Some of us go through school, move on to work or further education, and then settle into our careers, happy in the knowledge that we'll never have to take a class or study again.
Others are lifelong learners who revel in the opportunity to learn new skills, with languages being one of the most popular choices. There are lots of languages out there that you can learn, but you're here because you've decided that French is the language for you and you're looking for ways to learn it.
In addition to helping students find the right French tutor, Superprof is also here to help with some of the best websites for learning the French language.
Shall we check them out?
Work Out What You Need to Learn French
Are you or your kids looking to learn French? Maybe it's something you can do together as a family, especially if you're taking a trip together to a French-speaking country.
Ask yourself the following questions before you start looking for resources for learning French or hiring a private French tutor:
- Are you going to study on your own, with your kids, or maybe with another friend?
- Do you have much experience with French or is this the first time you'll be studying it?
- Did you learn another language at school? Could it help you when it comes to studying French?
- What are your goals when it comes to fluency?
- Why did you choose French instead of any other language?
- How much time can you invest in studying French?
Once you have the answers to these, you'll be able to start looking for the best websites and French applications that will help you learn French in the way you want to.
Now let's see where you can learn French online.
Great Websites for Learning French
Bonjour de France is a great site and invaluable resource for learning French whether you're completely new to the language or are at an intermediate level.
If you're a beginner, the page and materials are a great place to start learning and speaking French. As you progress through the resources and start to improve your French, you'll see that the courses adapt to you.
Eventually, if you get good enough at French, you may want to improve your language skills and work towards taking the official DELF qualification to confirm your level.
With most sites, there are fairly well-established levels with content, resources, and materials that are appropriate to your level. Working out your level is easy if you've never studied French before (you'll be an absolute beginner), but if you have some experience speaking French or have done a French course before, you may want to consider taking a level test.
On the site, you can find:
- Exercises in conjugating French verbs
- French idiomatic expressions
- Specialist lessons on French for business
- French comprehension activities
- French lessons for younger learners
- Training materials and activities for the aforementioned DELF qualification
Again, everything is arranged by level so it's really important that you work out what your level is before you start using any of the materials.
Learn French Lab takes a more traditional approach to learning French and while it isn't the most fun website to look at (with its monochrome colour scheme), it's full of useful resources.
You can use it for conjugating irregular verbs, learning more about grammatical gender, and understanding all the grammatical nuances that the French language is so famous for.
What the site lacks in presentation, it more than makes up for it in terms of the resources that you can find on the site and the materials could be put to really good use by the kind of student who doesn't need any bells and whistles to make learning French fun.
Like many of the websites you'll find as you try to learn French, the best materials are behind a paywall. After all, this is how most educational sites and resources make their money. There are a lot of resources that you can get for free, but the good stuff always needs to be paid for.
Fortunately, you can test out the free resources before deciding whether or not it's worth paying for the better ones. Generally, if you don't find the free stuff good on a particular site, it's unlikely that it's going to be worthwhile paying for the premium content and resources. Only upgrade to premium content if the free content is valuable!
How You Can Learn French Online Through Digital Immersion
If you're learning French online, you're probably not in a French-speaking country. While immersion is by far one of the best ways to learn a foreign language, not everybody has the option to uproot and move to France or another French environment.
While you can't make it so that French is the only language that you hear, speak, read, or write, you can make it so that your online environment is completely French.
This will help if you are moving to a French-speaking country in the future as you'll be more familiar with everyday French including colloquial speech, idiomatic expressions, and even slang.
My Canal includes plenty of French films, TV shows, and interviews in French. You can use this to watch French-language documentaries and many over types of content that probably aren't available on some of your favourite streaming services.
If you're a beginner or a lower intermediate speaker of French, there are English subtitles to help you get by, but we do recommend changing the subtitles to French as soon as you can. Once you have a good ear for French, you can remove the French subtitles completely!
There's also a channel for very young learners, too, which is great if your kids want to learn French with you.
French podcasts are another great way to get used to listening to the French language.
There are a number of podcasts for beginners and intermediates, but once your French is approaching fluent, you can start listening to any podcast in French to keep your listening skills sharp.
Learn French Online Through French-speaking Cultures
You can't separate language from culture. The French language belongs to the cultures and peoples that speak it and said cultures use the French language as a vehicle. To really get good at any foreign language, you need to immerse yourself in the language and the culture.
Basic French courses will likely focus on the linguistic aspects of learning a language by teaching you vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc., but as you advance, you'll start learning more about French-speaking cultures whether you want to or not; it's unavoidable.
Most French teachers will try to bring the language alive by contextualising it in the real world through current events, culture, music, cinema, literature, and television.
There are some great sites that can help with this, too.
Se Coucher Moins Bête is a French-language website focusing on learning about things. The name of the site roughly translates to the English idiomatic expression "you learn something new every day", but it's actually a French idiomatic expression that means you'll "go to bed less dumb".
It lives up to its name and with plenty of facts and trivia submitted by users and upvoted and downvoted in accordance with how useful they find it. You can learn about history, philosophy, society, culture, and anything else that may be of interest.
As these are submitted by users, however, the language used can be quite advanced and you may need to have a dictionary handy or even consider using some online French translation tools to help you decipher the factoids.
We wouldn't really recommend this site for very young learners as it could be beyond their level or even not something they'd find particularly interesting. That said, some kids love facts and trivia so you could always work with them to learn new facts and study French.
Blagues Carambar comes highly recommended if you enjoy a good laugh. Carambar is a French caramel candy that famously comes with a joke or a pun inside and you can find them online. You can find the jokes on this site and many others.
While certain jokes require a good level in any language when learning foreign languages, it can actually be still funny if you need the joke explained to you.
These aren't the only places you can learn French online and the best way to master any language is by choosing a good range of interesting and useful resources to work with.
If you need more help or guidance while studying French, don't forget that private tutors are out there to help you and you can find tutors for all levels and budgets.
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