As I seem to have more time than employment these days I’d like to improve my French skills. I haven’t spoken French for more than 25 years so my spoken skills are… well, they suck, OK? I can get some very basic sentences out but with poor to horrible accent. Sad, really - when I went to France lo these many years ago I was able to speak and be spoken to and be understood. It wasn’t perfect French, but it was serviceable.
My hearing French is better (it always has been) but weak. In some circumstances I “get” what I’m hearing (in Fly Boys, for example, I had no problem understanding the French dialogue) but that tends to be very basic conversations. I mean, c’mon - in Fly Boys it was largely French people speaking to monolingual Americans, they kept it simple.
My reading is, as it has always been, my best French skill. I’ve been reading Le Monde a couple days a week, I still have a lot of my French textbooks, and still have books and novels in French (and better yet, Project Gutenberg has books in French! I will finally get my French copy of 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea)
My budget - effectively $0
The goal - improve my French so I can say “French language skills” on my resume without looking like a fool or a liar.
So - suggestions welcomed please - especially the help of Francophile Dopers.
Although I have reading materials new material is always welcome. Cheap, on-line sites would be very welcome. I don’t think I could keep up with a chat room at this point, but message boards that will tolerate an inept writer would be appreciated as I know the more I use the language the better I’ll be.
I live in the Chicago/Northwest Indiana area - are there TV stations around here the broadcast in French? (I still have satellite TV at this point and we’re hoping to hang onto it although, realistically, it may be turned off next month now that we have our digital-to-analog box. However, if only I get two weeks that’s still good)
Any French clubs anyone knows about? I’m not even sure how to find such things.
I have looked at the tape/CD collections at the local library. I’m thinking that if I get those and not only concentrate on them in lessons, but also play them in the background as I do housework, cook, etc. it will help retrain my ears to the language.
Any other suggestions? Like I said, I haven’t got hardly any money to put towards this.
(Next step, of course, is to make a lesson plan/schedule for myself and then do it, but ya’ll can’t help me with that part!)
(If this works out really well I’ll try picking up Spanish, but French is essentially relearning something I once knew, Spanish is a new language)