How I Relearned French in a Year

In this post I want to share how I relearned French in about a year. What does “relearn” mean? It means I didn’t start from scratch. I had French in school for four years, but I was a terrible student and French was always my worst and most hated subject. When I moved to Lausanne for my exchange semester, I hadn’t spoken a single word of French in over six years. So how did I manage?

Before Lausanne

Like everyone who feels that motivational rush to learn a new language, I downloaded Duolingo and started doing my daily lessons. The first couple of days I was still motivated. Then, slowly but surely, I found myself just doing one lesson a day to keep the streak alive. Classic.

The Supermarket Incident

I still remember my first day in Lausanne. I walked into a supermarket and tried to remember how to ask for things. I needed a trash bag because they are taxed in Switzerland and only sold at the checkout. So I quickly googled what to say and then mumbled something at the cashier. He replied, but I had no idea what he was saying. I just said a confused “Quoi?” and he switched to English: “What size?” I answered “Uhm, what sizes do you have?” and ended up buying 35L bags.

Not my proudest moment, but hey, that was my first real-world French experience.

How the snowball got rolling

From there, I tried a few different things:

EPFL Language Course – I signed up for the free French course offered by EPFL. It gave me some structure and forced me to practice regularly and refresh the grammar. It also allowed me to get to know other students.

French Media – I made myself watch videos and movies in French, about once a week. It was painful at first, but it helped train my ear and understanding.

Dragging My Girlfriend Into It – She came with me to Switzerland, so I convinced her to learn French too. Having someone to practice with at home and who is at the same level is nice. It also helps with staying motivated.

Preply Tutoring – Later in the semester, I signed up for French lessons on Preply. I can highly recommend it, you can choose from thousands of tutors at different price points. I mainly wanted someone I could just chat with, since my entire social circle at EPFL consisted of international students and we only spoke English. So I picked a tutor for around 10€/h. My tutor did not have a formal language teacher education but it was enough for chatting and correcting my spelling and grammar. Later then I switched to a more expensive tutor with whom I still have lessons today and am quite happy.

I started speaking more and more French in my daily life and also got more and more comfortable speaking with officials in French, or speaking on the telephone (e.g. when ordering something or when I had questions about the extension of my residence permit). I think it also helped a lot being in the French part of Switzerland (the Romandie) because I feel like their French is a little bit slower and clearer than the French spoken by people in France. Additionally I downloaded an Anki deck that I found on the internet for vocabulary, since I noticed that I still have gaps in my vocabulary.

How is it going now after one year?

So after roughly one year I am not living in Lausanne anymore, which noticeably slowed my progress. I moved to Zurich, where Swiss German is the main language. Since I am currently working full time and finishing my masters degree, I have very little time but am still taking 1-2h per week in Preply lessons and consume French media here and there (after liking enough French stuff on Instagram your feed becomes partially filled with French content which is great for language immersion). My French tutor said that I am somewhere between B2 and C1 level and I am planning to take an official exam for C1 after finishing my masters.

This post will be updated as my journey continues.