How to Learn French on your own

It’s a great idea if you are planning to learn French. This is not only because it is amongst the most widely spoken languages in the world with more than 300 million speakers but also because French is the language of the international job market. Yes, you can definitely leverage your career opportunities if you are well-versed in French. Also, travelling to various European countries and getting familiar with their culture becomes easy if you are confident in speaking and understanding French.

Once you have decided to learn the nuances of this beautiful language, the next obvious step is to join a French training institute. However, what if there is no good institute nearby or the classes are heavy on your pocket or you are not able to match with the pace or the style of teaching methodology? Or you just simply decide to learn the language on your own! Yes, you can be your own student and your own teacher! Though initially, learning French may seem to be an uphill task, but with sheer dedication and discipline, you can surely achieve your goal and experience the sweetness of learning your favourite language on your own!

Here’s how to begin...

1. Start speaking in French today:

Start using whatever French words you know, in your conversation. Make yourself familiar with French alphabets and numbers. The least you can do is to start with yourself. Make mistakes, rectify them and make new mistakes. You will gradually gain confidence, and improve your fluency and vocabulary. Remember, the more you talk, the more you’ll learn. So, the best way to learn French on your own is to speak in French as much as possible.

2. Be your own teacher:

Learning a new language on your own means that you are your own teacher! Stand in front of a mirror or behave as if you are in a classroom and teaching French. This way, you will start getting a hold of the language, automatically.

3. Develop a routine for yourself

While self-studying, it is important to be disciplined and to develop a routine for yourself to follow your own. Decide what time of the day is best suited for you to learn French or how much time you will be dedicating every day to study French. Slowly, learning French will become a part of your daily routine instead of ‘extra’ time and effort to be put in.

4. Watch French movies:

The best and the most fun way to learn how to speak French is by watching French movies. So, start watching a lot of good French movies; also listen to French music and radio channels. In this manner, you can have your dose of entertainment along with some fruitful learning! This is a good way to learn the French language for beginners.

5. Set goals:

Goal setting is the first step towards achieving what we aim in life. Without goals, we reach nowhere. Goals inspire us, keep us going and motivate us to reach, where we intend to. Start with setting short-term goals, which you can wrap up within a day or two. Tasks that take longer can be planned on a weekly or monthly basis. In the course of time, you will realise that by following a meticulously planned goal-achieving schedule, you will accomplish a lot more than you had initially thought of.

6. Test yourself regularly

In order to evaluate your performance, it is essential that you test yourself regularly. Examine your French pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, sentence formation, etc to ensure that the French language learning process is carried forward step by step. Based on the assessment, you can analyse the areas you are adept at, and also the sections on which you need to work on.  This way, you can get the classroom learning-like experience. You can also get help from a French-speaking friend, a neighbour or native French speakers in correcting your pronunciation or in proofreading the content you may have written.

7. Work on adapting to the French accent:

Every language has its own accent and how the native people speak that language could be very different from how we learn to speak. Observe native speakers carefully and learn how to speak French. Initially, you may find it difficult to get accustomed to the accent, but with regular observation and practice, you will surely learn to speak French, the correct way.

8. Follow quality French learning resources:

There are several online resources available in the form of French learning videos, tutorials, PDFs, online communities and so on. However, you need to strike out those, which aren’t worth spending time on. Follow only the ones that will lead you to your goal of learning French the right way. So, for this, you need to research extensively and focus only on quality learning resources. You can also rely on material provided by a library or bookstore.

9. Ideas matter more than words or vocabulary:

You may have learnt a lot of French words or may have even read several French novels; however, you can learn any language only if you learn how to express your ideas in it. So try to express yourself clearly and converse with others in French.

10. Practice written French worksheets:

One of the effective ways to teach yourself, French, is to refer to good French textbooks, practice French worksheets and exercises - both online and offline and also check your answers. Doing this on a regular basis can help you to gain confidence and also get a niche over the grammatical aspect. For instance, you can refer ‘Une fois pour toutes’ -- a very useful resource for learning the French language for beginners.

11. Flashcards -- The fun way of learning French

Don’t think that flashcards are only for kids. People learning anything new can make their own flashcards. They are not only fun to make, but also keep one’s interest retain while making the learning process ten times easier. It is said that whatever people learn from flashcards holds a longer life in their brain, and hence, it is easy for people to recall the facts. So, go back to your school days and create attractive flashcards of various nouns, vocabulary or verbs, keep them in your pocket and learn on the go! To make them, you can write the name of the object in French on one side; while a picture or name in English, of the respective object, can be drawn/written and on the other side. Indeed, French language learning becomes really easy with flashcards.

12. Get techie the French way!

Yes, it’s time to get tech-savvy the French way! Once you start picking up on the French language, you can put your laptop and mobile in French language mode, instead of English. Also, choose French as a language for all your apps, like news updates, weather updates. Imagine how much vocabulary you can learn just by these small lifestyle changes. You can also start surfing the internet in the French language.

Whatever reason you may have to learn French on your own, the fact remains that it is undoubtedly a beautiful and very useful language that can enhance your personality and make you linguist by nature. By following the above points and creating your own learning techniques, you can surely teach yourself French!