Hey! Bonjour!
Today, we’re going to be looking at one of 2 ways you can improve your speaking as a student learning French. Let’s go right into it!
Train your ears to the language
Listen, listen and listen.
The first way to improve your ability to speak a new Language is to keep listening to the language. Think about it. How do babies get to speak our language without us knowing their own language? lol. They learn by listening and listening for years before they say their first words. They don’t try to speak the language first. They listen first. That’s why a baby who grew up in China will speak differently from a child who grew up in France.
Listen to French podcasts, Watch French Movies and listen to French Music. Even if you do not understand all that they are saying, just keep listening. Unconsciously, your brain will pick a few words today, more tomorrow and even more the next day.
Listen to French Podcast
Podcasts are a great learning tool.
Coffee Break French: Coffee Break French is a production of the Radio Lingua Network. You can listen to the free podcasts and learn or improve your French on the go, where and when it suits you. Click here to listen.
French Blabla: With French BLabla you can learn le ''français terre à terre'’ at all levels (Beginner, Intermediate and advanced). Click here to listen.
French en Route: This is a podcast stemming from the language learning platform, Babbel. The podcast offers audio content for all levels and is easy to understand. Click here to listen.
Watch French movies
Movies are very entertaining. I usually recommend that students watch a movie they've already watched in English so as to get the idea of the movie and not worry about trying to know exactly what each character is saying at each scene of the movie.
Movies can help your comprehension by enabling you to listen to language exchanges and see visual support like facial expressions and gestures simultaneously. These visual clues support the verbal message and provide a focus of attention. I will suggest you watch them without subtitles. Here are a few movies you can check out:
Les Intouchables: This is a French buddy comedy-drama film written and directed by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano. Les Intouchables is about two very different men who bond and become very close friends after an accident.
Kirikou et la Sorcière: Adapted from an African tale, the film tells the adventures of Kirikou, a boy with extraordinary intelligence and generosity, who fights against the witch Karaba, who tyrannizes the inhabitants of the village with her evil powers.
La Belle Verte: On the planet Belle Verte, all is harmony, luxury, calm and voluptuousness. The various family tribes devote their mornings to games of body and mind, their afternoons to harvesting, and their evenings to concerts of silence. Once a year, at the top of a mountain, they meet, exchange their productions and teleport to other planets to collect the latest news.
Listen to French music
Music is a great way to learn any language. Your brain is relaxed and enjoying the song while learning. You don’t have to go through so much effort before memorizing the lyrics of the song which in turn will improve your vocabulary. Here are a few songs you can listen to as a french student. Click each song to listen.
To be continued...