how you should learn French (for A2 and up)

Hello class! Welcome. I'm guessing you clicked on this video because you, you lovely person, you want to either learn French or improve your French and I am here to help you. Let's be serious now. Let's just, let's be, let's be serious. I'm gonna split this video up into apps, mindset, and just general tips when it comes to your French learning journey and I have all of it here so that I don't forget anything. Many of you guys who are currently subscribed to me have always asked me, oh my gosh, can you please make a video about how you learn French? Oh, how long have you been learning French? And don't worry my children, I will answer all of that in a tiffy. So I did have an advantage when I was learning French because me, the difference between me and my classmates was that I actually had one-on-one teaching with a native French speaker whereas all my classmates were in a large group and they did not have a native French speaker. So first of all, the main difference was that I got more attention from my teacher because the focus was solely on me. Also because I was hearing an authentic French accent whereas they were hearing like just an Irish person who learned French but their accent wasn't great, you know? Honestly, my accent was better than the teacher's. That's saying something, but anyway. So right off the bat, I had a lot more, you know, I had a lot more attention. Over the past six years, I've collected a bunch of regrets that I have and a bunch of tips that I have that I hope that you guys can apply to everyday life that will somehow help you when it comes to French. So I'm just going to jump right into it because I've been blabbing for long enough and I'm very sorry about that but okay. Okay, so I'm going to start with the most wanted section probably of this whole video which is the apps. So we have lyricstraining.com, Netflix, and HelloTalk. Now out of those three, HelloTalk is definitely the best when it comes to language learning because there is just so much you can do. HelloTalk is your best friend. It is essentially like an app that allows you to talk with native speakers in your target language but it is a symbiotic relationship. They are trying to learn your language, you're trying to learn theirs, and it's always with people on the same age as you and you can find people with common interests. It's almost like a social media app and then there's a section in the app where you can write statuses and add photos and everything that you want and people can correct your language mistakes or grammar mistakes for you completely for free. It's almost like you're getting tutored but for free. It's a really easy way to learn slang as and common expressions and then the next thing I recommend is lyricstraining.com and I actually learned about this through school. I think it was this year or last year. I saw my teachers using it a lot and it's basically typing in lyrics while a song plays to see if you can understand the words that the singer is saying and it can really train your listening skills. It's pretty perfect because it's like fun. You discover new music. It's just like a win-win. I don't understand why people don't know about this website. I'll leave everything down below if you want to, you know. Okay and then the last app that I recommend to you guys is called Netflix. Now, this is pretty perfect because this video is sponsored by Surfshark VPN so I can introduce you to them and link it in to my Netflix segment. Surfshark VPN is a virtual private network that protects your passwords, photos and private messages. It allows you to bypass internet censorships in certain countries and regions to get access to more Netflix shows, unblock websites and watch certain YouTube videos. It also blocks ads, malware, trackers and phishing. If you don't know what phishing is, it's basically people sending you text messages trying to like lure you into giving your bank information, that type of thing. It has a simple user interface, runs at a very fast speed and can be used on as many devices as you want. One of the coolest features of this VPN is that it can scan online databases to see if your password has ever been leaked. What? I have never heard of that and that just makes me feel so safe. However, the greatest thing about this VPN, I kid you not, is that you can get 85% off with 3 months free with my code Kati21. I'm sorry, 85% off? What? This is literally one of the most inexpensive and high quality VPNs I've ever seen on the planet. But, you know, if you don't like it or you want your money back, there is a 30 day money back guarantee that will refund you all your money. Don't worry, sis. I just want to say that this VPN has really helped me with my language learning journey. Now I can access way more shows in Dutch and French than I can on the normal Irish Netflix. So if this is something for you and you think that this could really help your oral skills and your listening skills, then click the link in the description box or you can just use my code Kati21. Basically, what I do personally is I'm watching my French Netflix show. I have Quizlet open next to me or Anki. I'm watching it, listening out for words that I don't know. I have my subtitles on. I see a word I don't know. Translation. Boom. You got yourself a flashcard. You review it every few days. But the key to really remembering words is to use them. Make a conscious effort to somehow include it in your conversations when you're using HelloTalk. Yeah. That kind of leads on to the next thing, is that general advice is that I think you should be talking to yourself in your language. That sounds really freaking weird, but you should. Just speaking to yourself makes you realize what vocabulary you're missing that you would normally use every day. And just with that, you can like really improve and amp up your level. I sometimes do it and then I just can't stop. One time, actually more than one time, I've literally kept myself awake because I've just been talking to myself at night time. And then I'm just talking to myself so long that I just can't fall asleep because I've woken myself up so much. And then I'm just sitting there like, why was I just spending half an hour talking to myself in French, saying absolute gibberish that made absolutely no sense and wasting my own time. And now I can't sleep. Now, I'm going to move on to the mindset section. And listen to me when I say this, because it is the most important tip you're ever going to receive. Be okay with making mistakes. I am so upset that I was not as confident as early on as I should have been when it came to making mistakes and being corrected. Being corrected is a freaking blessing. You will remember your mistake forever because it's embarrassing. If you don't know what the word is for something, if you don't properly know how to say something, just use broken French. I swear to God, I do not care. I do not care about your pride. Use your broken French if you must. Just try and get it out somehow. It's like, can you imagine the amount of people that try and communicate to us in English, but their English is literally so poor, like it's so bad. We don't judge them though. We try our best to understand them and we try to help them. And we should view it in that way because nobody is judging us. Nobody's laughing at us. They are trying to understand us and help us in the best way that they can. And that is what you should remember when you are learning and when you are trying to communicate something that you're struggling with. Your learning curve will be like, let's just think about it logically. Okay. Okay. Common mistakes. You should learn all the common mistakes in your target language. So for example, in French, if I have to give a few examples, this was a mistake I made a lot when I started learning French. I didn't know that you have to say sion instead of shion. I used to say like t-i-o-n shion, but it should be conversation. And do you see how much more French that sounds already? Like I can't even say it anymore. It's really hard to say now for me. You know what? When you're watching your Netflix shows and they pronounce a really difficult word or something, or just in general, if they're just saying something that you want to copy, just copy exactly what they're saying. Like try and imitate the accent. I did that with my teacher a lot. Like she would say something, I would copy her and I learned how to pronounce things better that way. Okay. Now the next few tips are really basic, but learn your common tenses and learn how to conjugate them. I kind of didn't know how to quickly think of the tenses and stuff after speaking with natives and stuff and constantly using the tenses. I just remembered how to so much faster. It just really all comes down to speaking with natives, but that goes back to like hello talk. There's so many people that post like who wants to call. So you'll always find someone who wants to call you, um, and help you out. And then the very, very, very, very, very last tip I have is that you should learn to use French radios. French radios will speak quite quickly, but you should be exposing yourself to the language as much as you can. If you don't have the option to move to France or Belgium or something, um, for a couple of months or a year or something, try and find as many resources as you can. So I know we have Netflix already. I know we have hello talk, but French radio is also another resource. I feel like I pick up a lot more things and I get really excited when I know what they're saying. I'm like, oh my God, maybe my level isn't so bad. So yeah, I'm pretty sure those are all of the tips that I have for you today. I can make a part two if you like this video. Um, but honestly, maybe I wasn't that good at this. So I really want to try and help you guys in some way when it comes to French. I'm just not really good at this. Uh, I'm never, I've never been really good at teaching, but I hope some of these tips help you out with some of these were quite original. Yeah. I hope you found something in this video that you can use. Give it a thumbs up, subscribe, comment down below if you have any other tips for other people. Um, because I know that, you know, it's always good to help out the community. Have a good day guys. Bye.