Personal Blogs

I am working through the Open University Bon Depart books and am filling in the gaps in my grammar knowledge, fixing some of the areas where I had stumbled over. While I am not formally studying this module and don't have tutor or fellow students to interact with, I really appreciate the format of the books on their own or with the CDs.

The books and the cds are not cheap, although in my opinion, they are very good value for money. However, I wanted to talk about some of the free aids to learning French that are available on the internet.

Over the years, I have subscribed to several blogs and teaching emails to help me learn French. As they arrived faster than I could read them, I set up a separate folder for these two.

For anyone looking for detailed information on French language, grammar, vocabulary and links to anything French related, the one to read is Laura K Lawless. Her regular emails have now been replaced by a new website. I haven't used this yet, but based on her previous work, I am sure it will be comprehensive and easy to use. I have also kept all the old emails to allow me to look up grammar points. Hopefully the new site will have quizzes to keep us learners on our toes. Sadly this was one of my favourite parts of the emails.

http://www.lawlessfrench.com/

More a cultural or day in French life blog is Kristin Epinasse's stories of her life in France, illustrated with beautiful photographs. She cleverly inserts French phrases in each edition, although most of the blog is written in English. She provides more colloquial words and phrases which are set in everyday stories.

https://dub117.mail.live.com/ol/#

For a more structured learning experience, try duolingo. This language learning website is strangely addictive and the numbers of different languages available can be distracting if you enjoy learning multiple languages.

It is split into a language learning section and a translation section. Both generate points and builds language skills. The site encourages you to log in everyday, by giving bonus points for using it for a week or more. It's very hard when you miss a day and end your streak.

Www.duolingo.com

And one of the nicest parts of these free sites, is the comments and communication between the users who share their links, ask and answer questions and generally support the learning experience.