I have been learning french for three years with Duolingo but it crashes so many times at the same point and it hasn’t been fixed so I want to move to another programme. If you have any recommendations I would be pleased to hear of them. Thank you
There are quite a few but you may find this of some help…
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Wow I’ve just read the headlines I’m really amazed at the number of resources available. I have got to B1 with Duolingo but my pronunciation I think leaves scope for improvement. I’ll start at the top of the list and work my way down until I find a course that resonates. Thank you very much this is more informative than I could have imagined.
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I found some of the stuff on TV5 very useful, particularly as they use real conversations and regional accents. Only goes to B2 I think, but I still dip in and out.
If you select the B1/B2 level there are lots of exercises in listening which will help your pronuncation
Thank you, I will look carefully at all these schemes as I really need to progress with speaking french. Until then my vocabulary is not much use to me! I will certainly give this one a go but set a time limit to how long I spend each day.
My (french) ex, who I saw the other day at our daughters graduation ceremony 
(smiley is for the graduation!) said to madame she’d 'll never learn French with Duolingo.
LIstening to it each morning when she does it, I’m tempted to agree. The accents are like comedial?
When with the ex I did a GCSE French course at the FE college - anyone enrolled on anything similar in France? Or joined ‘naturalisation’ courses? - like I said, I’d be happy to do some!
You could try https://www.kwiziq.com/. Free to try. I use it for Spanish. Actually kwizik is the quiz part of the site. You could try it out to see if it suits you by taking a look at Sign In > Learn French faster with Progress with Lawless French. There are loads of quizzy exercises as well as listening and grammar explanations. It’s not noddy.
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Agree. It is fine at a very basic level, but doesn’t seem to lead to fluency and ability to hold a conversation.
When I did formal lessons that led to the DELF/DALF diploma I found that really useful in giving a proper language foundation. Look around to see if there is anything like that locally. Or you can work at it online.
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People have different learning styles but I really believe that especially for an adult, learning alone, reading a good grammar book and then doing massive quantities of exercises is a good way to acquire the necessary mechanics. Then in order to learn as much context related vocab as poss and practise it, listen to radio watch films or television, talk with people. I’ve put actual talking to people last because some people are twitchy about the potential for embarrassment.
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Thanks Jane, a quick google found -
At level B1, the user becomes independent. He/she can maintain interaction: he/she can understand and maintain a discussion and give his/her opinion. He/she is capable of dealing with situations likely to arise in daily life.
Please note that DELF B1 is required to obtain the French nationality.
Madame is not targeting nationality but it does start at A1. Now we know the qualification name we can look for the lessons!
Cheers.
If you like DL, I don’t think there’s any harm in doing it, but there will come a point where you’re doing it to keep up your streak rather than because you’re learning from it.
I use
Journal en francais facile https://savoirs.rfi.fr/fr/apprendre-enseigner/langue-francaise/journal-en-francais-facile
LingQ
books!
YouTube
French tv: game shows are great, eg Tout le monde veut prendre sa place; and that antiques programme on in the afternoon, because of the repetitiveness of the dialogue.
I have used
Babbel
Kwizziq
Rocket
Yabla
You really need to find what works for you, and then spend time every day, no excuses! If you start with a regular 30 minutes, you will find it soon passes, and you want to do more.
Also - find a conversation partner. I used Conversation Exchange (though, if you’re female, you’ll need to put something in your description about being happily married 
or you’ll get men whose main interest is not necessarily language).
I think it is wonderful having all these marvellous modern resources to help language learning, there’s no excuse for not becoming proficient nowadays. It was perfectly doable in the past but it really is so much easier now.
Ha, sitting outdoors in a UK weatherspoons an hour ago - lady walked passed talking to her baby in arms - I heard… was that French? excuse moi mme est ce que vous francaise? Led to a 5 min conversation who, where, what, why - in French! She is a UK teacher of French / Spanish - I can speak english she said…
It was just great to use the french words.
She didn’t give me an assessment.
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That’s exactly what she says!, also stay in my league (silly names diamond emerald etc)
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I’m so pleased it’s not just me finding the pronunciation on Duolingo bizarre. I practise every day and have a large streak but also refer to grammar books. I now have lots of things to try. However my first attempt 3 years ago with Babbel weren’t successful it may be different now.
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To be honest, I’d rather ask my French conversation partner - the one who has become a friend - about pronunciation. DuoLingo too often attaches the wrong audio file to a word. It does it in English, too. In fact, Google Translate is better.
And there’s something quite funny (for me) when your French friend mocks you for your pronunciation of onglet, which sounded (to him) just like anglais. (It did, to my chagrin.) It creates a lovely supportive learning environment.
Which grammar books do you use?
francaisauthentique.com is good for intermediate level upwards. They will send you a weekly podcast and video free.
My partner has found francais authentique to be useful too.I just got very confused! Despite taking several courses and having conversation opportunities, my French appears to be deteriorating, which is somewhat depressing. Perhaps it’s my age!!!
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I’ve just had a go with TV5Monde and completely failed to understand a conversation at Level A1. Since Frantastique thinks I’m at level B2, I wonder what is going on there. Could be hearing difficulties I suppose?
Did you try the placement quiz here: Apprendre le français FLE gratuitement, cours de français avec TV5MONDE?