Are there any good language classes in Paris?

[akana]

Hi, I'm considering a move to Europe, but I am a bit worried about the language barrier. Are there some intensive French courses available in Paris?

Currently I have only taken some lessons on Duolingo, so I'm far from proficient. How long would it take to reach relatively decent professional proficiency in French if I do evening classes a few times per week?

Merci!

[Laure_Diligeart]

Hello Akana
Sorry I don't have the best answer for you but you can provide this one : www.campuslangues.com
You can have 4h classes /weeks on evenings and have a free test before. However, I hope you will will have better answer than mine.
Have a good day and joyeuses fetes!
Laure

[Vincent_Wichurski]

Bonjour Akana!

There are quite a few places in Paris where you can take intensive classes in French. The para-public ones (and quite serious) are Alliance Française (http://www.alliancefr.org) or the Sorbonne University(http://www.univ-paris3.fr) but you can find a lot of private courses also like http://www.france-langue.fr/, http://www.lutece-langue.com/, http://www.campuslangues.com/, http://www.ilf-paris.fr/...

You can find also more information here: http://www.parisinfo.com/paris-pratique/preparer-son-sejour-a-paris/apprendre-le-francais

French is harder to master than English but I depending on your natural abilities with the language you can expect to be able to understand basic professional French after 6-12 months if you take intensive classes. Speaking basic professional French would usually take an extra 6 months (so count on 12-18 months). If you plan on just taking a few hours of classes per week it would obviously take a little longer.
Note that many big French or international companies are used to e-mails being in English.

Having said that, I think French is a beautiful language and you would definitely learn a lot by traveling to Europe (France and other countries).

Hope that helps,

Cheers!

[Camille_Tirard]

Hi !

First thing to know about is that in Europe, everyone basically knows how to speak English, even if people don't always speak very well you'll always find people to help you. Especially in Germany, Belgium... the coutries near the E.U center (in Brussels).

If you really want to go to France, people usualy have a bad accent, but you'll steel find people who will be able to help. But I think that living in a country is a lot better if you know the langage... It's really good if you already try to learn with apps on your own (I personaly use Memrise to learn japanese and it helps a lot) but you'll need books to help with grammar as French is tricky for most strangers.

I have one final advice: as soon as you're ready, just go there even if you don't speak french yet and see how Europe looks like, you can travel through europe it's not expensive (of course a bit more from japan). If you finally want to come to France, don't worry there are plenty of french intensives in Paris and it's a lot easier to learn a langage in the country itself !

I wish I have helped you

[Bibiana_Passadore]

Hello Akana, I studied french at the "sécours católique", it is open to everyone, it is free and I had an excellent teacher... otherwise, you can go to Berlitz , I think it is very good too, but it's quite expensive if you want a total immersion...
good luck with your decision

[Anthony_Ogor]

Hi Akana,

It is difficult to define the time of learning of a language. It is according to each and according to the bases.

You should not be worried.

You wish to make private lesson to learn the Frenchman or integrated a school of language to speak french all the time?

Thanks

[Alexandre_Ferretti]

I know someone who's been attending "Les cours de civilisation francaise de la Sorbonne" (http://www.ccfs-sorbonne.fr). You can have intensive courses or evening classes. I think you could reach an acceptable level within 6 months (Really not sure about that as a native speaker haha) but If you speak French with other people outside, it can be even faster.

[Laurent_Bechetoille]

Hey, amongst others, the Alliance Française (http://www.alliancefr.org/etudiants-individuels/cours-de-francais-2017) is known to dispense good quality french lessons for foreigners. Another way, would be to reach the japanese community in Paris via the Japanese Ambassy in Paris (http://www.fr.emb-japan.go.jp), it may be helpfull to learn french directly through your language, with people knowing what could be the specific difficulties for japanese speaking people in the french learning process. Just did a quick search on their website and found this organisation: http://www.yuai.fr/ which is supposed to help japanese people settle in Paris.

Anyway, best way to learn a language is in my opinion, to practice it. So If you're considering movin' to France, well... Just give it a try someday even if your French is far from proficient. In the meantime, you still can try to find French movies, TV series, etc... On the Internet. I'm sure you'll be able to find japanese subtitles from some of them. In my opinion, It's very helpful to get used to the sonorities of a language to learn it.

As for your last question on how long it would take you to reach a decent profenciency, can't really reply to that. Firstly because it depends on people. Some are catching it quickly, some don't. There's not universal timetable. And secondly, I'm no French teacher, so I really can't imagine how hard it is to learn.

Hope you'll find some help and responses to your questions. And wish you all the best in your plan to go live abroad.

Cheers

[Victoor]

Hi ! The Paris official tourism website has a page that can help you :
http://www.parisinfo.com/paris-pratique/preparer-son-sejour-a-paris/apprendre-le-francais
(You can put the website in Japanese but I wasn't able to find this page... mainly because I don't know how to read Japanese )

You may also find some private courses.

If you want to take some French lesson before coming to France you can also take a look at the CIEP it's a french organism that propose different test for Foreigners like the DELF and the DELF Pro (It is a French Test that looks like the English test TOEIC)

I think the learning time question is a bit tricky and there is no good answer. It will depend of you and your goal in French studying. But don't worry French isn't that hard to learn (execpt the grammar) and more and more people can speak English in France now.

Also more and more start ups tend to speak English at work especially in the computer science domain so don't worry.

You can also take some time to make French friends and watch tv in french with subtitle.

And a last "survival" tip : "Always have a dictionnary app in your smartphone or a small dictonnary with you, it may become handy"

[Natalia_Skoczylas]

Hey Akana,
I would suggest two things
One is the communal spaces, run by the municipalities - many of them offer free or cheap French lessons.
You can check it either here http://www.fle.fr/en/schools-directory/map-centers
or here - http://www.paris.fr/cma

If you don't need a formal setting, Meetup works very well in Paris - there are a couple active groups, and it's probably the best way to learn with open minded locals (living in Paris without French is sometimes hard, I have to say)

https://www.meetup.com/

Good luck!

[kris_li]

I would also say check the local municipalities. they often have cheap french lessons. One place is centre d'animation des halles. I take french sign language there. way cheaper than an actual private school, but the results won't be the same. If you're looking for formation anglais paris or becoming a teacher in paris to pay off some of your trips while in paris, you can always try to get employed at http://nnformationanglais.fr they don't teach french but you could eventually learn some french while teaching english in corporate companies.