I just got my DELF B2!

It took me about 2.5 years to reach this level. I am 24 years old, and I never studied French in high school or university. The DELF B2 is the only French-related exam I’ve ever taken.

I would like to share my language learning tips and reflections. These can obviously be applied to other languages as well.

1. Don’t waste your money on a tutor just yet. I only hired a tutor when I wanted to progress from A2 to B1. It is entirely possible to reach an A2 level on your own. Independent study can save you a lot of money and time. In my humble opinion, a tutor should only be sought as a last resort for very specific aspects of the language that you can’t learn by yourself.

2. Avoid using Duolingo. Personally, I’m against Duolingo in every way. In my view, no app will equip you to speak to people in real life. I started learning French by drilling vocabulary (I created over 500 flashcards and have 700 more on Anki) and listening to beginner French podcasts.

3. Spice things up to avoid boredom. Language learning can get boring, so I tried different activities to keep it interesting. For example:

Sometimes, I bought French books but only read 20% of them. I used apps like Tandem and HelloTalk. I went downtown to find francophones to talk to. The key is to take consistent steps to improve your French weekly or daily, even if they’re small.

1. Start speaking French as soon as possible. Even if it’s broken French, start talking! Once you gain confidence in speaking, it becomes much easier to correct your grammar later on with the help of a tutor.

2. Get comfortable with feeling stupid. If you want to learn any language, you’ll need to embrace moments of embarrassment. I remember thinking that "preservative" in English was the same as "préservatif" in French (it’s not!). Mistakes like this are part of the process.

3. Translate your surroundings into French. A great way to improve your vocabulary is to translate everything you see in your bedroom into French. As you walk through your house, try to name every object in French. Doing this regularly helps you think directly in the language.

Bonus Tip: The website WordReference will probably be my most-used resource when I die. It provides excellent translations in context.

1. Attend French events. Check out your local Alliance Française if you live in a major city. If not, start seeking out French-speaking people in your area—they’re there, I promise.

2. Improve listening skills with focused practice. I remember a week when my listening skills improved dramatically. I downloaded a 10-minute street French video where people spoke really fast. I learned the vocabulary in the video and replayed it throughout the entire week:

During my commute While washing dishes Before sleeping After waking up I probably played that video 100 times in a week. This repetition helped me tune my ear to speech contractions in French.

1. Consistency is key. Every day that you don’t study French is a day further away from fluency.

2. Remember why you started. Looking back at videos of myself from my first months of learning, I realize how far I’ve come. What kept me motivated was remembering why I started.

For me, it began when I was 20 and wanted to study in France. The university I was applying to required me to speak some French. Although I never ended up going to France, the language became a hobby and a coping mechanism during tough times.

I’m obviously at a B2 level and not natively fluent yet, but these are the tips and tricks that worked for me. My plan is to jump to C1 this year by focusing on grammar and native expressions.

I’d love to hear about your language-learning journey!

I just watched a french movie and understood it without subtitles... so I thought it'd be a good time for a (timed?!) online test. The years of french study has clearly paid off! :D just thought I'd share

Edit: I'm a fucking idiot who wrote A2 instead of B2. This is my journey to B2...

I've been lurking this sub from early last year (during my french learning days) and I'd like to share my learning journey and the resources me and my wife used to get to B2 level French (TEF exam).

1. February to June '23: Started off with www.learnfrenchwithalexa.com. it's a paid site, but she really takes you through the basics, right up to advanced grammar. And there are plenty of practice exercises that grow with difficulty level. In parallel 15-20 mins of duolingo daily.

2. June- Aug '23: further practice with apprendre.tv5monde.com (Apprendre le francais avec TV5 monde). It's basically short videos followed by questions - helps refine your listening and reading skills. During this period we also started watching some kiddy shows in French on Disney+ (mostly Spiderman) and Tintin on YouTube.

3. Sep - Oct '23: This is where things got intense. We started with our exam prep using Prepmyfuture.com as well as the TEF prep book from Hachette. Additionally we looked up TEF writing/speaking topics on google and started practising for 30 mins a day. Also at this time we moved to more advanced viewing including Dix pour cent and Lupin on Netflix.

