A popular – and very effective – way of learning French is to go to a French city such as Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse or Marseille and enrolling in a language school. Courses of various lengths are available, from four week crash courses and three month beginner packages to year-long university-based learning.
It may seem a drastic step to go abroad in order to learn languages, when it is easy enough to do a school qualifications or attend night classes in your own country, but going abroad is undoubtedly a more effective way to pick up conversational and business French.
Learning & Studying French Abroad – More Intensive Courses
There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that courses abroad tend to be more intensive. Whilst at home, a French language course may see students having one or two lessons a week, spending one to five hours in the classroom environment, at a French language school in France it will be learning on a daily basis, with three or four hours a day spent in the classroom.
Therefore, the amount of French students will subjected to in Lille, Strasbourg or Metz will be far higher than the amount subjected to in London, New York or Sydney.
Learning & Studying French Abroad – Everyday Transactions, Newspapers and Television
The other reason is that by living in the country whilst learning and studying French, the environment will be French – there’s no studying for a few hours then going home and speaking English for the rest of the week. If based at a language school in the Alps, Normandy or Brittany, everyday transactions need to be conducted in French, newspapers and television are in French and shop signs and restaurant menus are in French – it can’t be avoided. In such an environment, it is much easier to pick up more of the language, and use it on a conversational basis. There is also a far better chance of picking up colloquial slang and idiomatic expressions.
Learning & Studying French Abroad – Other French-speaking countries
Of course, it is not only France in which those wishing to learn French can attend a French language school. French is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and it is an official language in the following countries:
Belgium, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada (Quebec), Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, Vanuatu.
David Whitley - I am a full time travel writer and specialise in Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. I have visited, on the current count, 83 countries. ...
