Language Apps

Pimsleur teaches you to speak and read French properly, however, it does not teach you a lot of words. It is up to you to build your vocabulary. I noticed this gap after I had had voice calls with native speakers and chatting with Nigerians who are fluent in French. I did not have the words to continue the conversation after exchanging pleasantries in French.

Now, I am working on learning as many words as I can that I would need to express myself not as a tourist (Pimsleur teaches you the words that tourists need to learn – ordering food, asking for directions, asking for the time and price of things, etc.) but as someone who wants to live like a Parisian, I need more. I need to be able to talk to speak about their interests, talk about how I feel, etc.

So the first thing I got was the Anki Deck of 5000 most common words in French ( if you learn them then you’re golden). It wasn’t working for me. I attempted to learn the deck about five times but I would get tired and abandon it. I needed something fun so I would stay interested. So I went to Reddit r/French and I found options and options. I like options. We all like options.

Some mistakes

I have learnt a lot of words with Duolingo, unfortunately, I did not store them in my Anki deck and I have forgotten about half of them. So my advice is to store your new words so you remember them when reviewing your Anki deck.

Some more mistakes

You get the most value when you chat and carry out language exchange with people who are at intermediate or advanced levels of your native language (the one you speak fluently) and are native speakers of your target language (the language you are learning).

My mistake was chatting with everyone/anyone who wanted to chat with me. Do not do that. You cannot give what you do not have. I needed to chat with someone who understands English and French well. Also focus on the corrections from the people who have the accent you are trying to learn.

Even more mistakes

I got the order of the Anki decks wrong! And boy am I glad I figured that out because I was beginning to feel bad. Okay. The first deck I was using (5000 most frequently used French words) was supposed to be a companion deck to the main deck (16,000 French sentences sorted from easiest to hardest).

As I use the main deck, the sentences are easier to remember instead of just the words from the first deck I started with.

Advantages of learning with multiple tools

There is a difference between «vous» and «tu» in French with the former being used formally and the later informally.

Yesterday, I learnt from one of the Busuu app exercises that you can ask someone if they are comfortable with being addressed as «tu» and you can also grant people the permission to address you as «tu». So you say, «Tu peux me tutoyer» to grant someone the permission to address you as «tu».

Apps I used

• Pimsleur
• Duolingo
• Anki
• HelloTalk– for language exchange