language courses- self taught ones

[pugwash4x4]

not working for a few months and i'd like to improve my french.

i'd say i am at beginner/intemediate level and i'm wondering if using a self taught french course would be a good idea. has anyone got any recommendations?

[crofty1984]

You could get rosetta stone. That's good if you already know the basics, but I wouldn't pay full price for it. Of course I'd never suggest downloading it for nowt.
I've got Peyton overseas learn in your car for Italian. If they do french too that's good. I paid £20 for 9 CD's from Amazon. better to pu it on the laptop, go through it and when you get one wrong go back to the start of the lesson until you get it all right.
Depending on your budget, you could move to France. That would work too.

I've found it's useful to watch DVDs either in French or with French subtitles (OK, Italian for me) not great for actually learning new words, unless it's a fairly common one, or you sit there with a notepad whilst you watch, but very good for reinforcing what you already know.

[pugwash4x4]

i've lived in swiss speaking france for a couple of years (that was about 5 years ago), so my french is reasonable- i have no trouble have a conversation about most things, but i get stuck on correct grammar and tenses of verbs, so i need to revisit the basics again. also my vocab has dropped a lot so getting that back would be nice.

have only just moved back in with girlf after i moved away with work- so i don't really want to move away again!

[Stevenj214]

I liked the Michel Thomas CD's.

[A8VIP]

Pimsleur.

I used it to learn Mandarin Chinese whilst working in China (obviously!), found the courses to be very good.

Of course, I wouldn't for a minute suggest that I'd downloaded them from free...

[Monki]

Try and find yourself a french penfriend, it's how I taught myself the language at least then you are learning useful french which can be used in everyday situations and keep up to date with current affairs in France.

It's also a good idea to watch dvds in french too as you can then pick up on different accents etc

Only books I used were a dictionary and a verb table book, the latter been the most useful book I have ever bought!