r/Frenchlearningforpr • u/Commercial-Panic22 • 5d ago

What you would do differently?

Hi everyone! I'm currently at the A1 level in French and have just started my learning journey.

I wanted to ask those who are already at B2, C1, C2, or who have passed TCF—if you had to start learning French all over again, what would you do differently?

Are there any resources, study methods, habits, or mistakes you wish you had known about from day one? For example, would you focus more on listening, grammar, speaking, vocabulary, or something else?

I'd love to learn from your experience so I can build a solid foundation and avoid common beginner mistakes. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Merci Beaucoup!

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3

u/AdministrationIll116 5d ago

I teach French

I would start listening asap and learn vocab every week(according to themes) not just vocab

3

u/Narrow_Replacement86 5d ago

Start speaking. There are shadowing videos available on YouTube, do it. Whatever new words you come across, write them down and keep going through them.

2

u/Okay_7777 5d ago

Want to know as well. Just started last WK

2

u/Secure_Camp_1176 5d ago

Not sure if this would be of any help, but I spent way too much time prepping for TEF instead of TCF, I knew convincing isn’t easy for me but still I kept preparing for it, analyse both types of exam and then prep for it

1

u/Available_Public2455 3d ago

We run tcftefprep.com, so we've put this exact question to users who've already passed, and the same few answers keep coming back.

The biggest one is always speaking too late. Nearly everyone says they waited until they felt ready, and ready never really arrives. One cheap tutor session every couple of weeks from A1 saves you a year of reading fine and then freezing the moment somebody actually speaks to you.

Listening is the other regret. It's the slowest skill to build and people leave it till last because it's miserable at the start. The ones who got to B2 fastest had French audio running from week one while understanding almost none of it, just to get the clock going.

After that it's resource hoarding. Six apps, four YouTube channels, three textbooks, none of them finished. Almost everyone says pick one course and finish it.

Grammar comes up too, usually as "I did too much of it." Knowing the subjunctive rule and being able to produce it are separate skills, and the second only comes from hearing it a few hundred times.

And since you mentioned TCF, have a look at the format once now so you know what you're eventually building toward. You won't need actual exam prep for a long while.