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There are various sites to learn and speak foreign language frequently and these are-
LingoGlobe
Italki
Verbling
Bussu.com
MyLanguageExchange.com
Conversation Exchange
Live-stream French radio on the internet. Just let it play for hours, for background noise in the house. But, I think this would work only if your prior level of fluency allowed you to understand spoken French without mentally translating.
You are going to have to speak and hear it a lot to get your brain to recognize it again. I was fluent in 3 languages in early childhood, forgot pretty much everything by the time I was 7 after attending school without having anyone to speak with and at home everything became English without my Grandparents and my birth father to speak the language with on a daily basis. Later on in college I began to socialize again with native speakers and within 3 months a lot of the phrases were easily recognized by my brain. Even words I didn't recognize but had knew before just started to click with my brain. Like one day a friend kept asking for a plate in another room, I didn't "know" the word for plate but for some reason I grabbed a plate and brought it to him, it was weird. After that I began to listen to songs, watching movies and news stories online in the other language and listen for key words and phrases. I sometimes dream in the other languages but I can't always understand lol.
This is very interesting! My kids spent 3-4 years in Switzerland during their childhoods, in French-speaking schools (they're native English speakers). We moved to the US in 2011, when my son was almost 12 and my daughter 7, and they haven't done anything in French since (as they were playing catch-up with their reading and writing in English, maintaining the French seemed unreasonable to ask of them).
My son, now 14, is going to high school this fall, and has chosen to do French as his 'two years of a foreign language' requirement. The school has put him in French 2 based on my explanation of his background, with a view to evaluating him when he starts to see if that's the right level for him. Until now, I've been a bit worried that he'll have forgotten everything, and might struggle in French 2, but it sounds like he might find it pleasantly easy after the first few weeks!
For the OP, if you have an iThing or similar, the free app Duolingo is an excellent and fun way to refresh a rusty language. My French teacher in Switzerland also gave me an excellent tip, which is to read out loud for 5-10 mins a day. It doesn't matter overmuch if you don't understand everything you're saying (although you could start off with easy things), it's the physical mouth muscle training and developing an 'ear' for correct word order that's important here.
Call toll-free phone numbers in Canada, press the button for French, and talk who whomever answers as long as they will put up with you. Rinse and repeat.
Doing it from a young age gives these children constant training - which is so powerful that growing up bilingually is though to postpone the onset of dementia for five years, much later in their lives!
Hispanics are about 1.5 more times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than whites.
•Hispanics have a higher rate of Alzheimer's than whites to have Alzheimer's and dementia but are less likely than whites to have a diagnosis.
You are right Chava, I think I do still have the passive comprehension for the most part.
Not sure about the "finding a native speaker" thing... I don't like to talk to people just to talk, without any subject that is of interest to both. (I have no talent for small talk) Maybe I could start by finding some discussion forums in French on subjects that interest me. I have gotten so used to English as the lingua franca of the Internet that I forget that there all the other languages are around on the Internet as well. It might not be as efficient as one-to-one conversation, but still not a bad idea.
I think you should take an extended vacation or study in France. I have a friend who is from France and he says what's hard for him here is he can't find anyone to talk to in French and he has a hard time with English. I told him to go to Louisiana -- he said he's been there but can't understand them, so I told him try Quebec, he's been there he said and said it's even worse there, he can't understand them.
I think you should take an extended vacation or study in France. I have a friend who is from France and he says what's hard for him here is he can't find anyone to talk to in French and he has a hard time with English. I told him to go to Louisiana -- he said he's been there but can't understand them, so I told him try Quebec, he's been there he said and said it's even worse there, he can't understand them.
He wants to move back to France.
I suspect your friend's French might be a bit rusty from living in a non-francophone environment and not speaking it much. When a language gets rusty one of the first abilities that starts to go is a quick understanding of different varieties of a language.
Obviously he wouldn't be able to understand Quebec sitcoms right away but for everyday situations someone who speaks fluent European style French would have absolutely no problems here.
I used to speak French fluently and mastered written French pretty well. I had taken 5 years of French in school, and had part of my college education and some working experience in France (total 1.5 years). That was 13 years ago.
Unfortunately I have lost my French skills almost completely. Directely after my time in France, I moved to the U.S. for a number of years. This seems to have caused English to erase or supersede French in my mind. I have a very hard time remembering French words and phrases, and using the grammar correctely. I don't think the knowledge is gone, it is still there, but I cannot readily access it - least of all in spoken conversation. My mother language is German, and I live in a German-speaking country.
Now I would like to relearn the French language to my former level. Is this possible without being immersed in a French-speaking environment?
I could designate maybe 3 hours a week to study. I don't have anybody in my environment who I could speak French with - although there are 3-4 collegues at work who speak French (some as mother language), I have hardly any contact with them, nor would I feel comfortable inflicting my very poor French on them.
If anybody has experience re-activating "forgotten" foreign language skills, I would be interested to learn how you did it, how long it took and what you can recommend!
I was surprised how fast my French conversational came back when we had crews come in from Quebec. But that's not technical or in writing. It comes back fast when you actually start using it again.
The same thing happened with my son when it came to Japanese. He had originally had it as his first/second language and it dropped to fourth with school and a different home environment.
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It's great.
Reactivated verbal for work
