BootsnAll Travel Community

I'm thinking about studying in Bordeaux or Lyon for a semester. I'll be taking regular univeristy classes with everybody else, with a short, "intensive" French session before the semester (2 to 6 weeks, depending on how I do on the test). I will have finished French IV and some phonetics and phonology courses by then.. so I might be okay.. but taking classes in a foreign language still intimidates me a bit, although I know I will come out so much better than if I took classes in English. How did you guys do? Were you able to understand and keep up?

I participated in an exchange for 3 months in Germany, with only the very very basic of german knowledge. I went to highschool there and took all german classes, and ended up learning a lot. Is it possible to take classes in English there? Maybe you can meet a nice french girl and have her help you with your french, and you with her english

I went to Brazil for 6 months last year... I had taken some classes so I arrived with basic grammar knowledge and about a 1000 word vocabulary... Since hardly anyone spoke English I was forced to speak Portuguese from day one or not speak at all. After 6 months I was as good as fluent.
Right now I'm in Spain but I'm working and living with English speakers so my Spanish isn't improving nearly as fast.

My advice would be to find some locals who want to improve their English. Get together, talk French for an hour and then English for an hour. Everybody learns, it can be fun (its kinda like a real date sometimes) and its a lot cheaper than classes.
Bonne chance