How Much French Do You Need to Study in France?

Hello! It's Yoko, who impulsively quit a job I'd held for years and went to study in France!

"I want to study in France, but honestly I can't speak any French!"

"...But I still want to go! Will I be okay?"

You'll be fine! I was in the same boat.

That said, honestly, it's better to be able to hold a simple everyday conversation.

I also went to France knowing just a few phrases, and really only a few.

So how did I build up that much language ability?

That's what I'll explain in this post!

Find Friends Who Love French

I wanted to attend a language school in France, so I thought I'd take a French class in Japan first, just to get a feel for what a class is like.

So I went to the Institut français du Japon in Tokyo, in Iidabashi.

The Institut français du Japon - Tokyo (formerly the Institut franco-japonais) is a French cultural center run by the French government. It holds events on French culture and offers French courses, and it also helps with studying in France, though in the end I didn't use that service.

I signed up for a French course there, and it was really great!!

It was a one-week intensive course, six hours a day from morning to late afternoon with a lunch break.

There were 15 classmates, a varied group that included a junior high student, a homemaker, a ballet dancer and a self-employed person. Everyone was so interesting (lol).

Some were thinking about a working holiday, some about moving abroad someday, and some wanted to learn because their partner speaks French. Everyone had a different reason for learning French!

The teacher was bright and funny, and the class was of course 100% in French, but I never felt nervous and could study freely.

The week flew by, and by the end I could greet people, introduce myself, and answer questions about where I live, my job and my hobbies.

Afterward, my classmates and I studied French together and even ate out together in France.

Before signing up, I wondered if a short course would be a waste of money, but I made lots of friends through French, and it boosted my motivation to study too!

I'm really glad I went.

Learn Grammar from a Textbook and Build Vocabulary with an App

Conversation matters, but my vocabulary was zero, so I used a free app called Duolingo to learn basic words.

It has a few game-like elements, so even though I slacked off sometimes, I was able to keep going.

Once you've worked through it, you pick up basic vocabulary at roughly the level of Eiken Grade 3 (a Japanese English test for junior high level).

By the way, I'd like to learn Italian and Spanish with Duolingo too, but I've made no progress at all (lol).

For a textbook, I used "Hajimeru Furansugo" (Getting Started with French), a Japanese book for beginners and returning learners. It sums up the basic grammar simply.

The design looks like a French café (what does that even mean?), and it's cute, so I think girls will like it!

The Institut français course was mostly oral, with little explanation of why grammar works the way it does.

So this book was really helpful for understanding basic grammar.

French grammar is strict, so it's best to have the basics down before you go to France!

Get Used to French Pronunciation with Videos!

Staring at books and apps all the time gets boring, so I sometimes watched French videos!

This is a comedy video a classmate at the Institut français showed me.

This video is how I learned what "Ferme" means (lol).

Comedy has funny scenes, so studying is fun, and things you enjoy are easier to remember.

TV dramas where you can learn everyday conversation are also recommended.

Videos that explain Japanese culture in French are handy too, for the moments after you arrive in France when you introduce Japan.

By the way, if you do all of the study methods I introduced today, two or three months is plenty.

Of course, it's all gibberish at first... but it's genuinely fun when the French that sounded like a magic spell starts to make sense (lol).

If you're about to start studying, I hope this helps!