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French Penpals
A few weeks ago I created an account at http://tolearnfrench.com They have a fair amount of content a lot of practice test, message boards, etc. The best feature though for me is that they have a tool to help you find pen pals. I have actually had more people contact me about being their penpal rather than me have to contact them. You just have to go to the tool and do a search. That causes your account name to go to the top of the list and people will find you. There are actually several sites that your account is good for, tolearnenglish.com, francaisfacile.com, anglaisfacile.com. That was a little confusing at first, however the point is that there are people who speak French on the site who want to learn English. Most people are willing to help you with your French in exchange for helping them with their English. It's just an awesome way to practice. I've probably written twenty short emails in French just this past week.
I think that Fluenz gives you a great foundation, they way they have the program laid out here, I have discovered from taking my class at L'alliance Français that I have already learned a lot of advanced material through level 3. Obviously there are some things that are skipped that you need to fill in through other means but just like English, all languages are complex and not everything is going to be covered in 5 levels or even 10 levels. Fluenz in my opinion provides an excellent foundation in French, and I would assume all other languages, to take it to the next level however requires additional sources.
The other night in my class we were introduced to the conditional tense. Through level 3 in Fluenz French we have learned that as je voudrais, je pourrais, etc In my class we covered several other verbs, but the patterns are all very similar between er, ir, and re verbs. Mitchell who often posts here frequently recommends the French section on about.com. I could not agree more. They have an excellent tool there for verb conjugations, http://french.about.com/library/verb/... Even though Fluenz may not cover some verb tenses, with the foundation you do receive at Fluenz and a tool like this, it's not too difficult to start figuring things out. And then bring a few french penpals, you get practice what you learn. It's an exciting world out there for language learning :)
I think that Fluenz gives you a great foundation, they way they have the program laid out here, I have discovered from taking my class at L'alliance Français that I have already learned a lot of advanced material through level 3. Obviously there are some things that are skipped that you need to fill in through other means but just like English, all languages are complex and not everything is going to be covered in 5 levels or even 10 levels. Fluenz in my opinion provides an excellent foundation in French, and I would assume all other languages, to take it to the next level however requires additional sources.
The other night in my class we were introduced to the conditional tense. Through level 3 in Fluenz French we have learned that as je voudrais, je pourrais, etc In my class we covered several other verbs, but the patterns are all very similar between er, ir, and re verbs. Mitchell who often posts here frequently recommends the French section on about.com. I could not agree more. They have an excellent tool there for verb conjugations, http://french.about.com/library/verb/... Even though Fluenz may not cover some verb tenses, with the foundation you do receive at Fluenz and a tool like this, it's not too difficult to start figuring things out. And then bring a few french penpals, you get practice what you learn. It's an exciting world out there for language learning :)