Where to practice French on an internet site?
 

Does anyone know of an internet site where I can practice my French? I am a beginner and would like to be prepared for my visit in May. Thank you for any assistance.

Try Googling on French in Action; it's a great series.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/index.shtml

This site from the BBC might help. As Underhill mentioned, google will find pages of free French courses.

Blackduff

http://french.about.com/od/pronunciation/

This is another site which gives good help. I have used this often. Of course, it's trying to get you to buy something but there's a lot of free help on this site. There's even pronunciations.

Blackduff

Go to about.com. Click onthe "channel" called Homework Help. Scroll down to Languages and click on French. There you will find Laura K Lawless' French courses. There are beginning and intermediate course, a verb conjugator, Daily Franch lessons and sound files. I use this site to compliment my French lessons. FREE

Bookmarking.

Wordreference.com includes a french-english-french dictionary and forums where users discuss idiomatic expressions, etc. A good way to pratice reading and pick up new vocabulary words.

Nothing better than chatting with real people...

http://fr.docs.yahoo.com/chat/chatbylycos.html

Best wishes,

Rex

Great sites! Is there a site where I can actually hear the correct pronunciation?

Rex, I did not see your responce, I will check it out!

For reference...

The BBC site is really excellent - you can read articles while they are read outloud to you. Really helps learn how real French people speak French.

I don't know if French Yahoo "tchatche" has audio or not...

Here is an interesting site, Radio France International, I read about in FRANCE magazine:

http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/statiques/accueil_apprendre.asp

"Within the Langue Francaise section of the website, the Journal en Francaise Facile presents three simplified new bulletins complete with accompanying transcripts...Mots de l'Actualite is another great section."

Bookmarking, thanks!

Also bookmarking

bookmarking, moi aussi.

Great question!

Would these answers also work for those of us trying to learn italian?

TV news three times a day:

http://jt.france2.fr/8h/
http://jt.france2.fr/13h/
http://jt.france2.fr/20h/

If you have a CD player, you might check and see if your local library has any French language CD series, like the Pimsleur Language Series. I put these in while I'm in the car and find them to be quite helpful in learning some basic phrases.

bookmarking

for pronunciation of text that you input, try these sites:

oddcast: http://tinyurl.com/2fpus
at&t: http://tinyurl.com/yuj6
bell labs: http://tinyurl.com/m6h43

oddcast is awesome but you may need both java and shockwave or flash installed, not sure. After every few demos you need to delete its cookie to continue. at&t natural voices works nicely and the output can be saved. The bell labs link seems moribund - perhaps it was rolled into the AT&T site.

Yo, parisnow -

You can bookmark on your own computer by right-clicking on the title at the top of a thread. That way, you don't even have to search your own posts for it.

SurfSide6... It's good to hear that you are wanting to practice before you go! So many people don't even bother. But, of course, if you're a Fodorite, you like to prepare and you see the benefits of travel and broadening your world.

Isn't travel great! Especially when you can learn parts of a new language and a new culture!?

I also like to e-mail the thread to myself and have a folder set up in my Yahoo account for the Fodors threads I want to save.

derekflint, I just tried the first site you list. THAT IS SO COOL. That is exactly what I need. Now when I read French and wonder how to pronounce a word I can paste it in and hear it! FANTASTIC.

Rex,

French Yahoo "tchatche" has been closed (or more exactly made innaccessible with the recent versions of messengers) and replaced by a much more regulated chat without voice put in place by a partner company (lycos).

Voice chat is still possible in the "french rooms" (under "communities and languages" or something like that)of yahoo US but I fled these chats long ago because honestly it's generally not a pleasant place to go. AFAIK, Yahoo Canada still has the regular chatrooms

Two sites with a chat in various languages (but without voice) :

http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/

http://home.unilang.org/main/index2.php