How To Speed Up Learning French

If you are studying French it probably did not take you long to realise that it’s a big challenge. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and realise that learning French is going to take a long, long time.

But is there any way you can speed this up? Well, yes but no. I will go through some ways that can make things more efficient, and hopefully help you speed your French learning up, but the honest truth is that it is still going to take a while.

It takes a long time for your brain to get comfortable in any language; the good thing is that it will happen. You just need to give yourself enough exposure to French and you will learn the language. 

Put More Time In To French

This sounds so simple and obvious that it’s almost stupid, but it’s the truth. The more time you put into your French studies, the faster you will see results.

You just need to learn as much as you can and then immerse as much as possible. The more time you put in, the faster things go.

It’s said that you need around 600 hours of French study to feel comfortable with the language. If you want to speed things up, then you just need to rack up those hours faster.

You could spend 1 hour a day and hit that target in 600 days, or, you could do two hours a day and reach it in 300 days.  

Of course there is a limit to how fast you can go, at some point you are going to be taking in too much to actually retain what you are learning, but the basic principle is true. Put more time into studying and you will get the results faster.

How Quickly Can You Do It?

If you are asking the question of how you can speed up your French, you are also then probably trying to work out how quickly you can get there… wherever there might be.

This is a hard question to answer as everyone’s goal will be slightly different. The only thing I can really say is that it is still going to take time.

It’s very easy to say you can reach 600 hours by doing 10 hours a day for 60 days. I am sure this would get you pretty far in French, but realistically how much you can retain in that time and how sustainable is that effort.

I imagine most of us would be exhausted after 2 days.  Maybe for some of us 6 months may be possible, for others I would say you will get a good grasp of French in 1 year, while for most of us, if you work far for 18months, you should be happy with your progress.

This may seem slow, but trust me, in language learning that is fast. Once you reach this point, you will still be learning French for the rest of your life! 

(You can read more about – How Often Should You Study French?)

Be Consistent With Your French Studies

Consistency with your French studies is really going to speed things up. Doing something every day has two benefits. It will firstly mean you are putting more time in to your studies, which I’ve just discussed above, but secondly it’s good for your memory.

Being consistent keep the language fresh in your mind and actually gets you to use it often. If you are sporadic with French studies it is easy for things to slip out of your mind. Then when you come back to studying you almost have to relearn things again.

If you are consistent everything will be fresh in your memory from your last lesson and it is much easier to compound your knowledge and actually make progress quite quickly.

Practice The French You Already Know More Often

If you want to speed up your French, it can actually be wise to spend more time practicing what you already know, rather than trying to learn more new things.

This may seem counterproductive, but it’s not, you are just strengthening and mastering what you already know.

This means your basic foundation is stronger and then when you do actually move on to learn more French; you are able to link it to what you already know far easily.

You want to get to the point where what you know is automated. The more French you can get to this level, the better you will become and then the faster you will be able to add new information.

Learn What You Need

If you want to speed things up, just focus on the areas of French that you actually need. You can literally talk about anything in French, but think about what you would actually talk about in your daily life. There are huge sections of the language you just don’t ever use or even need.

Do you need to know the words that a mechanic uses? I don’t. I don’t own a car, I have no interest in cars, so really I just need to know the word for “car” in French and that’s about all I need to know in that area.

I don’t need to know the words for brake fluid, clutch, spark plugs or anything technical like that. These words are pointless to me. I will never use them in French. If you are going to France to be a mechanic, you probably want to start your studies with these words as you are clearly going to need them.

Basically you shouldn’t waste your time learning words or concepts you know you will never need. Focus on what you will actually need and master that.

This will get you to where you want to be faster as you are focusing on the essentials. Of course once you master these you can move on and learn all the words that you will use less often, such as car mechanic stuff or whatever topic it is. 

Keep Your French Studies Simple

The easiest way to speed up your French studies is to just keep it simple. You don’t need to do anything different than anyone else.

You just need to do more of it, and more often. If you are only learning and practicing French for 10 minutes a day, keep doing what you’re doing, but do it for 20 minutes, do it for an hour.

What you are doing doesn’t need to change, just increase the effort and it will speed things up.

The more French you give to your brain, the more it can process the information and start to get comfortable with the language, so just keep feeding yourself more French.

(You can read more about – How To Memorise French So That You Are Better At The Language)

Immersion

The easiest way to get more French into your brain is through immersion. Studying is a very active process and you can quickly become exhausted and reach your limit with this. However, immersion is very passive and still has a lot of great benefits for your French skills.

You should try and watch as many French shows, listen to French radio or even just read in French as often as you can. So long as you can get a basic understanding of what you are listening to or reading, it will be helpful.

It may seem like you are not learning anything, but your brain will actually just be processing everything it sees and hears and subconsciously linking it to what you already know.

Basically you will be getting more comfortable with the language and actually acquiring it. The more you can immerse, the faster your brain can get more comfortable in the language.

This along with active study is going to get you French skills to a higher level, more quickly.  

Conclusion

As you can see the way to speed up your French learning is fairly simple. You just need to do what you are already doing, but push yourself harder.

Study for longer, more often and focus on what you need to get by. You should also spend more time immersing in French and you will very quickly feel like you are getting better.

This is still going to take a while, but the more effort you put in, the faster you will get there.

(If you are wanting to learn French you can check out my unofficial French Course and get a grasp of the basic structure of the language)