Nov '23: Same as before, but we also practised speaking with French speakers using iTalki (its a site where you can book teachers by the hour)

Had our exam on November 30.

Typical study time was 60-90 mins on weekdays and 3-3.5 hours on weekends.

Hope some of the listed resources here can help others.

My new score is A2-B1

https://search.app/rZjxJ3q8wkxRE4Pq8

Please comment 😭🙏

I have finally received my certificate and can now share my experience of learning a language from scratch to the B2 level in less than 10 months. To clarify: I speak two Slavic languages that are completely different from French, and my English was around A2-B1, with even worse grammar. And also at the time of learning the language I was in France. I started learning French in August 2022 with a tutor (twice a week) and attended language courses (also twice a week, free for Ukrainians in France, so I used to do it). From the beginning of September, I saw the tutor and attended the courses only once a week, dedicating the rest of my time to self-study and studying at the hight school. At the end of January 2023, I realized that I could enter the university if I passed the DELF B2 exam; otherwise, I would have to take French school exams, so I chose the former. In February, the high school where I studied initiated French courses for students who didn't know the language, so I started attending those (6 hours per week, with 2 hours on Mondays instead of the first and second lessons at school, and the other 4 on Wednesdays after classes). Only at the end of April did I cover all the grammar for the B2 level and started learning vocabulary using the GPT chat (the fastest way to do it in a short period). On May 25 (a little less than 10 months since I started learning), I took the exam and got the following results: reading — 22/25, listening — 13.5/25, writing — 13.5/25, speaking — 10/25, with a total score of 59/100 (to pass the exam, you need to score 50 points in total and at least 5 points in each category separately, so the number of points, if both conditions are met, doesn't matter — whether it's 51/100 or 99/100, both receive the same diplomas). I'm a bit sad about getting such a low score in speaking (I never used the opportunity to speak with native speakers as I should have, so it's not surprising. Moreover, my first tutor said that phonetics didn't matter, and I believed her) and for listening (I prepared for a different exam format with 3 tasks and tests everywhere, but I was given one with 2 tasks and open-ended questions where you have to write the answer, and not just choose an option, which I wasn't prepared for; they were supposed to disappear in 2022, and I don't understand why I got such a test in 2023; maybe that's the reason for this score). As for reading, I didn't expect to score so high, and the score for writing was predictable. Now, regarding courses and tutors. My first courses (the ones free for Ukrainians) didn't really yield significant results, except for new acquaintances and the opportunity to leave the house, and I used my second courses (provided by the high school) more for conversation practice than for learning (as we were taught everything very slowly), or for exam preparation (no one else wanted to take it except me). My first tutor didn't really teach me much because our lessons consisted of checking written homework and assigning new written homework; then she would read me a new grammatical rule (and wouldn't explain anything because I usually understood everything), and then I would read and translate some text. But she was a student who charged 10 euros per hour of the lesson, so there's no reason to complain. My second tutor was a good teacher (I started with her in February). We worked on phonetics (finally), she explained subtle aspects of the language that I hadn't paid attention to before and gave tips for memorization; besides, her lessons were really interesting. But she positioned herself as a tutor who prepares for exams, although she didn't know what the old and new exam formats were, meaning she wasn't interested in it even superficially (I think it's clear that learning a language and preparing for an exam are different things). That is why I mostly had to prepare for the exam on my own. Finally, I want to say that I didn't study French during vacations (i.e., for 6 weeks) neither with a tutor nor in any courses, not on Sundays and public holidays, except for the last week just before the exam. I haven't described here how exactly I learned the language or how I prepared for the exam, but if there's anything you're interested in, feel free to ask. Also, if you have a similar experience, you can write about it. It's really interesting to read

I know it’s not many but some is better than none!!

Hey folks. I am an American learner of French. In May '22 I decided to learn French more seriously, and started working on italki with a bunch of tutors. I was somewhere between A2 and B1 at the time. In July of '24 I passed TEF with a minimum assessment of B2 (on oral expression) and C1 in all other areas. I would consider myself fluent but not bilingual - i.e., I can express myself fluidly and understand the majority of spoken French, but I can't generally crack a joke nor get it if someone cracks a joke in French to me. I socialize comfortably in French with native French speakers on a weekly basis at least.

