J'apprends le français

When I was in kid, the school I went to alternated instruction in French and English; we would switch languages each week. Apparently I had a knack for it: my kindergarden teacher wound up telling my parents she thought I came from a francophone family. This wasn't true though; while my maternal grandparents grew up speaking French, the town they lived in as adults was primarily English speaking, and by the time I came around the only language I heard at home was English.

Unfortunately, we wound up moving provinces when I was half way through elementary school, and the French education in my new province wasn't nearly as good; by the time I graduated High School my French skills were pretty non-existent.

As an IT professional living in Canada's only bilingual province, I know that having a French proficiency certificate would be a great addition to my resume. Way back when I was in university for my Computer Science degree, I attempted to complete a minor in French; I made it through half of the required courses before I had to hit the breaks and focus on my core CS courses. Then, in 2018 when I was working for my Regional Health Authority, they started a new program to help their staff improve their French skills: a corner of the cafeteria was designated the 'Café de Paris' where staff could learn at lunchtime with a certified instructor. Our instructor was a wonderful woman who helped me get back on track. I attended her sessions almost every week, and we would often meet up after work for a walk & chat 'en français'. I was also travelling a lot for work at the time, and got into the habit of listening to Coffee Break French in the car. Along with practicing in the Duolingo app, I started to feel like a proficiency certificate could be in my future.

And then the pandemic happened. I started working from home full time, life became a little bananas, and my French language training fell off my radar.

But now I'm back! I'm starting at the beginning again: listening to the first season of Coffee Break French, and I erased my previous progress in Duolingo. Helpfully, Duolingo provided me with an evaluation that it used to put me in the appropriate section (I started in Section 2), and I've honestly become a little addicted to how they 'gamify' the lessons.

So, if you're looking to improve your French skills, these are two resources I would 💯 recommend.

Do any of you have resources that you think I should check out?

Thanks for reading,

Lisa