If you have decided that you want to learn French, we wanted to share with you a few tips that will make your mission a lot easier. We came up with key tips that are sure to make your quest more exciting and hopefully will help you grasp the language a lot quicker.

No matter why you’re thinking about picking up French, you probably feel just a little bit intimidated. Most of the students we talk to feel like the journey is impossible, and that it’ll take them years to learn to speak this new language.

Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case. Although many of the schools and courses rely on out-of-date methods that make learning French seem like a chore, there are now some superb self-study courses that use a wide variety of learning methods that have been developed by psychologists and proven to cut your learning time by over 300%.

While you might be thinking about enrolling in a course at a school or hiring a tutor, remember that these might not give you the kinds of results you want. That’s because most classes have too much of a focus on reading and writing, and not enough on speaking.

Since many students are in class to learn to speak French, this can be pretty frustrating. The best bet is finding a self study program that’ll allow you to learn on your own and help you become fluent in conversational French.

Here are three tips to help make your learning experience easier.

1) Like you mom always said, make sure to listen!

It’s amazing how much your mind will pick up just by listening to another language. Even though you don’t necessarilly understand everything, there’s still a huge benefit in listening to other people converse in French. You get a better idea of the “flow” of the language and gradually you will also pick up new terms and the structure of the language.

Watching movies in French with English subtitles can also help, since you understand what’s being said at the same time that you hear it.

One of the students we worked with downloaded a whole season of a French TV program and watched them all. By the end of it, she had improved her French skills drastically and even had a grasp on the slang and nuances of the language.

2) Don’t OVER-practice

You’ve probably heard that practice makes perfect, and this is true in many situations. However, one of the big reasons that people give up on learning French is because it begins to feel boring and like a chore.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice. Instead, take time to vary how you practice and do whatever’s needed to keep up your motivation. Don’t set up scheduled learning unless that’s how you learn best.

That allows you to engage in the language without feeling restricted by a particular schedule.

3) Mix up your practice to keep things exciting

Remember that you want to include French daily as part of your routine. However, you shouldn’t do the same thing every day or you might get bored. That’s why you should mix it up!

That means you could listen to a French program on television or on the radio, or do a lesson from your class or course. If you have French speaking friends, you can have a conversation. Daily newspaper readers can choose a few paragraphs and review how to translate them into French.

There are many different ways to engage yourself in the language.

To truly learn the language, you’ll need to vary how you learn. That allows you to use different parts of your brain to learn more quickly and retain more of what you learn.

That’s why some online study courses have been so successful. They do a wonderful job of providing a good variety of material. That keeps students interested and helps them get the right kind of stimulation.

If you’re learning French, it shouldn’t have to feel like a full time job. If you go about it correctly, it can actually be exciting and fun. Find the right course of study, follow the tips here and stick with it, and you’ll be speaking the language in no time.