Parlez-Vous Francais?

by tedgar | More from this Blogger

20 May 2010 11:45 PM

We're Canadian, and officially we live in a bilingual country. Unofficially, the place where I live is far to the west of any hubs of French, and there are limited numbers of French-speakers in our community. I'd love my daughter to learn, however, and my high school and early college courses will only take us so far. I'm working to brush up on my French so I can speak with her, and we're going to go to French story time at the library. But I'm looking for other resources, ideally ones that I don't need to drive to. This is where the grand old Internet comes in handy.

For those of you who want to learn a language with your child or brush up on a language that you once knew, there are scores of resources online. Best of all, many of them are free! Here are a few of our favorite resources for French language learning.

BBC Online has a fabulous learning zone for different languages, and French is among them. Their site includes Quick Fix, which is a guide to the most basic of basic survival French. It also includes Cool French, a list of slang words so that you and your preschooler can speak like the cool cats you are. For those who want to get into French a little more, the site also has video clips called Talking French.

Digital Dialects is a site that is chock full of French games that will suit your preschooler. Click on the link to colors, and you get the colors with a visual of the French word and the spoken word. Some of the animal matching games may require adult help to read the words.

French Spanish Online is a good resource for parents and preschoolers who want to hear words spoken, then combine the spoken words with some simple games. The graphics do take a while to load in the matching and revision section, but the spoken French words are quite fast and are helpful for parents and kids who are trying to get a grasp of pronunciation.

Learning a language with your preschooler is the ultimate low-stress language learning experience. Feel free to simply play with the language in a low stress way, and you'll soon find that your preschooler picks up bits and pieces. My daughter's favorite word? Crème glacee - that's French for ice cream.

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Tricia Edgar is a mom of one lovely daughter. Before her daughter was born, she decided to be guided by the needs of her child, and this led her to attachment parenting philosophies.

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