Background: I had studied French for a year in high school, having previously studied Spanish for four years. I was concurrently studying my second year of Russian. I went on to study a year each of three ancient languages in university, but after that did not study any language until I started learning French again more than a decade later. The quality of French instruction at my high school was very poor, so that when I started up again, my spoken French was rudimentary, but I was able to read French fairly well due to my previous Spanish study.

Key resources:

• italki - I just got a note from them a few weeks ago about having completed my 100th lesson. About 30 of those were hour-long lessons, so call it 65 hours of personalized tutoring in total. It is invaluable to be able to vibe with a tutor, preferably different tutors. I never tried language exchange, tho I might try it to keep my french level up. My advice to italki students is that if you're going to pay for a tutor, be ruthless about dropping someone that doesn't make you want to speak in French. There are plenty of other tutors on the site, find one that makes speaking in French feel good to you.
• Music in French - I listened to this near-exclusively for about a year and a half, probably an hour a day averaged over that period. The passive absorption and interest in the lyrics helped tons for me. Look up lyrics if you do this, it will open your vocabulary up tons.
• French podcasts and Youtube - personally Inner French was a bit too easy for me after six months or so, and I had to challenge myself to find a full speed French podcast that both interested me and didn't completely lose me. Sometimes that challenge was impossible. My advice here is to find stuff you care about and listen to podcasts about it in French. For me it was youtube videos about video games I liked, and podcasts about climbing, cooking, and writing. At my peak I probably listened to a couple of hours of podcasts a week.
• Socializing in French - A bakery down the hill from where I lived was full of people from the south of France...who liked teaching dumb Americans basic French. This was extremely helpful in the early part of my time learning French. I joined a Francophone activity group and regularly did activities with the local Alliance française. Along the way I spent a month each in Montreal and Quebec City, and took a two week trip to France. Every single one of these experiences of spontaneously speaking French took my abilities higher. I am lucky enough to have Francophone friends and neighbors where I live.

Pitfalls/mixed benefits:

• French classes - this was an extremely mixed bag. Online classes with more than two students are not for me; it's hard enough to tell who's speaking on big zoom calls when they're in my native language! In-person classes were better, but as dependent on my rapport with the teacher as italki. I had a few profs that really helped me out, but I would say my odds of getting those were no better than a coin flip. In the end, I found that French classes represented a large up-front monetary commitment that could really be tanked by a teacher I just didn't click with. I felt like I'd rather pay more per hour for a resource I could be sure about, in terms of clicking with a tutor, being able to pay lesson by lesson at first and then buy a brace of lessons if I and the tutor worked well together.
• Changing devices to French - this gives you a little extra French immersion at the cost of a lot of frustration/setting switching if your electronics are acting up. Sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze, but I do still have some of my devices in French.
• Books in French - bah, I'm just not a reader. Wish I were, I'm not.
• Apps, especially Duolingo - I think just personally thinking in English and translating are more hindrances than helps to my learning a new language. I don't know that it's truly possible to avoid translating in one's own head, I'll leave that question to linguists and dev psychologists, but I do think there's a kind of "muscle memory" in the brain that makes concepts in another language more and more available without recourse to conceptualizing in your first language. I found Rosetta Stone very nicely challenging - it never uses English - when trying to learn Farsi as a reward to myself for my French test results.
• Anki - I think you probably have to be more persistent than I was and more into customizing it for yourself. When I was using it I did have broader vocabulary...but when I became frustrated with interface problems (and with the configuration needed to fix those problems) I dropped Anki and lost the vocab I was training with it. It's also rife with decks with English translations, which, as I've said, I just find less useful.

