8 Painless Ways to Get a Daily French Refresher:
Thirsty for some satisfying French refreshment?
Took French classes several years ago?
Ending classes now and looking to maintain your new skills?
Read on to find out why it’s important to keep practicing and to get some useful tips for getting started (again).
How many times have you met someone who said: “I’m fluent in [insert language] since I studied it for [insert number] years!”
That’s great and all, but when asked to say something all they can come up with is a few jumbled words.
What happened? They didn’t practice!
If you want to remember your hard-earned knowledge of French grammar and hilarious colloquialisms, prioritize practice.
I’m not saying it’s not important to take classes (it is), but you need to practice almost every day in order to remember what you’ve learned and improve upon that.
If you do things right, this doesn’t mean you’ll be studying grammar every day for the rest of your life.
You can make French a fun, regular part of your daily life!
8 Smart Strategies for Refreshing Your French
Understanding the importance of practicing your French is great, but what if life gets in the way? What if you don’t have time to practice? Trust me, I’ve been there. So here are a few methods I use to practice when retreating into an immersive cocoon is not possible:
1. Listen to French Audiobooks
Does your office not object to headphones if your work’s getting done? Why not listen to audiobooks?
Even if you don’t understand every word that’s being said, it still trains your brain to recognize key sounds. Just make sure you don’t unconsciously sprinkle foreign words into your memos! If you work on your feet, all the better. Simply load the books onto your phone and you’re off and running! Many sites offer free public domain audiobooks.
2. Think in French
This is a little trick I use when no other practice methods are available. For example, your workplace may have a strict no headphones policy. In that case, try pretending that French is your native language. Think in French and translate those thoughts into written or spoken English when work “gets in the way”.
3. Change Language Settings to French on Commonly Used Apps
Spend a lot of time using a word processor or email host? There’s no reason why you can’t change their language settings. You’ll learn common phrases and have a constant reminder of your linguistic goals, plus you’ll learn a few new technical words!
4. Departmental Transfer in Workplace
If you work for a large company there might be another department that communicates with French speakers regularly.
You may be able to get paid while gaining language experience in a fast-paced, real-world setting. Who knows? Your French language knowledge might be rare in-house, so it’s worth a shot.
5. Stream French Television
Several TV channels from French-speaking countries stream their broadcasts online.
Much like with audiobooks, you can listen passively at work or at home to gain insight into that francophone country’s culture. One of my favorite sites that offers television streaming is centraltv.fr, where you can find content from almost 100 French-speaking channels.
6. Find a French Penpal
Several free websites like Interpals or LanguageForExchange will put you in contact with other language learners.
And you know what’s wonderful about these sites? Native English speakers are highly sought after as penpals! You’ll be able to Skype or exchange letters (formal or email) with francophones learning English. It’s a great way to improve your grammar while making friends and learning about new cultures.
7. Challenge Yourself with Notecards
The bells and whistles of our technical age offer invaluable language learning tools, but when it comes to enlarging your vocabulary, nothing beats good old-fashioned memorization.
I make notecards with a French word and its English translation on the other side. You could even take things a step farther and put the French definition on the other side. Thumb through a few of these on your breaks and you’ll be on your way to developing an impressive vocabulary!
8. Practice Avoiding the “Um”
Case in point, I once took a class where students delivered presentations (in French) about a semester abroad, an internship abroad, etc. More often than not, they still couldn’t string together more than two coherent sentences without resorting to the ubiquitous “um,” despite having spent a year in so-called immersion.
Now, stage fright is a problem for a lot of us, but their choppy speech tells me that they didn’t take advantage of their surroundings and practice. Granted, it’s possible that their French friends wanted to practice English as much as my classmates wanted to practice French, so they may have been tempted to “revert” to English.
That being said, you must always soldier on, practicing French speaking without stopping, hesitating or doubting. Just keep talking until your streams of spoken French become totally fluent.
The key to each of the above strategies is to never miss an opportunity to practice French.
It’s easy enough—just fill your spare moments with French.
You’ll start improving without even realizing that you’ve been studying!
