in some conversation (as longs as I’m leading), but I need to improve my conversation and especially listening, also more business orientated aspects.
Can anyone suggest suitable resource online along the lines of SSIW/SSIS? There seems to be a lot around, and I’m happy to pay, but don’t want to commit funds to a scheme that is not right for me. Any help appreciated!
Hmmm… tricky… it sounds as though you’re at a very strong intermediate level there, so I would imagine that the vast majority of courses would be a waste of your time - the Michel Thomas or Paul Noble French stuff, for example, almost certainly would be, although that’s the direction I’d point you in if you were more of a beginner…
Meanwhile, although they’re only 5 minutes or so, the chat/transcript/translation model here is very good, and surprisingly cheap for such an important element:
Hi,
From what I have read the closest thing to ssiw for french would be glossika, it seems to work on a similiar principle - they say a sentence in english, you say it in french then hear them say it in french BUT I haven’t actually used it so I can’t say whether it is any good. It may also be a bit below your level. I am, I would guess, at an intermediate level, probably a b1 according to the CEFR levels and I was thinking it might be helpful to improve the fluency and fluidity of my speech. It’s about 80 pounds I think (It could be my birthday present on friday so I might be able to tell you more soon!)
For listening ‘journal en français facile’ is fantastic but probably too easy for you. I also use TV5 monde who have a load of listening comprehension exercises at different levels of difficulty where you see a short segment of one of their tv programmes and answer questions about it. It’s useful because they come with a transcript as well so you can really check if you are hearing everything and what you are missing. When I’m feeling particularly adventurous I try to watch one of their current affairs programmes called ‘internationales’.
In terms of podcasts the one that @aran mentioned is really good. I also really like dailyfrenchpod where you get a short conversation followed by an explanation of some of the language (all in french). You can subscribe if you want to have access to the transcripts. Français authentique is also good although I have only listened to a couple so far.
I also quite like listening to the petit nicolas stories on youtube (again I think there is a link to the text as well).
Obviously talking to someone is a great idea too! italki is a good website to find a tutor or language exchange partner. I speak to one of their community tutors once a week, he’s a lovely guy, very friendly and easy to chat to and costs about 7 pounds for an hour.
https://www.italki.com/teacher/1239361 this is the guy I talk to on italki, I would really recommend him. I don’t know if he can help with business french but if you message him through the italki site he will be able you tell you more.