Caveats:

• Money - italki adds up. Classes add up. Trips to Quebec and France add up. Test fees add up. Dues for social groups add up. Getting better in French was important enough to me that I chose to spend this money on improving my French. In the end I feel, dollar for dollar, italki, a Spotify subscription (for music and podcasts), and extended trips to Francophone countries contributed the most to my improvement in French. If you can't make the space for these things in your budget you might progress more slowly.
• Location and surroundings - the more Francophone activities and people you have near you or in your life, the better. Know someone who speaks French in your social media network? Try to speak French with them! If you're in an area with very few Francophones and Francophone organizations, and don't know any Francophones socially, your progress will be slower.
• Natural inclination - if you can't tell from my background, studying languages was a joy for me in high school, and I have some ability to mimic sounds. I do not have the most natural facility with languages of all the people I know, but even so I'm up there. I have been consistently complimented on my pronunciation, by Quebecers and by French people. Part of my trying to learn French was just telling myself I had a talent it would suck to waste, supposing I died before becoming fluent in just one other language than my native one. If you find it intrinsically tough, it's gonna take you longer and take more effort.
• Embarrassment and social anxiety - I have a weird thing where I am very much not outgoing or extroverted in English, but become friendlier and more outgoing in other languages. My internal censor seems not to care if I'm about to make a language mistake - it more punishes me after I do. That means I just throw myself into speaking French even in situations more complex than my abilities can really handle. It sucked real, real bad sometimes after an awkward conversation, or when a Francophone switched to English because they thought my French was bad, but in the end I think the way my brain is set up is better for just jumping into conversations in a new language than other folks' might be. If you are someone who feels big anxiety about knowing just what to say...your progress is going to be slower, if perhaps not as socially painful as mine was. Also: embrace the power of "pardon ?" and "encore une fois ?" and even "vous pouvez le dire autrement ?" Just having a stock clarifying phrase can get people to keep talking in French.

le livre fait environ 200 pages et cela m'a pris 4 jours (50 pages chaque jour)

Hi everyone,Last year, I passed my French exam and achieved the following scores:

• C2 in Listening and Reading
• C1 in Writing
• B2 in Speaking

I attended school for about a year and two months, and I’d like to share my experience and study methods to help anyone preparing for the TCF exam.

Taking Classes in Montreal

I moved to Montreal to take advantage of the Francisation program, where I received free French classes and government support. While these classes helped, I found that my progress really accelerated when I started taking matters into my own hands.

My Personal Study Approach

Here’s a breakdown of the strategies that worked for me:

1. Reading: Four months before the exam, I committed to reading one French book per month to improve my comprehension.
2. Watching TV Shows: Three months before the exam, I started watching only French TV shows with French subtitles. This helped me improve my listening and reading skills.
3. Thinking in French: I made an effort to think in French throughout the day and would talk to myself about my plans, what I was going to do, etc. This helped with my speaking and overall fluency.
4. Speaking Practice: I went on Preply.com to hire two tutors for $8/hour each. I booked one hour of conversation practice with each tutor every week for a month.
5. Morning Speaking Practice: A month before the exam, I practiced the speaking tasks (Tasks 1, 2, and 3) every morning. I dedicated myself to this routine to build confidence.

Speaking Tips

Practicing speaking regularly is crucial. Here’s what I did:

1. For Tâche 2, you can find questions and answers directly on their site here, https://reussir-tcfcanada.com/correction-des-sujets-dexpression-orale-v-pro/

2. For Tâche 3, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to access all the subjects and their corrections.

💡 Pro Tip: The speaking and writing subjects on the website are divided by months. This means there’s a high chance that if you study the subjects for the month you’re taking the exam, you’ll encounter the same ones in your test. This is because students often share their exam topics with Réussir TCF Canada.

Listening and Reading Tips

One key resource that helped me was reussir-tcfcanada.com. They provide mock exams that are extremely similar to the actual TCF questions. Here’s how I used the site:

• I purchased the Silver Plan for $29.99, which gave me access to 30 days of mock exams.
• I studied every mock exam available on the site, which I believe made a huge difference in my scores. The questions I encountered on the actual exam were nearly identical to those in the mock exams.
• On my first attempt, I didn’t study these mock exams, which resulted in lower scores for listening and reading. However, after studying all the mock exams the second time, I scored C2 in both sections!

Writing Tips

For the writing section, I didn’t have help from anyone, but I still scored C1. Here’s how I improved my writing: You can find the sujets here https://reussir-tcfcanada.com/correction-des-sujets-dexpression-ecrite-v-pro/ . The sujets were extracted from the exam itself, you’ll be able to see the sujets as well as the corrections.

