I want to learn Croatian and improve my French – Please help!
#1
Original Poster
I want to learn Croatian and improve my French – Please help!
My husband and I would someday like to spend part of the year in Croatia and I’d like to learn conversational Croatian. I don’t need to be fluent, but I’d like to eventually be able to carry on a conversation. I’ve done Pimsleur’s and I like it, but they only have one level. I like being able to listen to it in my car, but I’m open to other suggestions.
On the flip side, I speak, read and write French at an advanced level, but since I don’t speak it often, my vocabulary and ease of speaking have suffered. Can anyone recommend a good advanced-level French program?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
On the flip side, I speak, read and write French at an advanced level, but since I don’t speak it often, my vocabulary and ease of speaking have suffered. Can anyone recommend a good advanced-level French program?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
#3
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 34,858
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't believe you can learn any language at an advanced, let alone fluent, level from a CD, which sounds like is what you want to do. You have to take classes or move to a French speaking area or at least use it a lot. You can try listening to French news everyday for starters, if you can get it on cable or the internet, and reading French newspapers and novels a lot. That would certainly help your vocabulary and fluency. Listening to Cds in cars won't cut it.
#5
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 10,169
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Having a conversational partner or tutor is a good idea if at all possible.
Failing that, look for content on websites ending in .hr (the Croat name of Croatia is Hrvatska, as you know) or YouTube videos in Croatian (good source of "street" Croatian, since there is a huge gap between what we are taught in school and what we actually speak in any language). I have learned masses of French usage on YouTube.
I don't think Croatian is harder than French. They just come from different language groups. My sister taught herself Czech to a fairly high level and found that she could understand a lot of Polish and the South Slav languages. Relatives by marriage who had studied Bulgarian at the military language school in Monterrey quickly understood Russian and had little difficulty with Croatian on a trip there.
For reading, find an English language book that you know well and read it in a Croat translation. Newspapers, of course, are available on the web.
Failing that, look for content on websites ending in .hr (the Croat name of Croatia is Hrvatska, as you know) or YouTube videos in Croatian (good source of "street" Croatian, since there is a huge gap between what we are taught in school and what we actually speak in any language). I have learned masses of French usage on YouTube.
I don't think Croatian is harder than French. They just come from different language groups. My sister taught herself Czech to a fairly high level and found that she could understand a lot of Polish and the South Slav languages. Relatives by marriage who had studied Bulgarian at the military language school in Monterrey quickly understood Russian and had little difficulty with Croatian on a trip there.
For reading, find an English language book that you know well and read it in a Croat translation. Newspapers, of course, are available on the web.
#6
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 124
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't know where you live, but many cities have language exchange nights at the local library. If your city doesn't have this, then you can look for people who are interested in language exchange on Craigslist.com. This would certainly help improve your french as it should not be too hard to find native French speakers. Croatian will probably be a bit harder unless you happen to live near a community of Croatian people. Also, keep in mind that they speak almost the same language in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, so you can learn quite a bit from anyone from the region.
#9
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 235
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I was just reading an article yesterday in the New York Times today about learning languages using the internet, including video chats and language feedback programs. You should look it up. It was in Saturday's newspaper.
#10
Original Poster
Thank you all for your replies; you've given me a lot of food for thought. There's no question that speaking to native speakers is the best way to learn. I'll look up the NY Times article and I also love the Skype suggestion. We live in a relatively rural area, in a small town, so unfortunately we don't have the resources locally that larger cities have.
Ellen
Ellen
#11
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Dear Ellen,
in case you still didn't make a choice of a method of learning and improving your Croatian, feel free to have a look at this website: www.speakcroatian.org
Kind regards,
Marijana
in case you still didn't make a choice of a method of learning and improving your Croatian, feel free to have a look at this website: www.speakcroatian.org
Kind regards,
Marijana