Can You Learn French As An Adult?

Learning French as an adult is totally possible. There really is nothing stopping you from going from zero to speaking French.

Of course it is going to take a lot of work, which is why some people think it is impossible, but with enough time and effort you can be fluent in French.

Other Adults Have Already Learned French

If you think it is not possible for someone to learn French as an adult, then why have there been millions of people who have already done it?

You can literally find plenty of examples of people who have been an adult with zero French skills to being able to fully communicate in the language.  

People of all ages are doing this every day around the world and there is no reason why you cannot be one of them.

(You can read more about – Am I Too Old To Learn French?)

Learning French Is A Scale

You also need to remember that your ability to speak the French language will be on a scale. You will of course have people at zero and then the scale slides all the way to French natives at the other end.

However, you do not suddenly jump from one end of the scale to the other. You need to work your way along this scale, building up your French skills as you go, and it’s up to you to decide how far you go with this.

Some people will also side up this scale faster than other, but regardless, we all have the same potential to slide along to exactly where we want to be within the French language. With enough time and effort we can all be at the fluent end of the scale.

Adult Brains Are Set Up For Languages

The human brain is designed to communicate, which means it is set up to learn languages. If we expose ourselves to enough of the French language our brains are going to start to try and decode what we are hearing and make sense of it, regardless of how much of the language we know as it will want to be able to understand what is being communicated to us.

When we learn a language our brains will actually try and understand the language on a much deeper, subconscious level, which doesn’t happen when we study anything else.

This fundamental need to be able to communicate means that our brains are actually set up to learn languages more effectively than we realise, even if it seems like that might not be the case.  

Adult Brains Can Still Learn French

The fact that our brains are set up for communication means we can still learn French. We are going to do it slightly differently to a child, but we can still learn as adults.

While a child’s understanding of the world is a little different to an adults, if we both get enough exposure to French we can learn the language.

French may seem confusing for a long time, but slowly your brain will start to get used to the patterns and sounds of the language, much like how a small child learns, although we have the advantage of already understanding the concept of things in our native language, which can help us speed up learning things.

French Is A Similar Language To English

As an adult who speaks English you already have a huge advantage to learning French. There are a huge number of words that are pretty much the same in both languages.

As a complete beginner you could read something in French and probably get an idea of what it is about. You won’t understand it completely, but you may be able to tell what the topic is about.

This really is a huge advantage and can really make you life much easier. You are basically starting the language with a huge passive vocabulary and you can easily build on this and fully learn the language.

How Long Does It Take To Learn French As An Adult?

If I am saying that we can learn the French language as an adult, then it is only logical to ask how long it will take learn French. However, this answer really depends on so many things it hard to say exactly.

Firstly it depends on how high up the scale you want to go. Do you want a good basic grasp of French, or do you want to be fluent? The more you want to learn, the longer it will take.

Really it is going to be a life long journey of learning, but of course you are going to do the bulk of the hard work early on. Just think about your journey with English, you probably knew most of the words you would ever need by 10 years old, but you will have learned plenty of new things after this.  

Ultimately it comes down to how much effort you put in. You will get to a tipping point where you understand most of the language and how much effort you put in to reach this point, will correlate to how long it takes you to get there.

 (You can read more about – Can You Learn French In A Year?)

Why Do We Think That We Can’t Learn French As Adults?

While it is completely possibly for us to learn French as adults, we for some reason we all think it can’t be done. This commonly held myth is usually down to three reasons, it’s difficult, it takes time and it’s a lot easier to give up than keep going.

It’s Easy To Be Overwhelmed By French

French may be similar to English, but that doesn’t make it easy and you can very quickly get overwhelmed.

French is spoken very quickly and can be hard to hear. The words will melt into one another and even if you are reading what you are hearing, the spellings don’t match the pronunciation.

The grammar rules can also seem endless and so overly complicated. Basically French can seem impossible.

If you are going to look up at a huge mountain from the bottom, of course it’s going to see impossible to get to the top. However, if you take it one step at a time, you will soon be most of the way up the mountain without even realising.

It Is Easy To Underestimate How Much Time Is Needed To Learn French

We are very impatient and want to see immediate results these days, which will not be the case when learning a language, especially French.

It takes a lot of study and immersion for the brain to get comfortable with French and we can really underestimate how long this can take.

Learning French is going to be a long term project. It can take years to get really good at it and it is very easy to underestimate this and give up when you don’t see results after a few months.

It’s Easy To Give Up

Being overwhelmed and seeing no progress for a long time can make it very easy to just give up on French.

Life is hard enough without adding another challenge like this one top and if it’s not really a major priority it can be very easy to just give up.

This happens far too often and if you can only keep going you will learn French. It’s not impossible; you just need to not give up. 

(You can read more about – How Can You Learn French As An Adult?)

Conclusion

With the right approach you can learn French as an adult. It really is as simple as just putting in the work and doing it consistently. You will start to see results and you will make progress.

Once you get a few victories under your belt you will realise there is no limit to how much of the language you can master, so do not give up and keep pushing. You can learn French.

(You can read more about – Advice For Anyone Learning The French Language)