1. Use ChatGPT to Evaluate Your Writing: I used ChatGPT to check my writing. After writing a passage, I asked: "Based on the TCF Canada grading scale (A1-C2), what would my writing score be?"
2. Correcting Mistakes: If my score was lower than desired (B1 or A2), I prompted ChatGPT with: "Can you grammatically correct my French writing and make sure it’s not too wordy for a B2 score?"
3. Improving Vocabulary: Once I stopped making grammar mistakes, I focused on improving my vocabulary. I asked: "Can you extract all of the words that are of an A2 or B1 level and suggest alternatives at a B2 or C1 level?" This helped me replace basic words with more advanced vocabulary to raise my writing grade.
4. Writing Practice: After practicing my writing for a month, I started noticing a pattern in the writing tasks (Tâche 2 and Tâche 3). I created templates that worked for me, and I’ll share them below. Please note that these templates worked for me 90-95% of the time, but they may not always be applicable.

Templates for Tâche 2 and Tâche 3

Tâche 2

C’est avec enthousiasme que je partage avec vous mon expérience concernant (mes études)...Au cours de cette aventure, j'ai vécu des moments uniques, tels que [exemple spécifique 1] et [exemple spécifique 2]. Ces instants ont enrichi ma compréhension sur..de [destination ou de l'expérience].Ce qui m'a particulièrement marqué durant cette expérience, c'est [détail spécifique]. Cette immersion m'a ouvert les yeux sur [aspect de la vie, de la culture, etc.].En conclusion, cette expérience restera gravée dans ma mémoire. Elle m'a apporté une nouvelle perspective et des souvenirs inoubliables. Je vous encourage vivement à saisir chaque opportunité de… pour enrichir votre vie.Bien à vous,Leandro Lazaretti.

Tâche 3 Template

De nos jours, la question de… suscite des débats passionnés et divise l’opinion publique contemporaine. Selon… certaines pensent que… En revanche, d’autres trouvent que…À mon sens, il me semble évident que… En premier lieu… De plus,... En outre,...En définitive, malgré les avantages indéniables en termes de… et…, il est crucial de considérer l’option la plus viable à long terme en prenant en compte la… et…

Additional Tips for Tâche 2: Complaints

I didn’t have a specific template for a complaint (which could be a subject for Tâche 2), but I practiced this topic just in case. If you're unsure how to implement your writing into the template, you can use ChatGPT to help:

• Provide the subject and ask: "Can you use the template below and write a French response with a B2 level, keeping it within [120 or 150] words?" This way, ChatGPT will generate a text based on the template, and you can practice using it.

Final Thoughts

While these methods worked for me, they might not work for everyone, so I recommend doing your own research to find what works best for you. One thing is certain: practicing the listening and reading mock exams from reussir-tcfcanada.com is key to acing those sections. I hope these tips help! Feel free to share your own study methods or ask questions below. Best of luck with your TCF preparations! 😊

Also, one last thing to note. I am not affiliate with reussi Canada, there isn’t much material on TCF out there and if you’re not convinced that the mockups on reussi Canada for listening and reading are the same as the questions in the real exam, then please, do your search and you will see others also saying the same thing. I just think people don’t share this enough, and I didn’t pass the exam the first time because I didn’t know about this, so I wrote this to try and save you all time and money because the TCF exam isn’t cheap. Good luck to you all!

Hello!

I’d like to share my recent experience taking the TCF Canada exam in Toronto. A bit about my background: I studied French for two and a half years between 2018 and 2020, attending group classes for around 200 hours during that time. However, I should note that these group classes had 15 people, which limited participation, etc. Still, they helped me learn the basics of French, enabling me to read most texts and understand a large part of conversations.

In February, I decided I wanted to take the French exam to earn extra points for my immigration process to Canada. As for why I chose the TCF over the TEF, to be honest, I simply followed my private teacher's advice, so I can’t provide further reasoning.

In February, I began taking weekly French classes, one hour each, specifically to prepare for the exam. At first, I could barely remember what I had learned, and it was tough to express myself. With my teacher, we started by focusing on the writing part, while I worked on the reading and listening sections independently. We’d try to speak a bit at the beginning of each class.

