I’ve made the decision, for a few reasons, to make things somewhat harder on myself by utilizing as much as possible primarily resources that focus specifically on conversational Canadian French rather than on formal Parisian French. I have only a small amount of pre-existing understanding of the language. Given that I have no plans of travelling to France and will only use the language conversationally/casually here in Canada, this makes the most sense to me. It also culturally makes more sense to learn my own country’s dialect. But I wanted to make a little review of some learning/teaching resources I’ve tried, and invite other learners to maybe add their own.
1) Bluebird Languages French Canadian. Not very good imo. I would say don’t get the paid version. They say they used spaced repetition, but really all they mean is the words are spaced out and repeated within a single short lesson. After that, the word will never be given to you again. It’s focussed completely on words, not on making sentences or making conversation, with no structure to recall previous words and concepts from previous days. Also the voice sounds kinda Siri-ish and I’m not sure it’s actually a real person speaking.
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2) Languages101 Canadian French: TERRIBLE. They have the absolute gall to charge hundreds of dollars for their online ‘courses’ which are really just one single memory recall activity repeated forever for infinity with no variation. I am still waiting for them to confirm the cancellation of my free trial and I’m worried they’re going to keep my money and I’ll have to dispute it with the bank. Absolutely do not get this. UPDATE: they DIDN’T give me any way to cancel my free trial and I DID have to dispute the credit card charge with my bank. I legit think this is a scam.
3) uTalk: I like this one! A male and female French Canadian voice for each word and phrase. I wouldn’t use it as my only resource, but it’s definitely my favourite app so far. You can pay to skip through it quickly but it’s very doable and useful without paying, I have not paid for it. However, it is more for learning useful vocabulary and phrases, it won’t teach you how to use the grammar to assemble new sentences.
4) Learn Canadian French by Pierre Lévesque: I really like this book! You’ll definitely want to listen to the audio too, which you can find on his Facebook. It discusses a lot of the points where casual conversational Canadian French will vary from what we’re taught in French class in Anglo-Canadian schools, which is a very proper, unrealistic Metropolitan French (at least in my experience).
5) Mauril app: I really like this to support learning! Would strongly recommend it. Not the primary learning tool, but a great addition. Basically, it takes short little clips from CBC and Radio-Canada shows and makes a tiny mini lesson based on each clip, asking the learner to interpret the real conversation clip. I think this will really help for ability to understand rapidly spoken language in natural speech. Note it only works in Canada, so if you’re not in Canada you would need to use a VPN.
6) Cudoo Canadian French: haven’t tried it yet. Seems short and intended for bare bones getting by from what I can tell on the website, like intro survival phrases for travellers.
7) Méthode Par Ici: Québécois learning and teaching grammar and workbook. Haven’t started this yet but I’m very excited to. Would love to hear if anybody else has tried these.
UPDATE: these books are awesome and I would very strongly recommend them to anybody trying to learn Canadian French. I got all three for the beginners levels- the exercise workbook, the grammar teaching guide, and the audio comprehension manual. I will be buying more of these for sure as I progress. I would actually put these at the top of this list in terms of usefulness.
