How to improve conversational French when I live in an area without French speakers?

Question

I minored in French in college, and am a fairly proficient reader of French. For practice, I recently finished reading through the Harry Potter series in French, and got myself to the point where I could read at nearly the same speed that I read English.

The issue is that my conversational French is well behind my reading ability, due to lack of practice. Given that I live in a part of the US with basically no French speakers, how can I best improve my conversational French, both in listening/comprehension and speaking?

italki.com is one way to connect with native speakers (ignore paid tutoring, just find partners and connect over Skype) — Luke Sawczak, Mar 28 '19 at 17:42
@Emma Amazing, that group has a monthly conversation event at a restaurant one block from my house! — Haydentech, Mar 28 '19 at 18:12

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 01 '19 at 03:00

2

A trip to the province of Quebec! Not too far from the US.

answered Apr 01 '19 at 03:00

JayP

94
1

Not too far from SOME parts of the US. According to Google Maps, it would be a 20 hour drive for me. – Haydentech Apr 03 '19 at 20:33

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '20 at 16:44

Use one of the 'chat partner' apps or forums to find partners, such as :

Speaky
HelloTalk
Tandem
ITalki

Initially you can filter for the type of partner you need then text chat a bit to make sure they aren't scammers etc and perhaps have the same level of dedication as you do.

Also, you can find discussion groups and locate partners on the French Discord server.

Discord has the advantage that there is more likely a group chat already in progress or you can setup a chat almost immediately with someone while the "partner" sites let you develop a connection with specific people but usually take a bit more planning to arrange at first.

How to improve conversational French when I live in an area without French speakers?

2 Answers2