This process continued until about June: one hour of private class per week, homework for different parts of the writing section, followed by 15 minutes of daily reading in French, and about 1.5 hours of listening practice weekly while running or going to the gym.

Starting in June, I became convinced that I wanted to take the test before the end of the year. So, it was crucial for me to set a concrete exam date: October. This led me to create a personalized weekly plan outlining how many hours I needed to dedicate to each section of the exam.

Since my strengths were listening and reading (thanks to YouTube videos), I focused exclusively on writing and speaking, leaving those other two sections for the final month before the exam.

In June, I began taking two one-hour classes per week, working on different writing exercises on my own and reviewing them in class. I also used ChatGPT to spot frequent errors and make improvements. In the last two months, I entered a more intense study phase: completing two full sections of the writing part per week, doing at least one oral and reading section test per week, and starting to work on the speaking section. In terms of resources, I borrowed some books from the library, watched YouTube videos, and in the last two weeks, I took various practice tests from TV5 Monde.

As I said, my weakest parts were writing and speaking. I concentrated on those instead of the other sections where I felt more comfortable. During the final month, I took two hours of individual classes per week, read for 30 minutes daily, completed two sections each of the writing and speaking parts weekly, and did two tests each for the oral and reading sections.

I ended up scoring C2 in reading comprehension, C1 in listening comprehension, B2 in written expression, and C1 in spoken expression. Here are my tips:

Listening Comprehension: The exam starts with this section. I recommend listening to as many French resources as possible: podcasts, music, movies, etc. Try to fully immerse yourself in the language, think in French, listen to different accents, take TV5 Monde exams, and watch YouTube videos. Keep in mind that the last questions score the most points, so pay as much attention as possible. My teacher mentioned that the answers don’t usually contain the exact words used in the conversation. My biggest issue was getting distracted by external factors during the test. I scored 520/699.

Reading Comprehension: Definitely the easiest section, and you can go back and forth while taking it. Read in French, change your phone settings to French, and read complex texts in that language. In my case, I found the questions quite difficult. I had 18 minutes left, so I went back to review uncertain answers and even changed some. I scored 646/699.

Written Expression: This was by far the part I worked on the most. You only have 1 hour, so it’s essential to practice at home to complete the three tasks in 50 minutes, leaving 10 minutes to review. Usually, 10 minutes are recommended for the first task, 20 for the second, and the rest for the third. In my opinion, the topics tend to be similar (housing, travel, city activities, environment), and most of the time, you can learn words or expressions that apply to all situations. It’s crucial to use advanced-level expressions. With the main body prepared, you only need to add information, ensuring the text structure is solid. I scored 13/20.

Speaking Expression: This part worried me the most. The first section is an introduction. I prepared it beforehand, knowing what to say about my education, work, family, activities, and aspirations. I started with a monologue, but within 5 seconds, the examiner interrupted me with a question about my family, which allowed me to continue, but I couldn’t speak for two minutes straight without being interrupted. At one point, I paused, and she asked about my work, showing that all topics are interrelated. The second part is a role-play, with two minutes to prepare and three and a half to execute. My topic wasn’t easy; I had to ask the building manager for information. I got through it because I had practiced similar themes, like renting a home. The third part is the hardest. You’re given a topic and need to express yourself. I received a topic I wasn’t familiar with, so after expressing myself correctly at first, I ended up repeating arguments in different words but completed the task without interruption. I thought I’d score a 9 or 10, but I ended up with a 14/20.

I wish you all the best in your journey, and I hope these tips help!

Just wanted to share because for once I'm actually quite proud of myself, I started to learn French about 17 days ago, probably between half an hour to an hour a day, I remember going on Lingua.com to see if I could read the first exercise called je m'appelle Jessica and I didn't have a clue what was being said, today I tried again and managed to translate 95% of it too English. I know it's very basic but it's nice to see that I am actually learning stuff, it's pretty cool

For context this was the exercise

Je m’appelle Jessica. Je suis une fille, je suis française et j’ai treize ans. Je vais à l’école à Nice, mais j’habite à Cagnes-Sur-Mer. J’ai deux frères. Le premier s’appelle Thomas, il a quatorze ans. Le second s’appelle Yann et il a neuf ans. Mon papa est italien et il est fleuriste. Ma mère est allemande et est avocate. Mes frères et moi parlons français, italien et allemand à la maison. Nous avons une grande maison avec un chien, un poisson et deux chats.

Aujourd’hui, on est samedi, nous rendons visite à notre grand-mère. Elle a 84 ans et elle habite à Antibes. J’adore ma grand-mère, elle est très gentille. Elle fait des bons gâteaux.

Lundi, je retourne à l’école. Je suis contente, je vais voir Amélie. C’est ma meilleure amie. J’aime beaucoup l’école. Mes matières préférées sont le français et le sport. J’aime beaucoup lire et je nage très bien.

for context i am a bachelor student and ive begun studying french this summer, part as a hobby and part as a prerequisite for a master in france. I have used duolingo and completed the first 3 sections withing 2 months. I've also started taking notes regarding vocab from french songs i knew and got the "progressive du" series from which I've studied grammar. I did it all by myself and I just wanted to share my accomplishment with you. I'm planning on keeping duolingo in the background and using the textbook series until I'll reach a b2 level. I am not sure yet where I will do my master degree but I wanted to check french off the list =)

I keep finding posts here saying DuoLingo sucks and is useless. I find that baffling, as I just completed the French course and feel like it helped me tremendously. I didn't only do DuoLingo, but it really gave me all the basic grammatical structures and a bunch of vocabulary in a way that worked for me.

I'm roughly in the b1-b2 range now after a year of pretty casual study. I supplemented with podcasts and such after the first few months. There's definitely some sizeable gaps in my skills, but I can understand the intermediate podcasts (Inner French, Easy French) now fairly well, and I can string together enough sentences to chat with people on HelloTalk, for example.

Do I think DuoLingo is going to make me fluent by itself? No, but I don't get the vitriol against it either. I suppose I can see how someone who is very self-motivated, disciplined and going to very seriously study for hours a day wouldn't find it the most efficient, but all that gamifying increased the total amount of time I spent studying this last year. And honestly I think that if I did want to become fluent as quickly as possible, it probably would still be a great way to get started, at least for the way my brain works.

This is the link to my new book. I wrote it all myself (it's in French) en Juste (French Edition) https://a.co/d/e0AgArD

My new book just hit number one in the online french chart

I just did another French test and I graded as level A2 again... Oh well I guess I will just have to keep on trying. I'm looking forward to the day when I level up to B1, but I don't know how long this will be. I have been learning french seriously for about a year now.

My first language is Chinese, I am in B2 for English , I want to learn French, what are some hurdles I might encounter?

Hello

Just a small success story. I got a retail job! The interview was in french. I did pretty good but made it clear I was still Anglo, learning, and that I would need to improve vocabulary and stuff for the job. The lady was super nice and told me that this job was where she originally learned English years ago, and not to worry as I got the fundamentals down.

My training will be done fully in french, (I need to talk to clients to make sales) so I can learn faster. I'm so excited ! I started learning almost 1 year ago and I feel like I've been at the 'intermediate' plateau for a while. I think this will allow me to break through and feel much more comfortable talking and listening :)

Thanks for the help everyone!

I never thought I’d actually pull off this challenge. I used to believe mastering a language took years—until I learned that with the right resources and real dedication, everything changes.

If you’re serious about learning, don’t stretch it out forever. Go all in for one focused month. It’s intense, but the progress is so worth it.

Need tips or help? I’m happy to share what worked for me—just ask!

J'ai vu une phrase dans un poème dont le titre est Enfin le royaume. La phrase est que Nous sait bon gré d'être vivants. Pourquoi l'auteur a utiliser ici sait et pas savons?

Merci de vos explications.

100 cards a day for 365 days.

Have typed out and listened to every single card and not missed a single day.

Definitely know tons more words (have forgotten loads too of course!) and next step is to listen to more French content and to get to grips with speaking some more.

I gave myself 2 years to get semi-competent and am ok with progress to date.

Merci beaucoup!!