How to build your own roadmap to French speaking success

“I’m learning French!” I hear you say.  But you can’t speak it yet. Your learning consists of  watching free videos on YouTube, downloading free apps and hanging out in inconsistent Whatsapp groups. 

You grasp at whatever is put in front of you and hope it will help you speak French. 

Stop drifting around the internet and start speaking French! 

Sorry to burst your bubble but how on earth does random unstructured learning come together and help you actually Speak French? It doesn’t.  

Where is the opportunity to actually Speak French to enable you to react quickly in a realistic, face to face spontaneous conversation? It isn’t there. 

Relying on freebies, hope and other people to deliver what they think you need isn’t going to help you actually achieve your French Speaking goals and dreams. 

But don’t worry! In this post, I tell you how to create your own ‘French Learning Roadmap’. This roadmap is 7 simple steps to taking back control, learning only what you need to and finding the opportunities that will help you speak French! 

Definition of 'French Learning Roadmap'

Simply put, it is the roadmap to where you want to go.

When you learn via freebies on the internet or what your teacher tells you to learn, you are not in control. It is like taking a really long car ride  where you don’t know where you are going or how to get there so you just listen to everyone else’s directions and try to get to their destinations. It's not only confusing but not in line with your goal and dreams!

Your learning roadmap, just like a real map or GPS or Sat Nav, should help you go from where you are now to your destination quickly and enjoyably.

Here are the 7 simple steps: 

1. WHY are you learning French?

It often seems hard. Keeping your eye on the long term goal is important. What is your WHY? Is it to

• Go on holiday to France?
• Speak to friends and family?
• Get ahead at work?

Whatever it is you, need to know WHY you are doing it. The more your WHY is attached to your bigger dreams and vision, the more it will motivate you to achieve results. Some people make a physical dream board or add a photo of Paris as their phone screen saver so that it reminds them of why they are learning and to take daily action.

2. DECIDE what your goals are and how you will achieve them.

For example, if you want to speak enough French to go on holiday to France, then learn topics focused on travel and food. If you want to speak up at work then you will need to learn professional vocabulary.  

The advantage of making your own learning path focused on your WHY is that you get to decide on topics that are realistic to your life and your situation rather than someone else’s idea of what you need to know. 

Once you have decided on your goals you need to decide on how you want to go about achieving them. Get specific. Will you learn more vocabulary? Will you focus on improving your pronunciation? Will you practise your conversational skills with another French speaker?  

When you have made a decision, which resources and support will you need in order to achieve this? There are plenty of books, programs and teachers that will help but choose those that are focused on helping you with your SPECIFIC goals. 

It is up to YOU to DECIDE. Don’t let other people or apps have control of these decisions will not help you achieve your goals. 

3. Give yourself a TIMESCALE to achieve your goals

Be realistic about how much you can achieve in the time you choose. Giving yourself too much time means you’ll get lazy and inconsistent. If you try to do too much at once, you’ll overload yourself and experience overwhelm. Set a date and work towards it.

4. Make your learning a HABIT

Make a calendar of the times you can dedicate to your learning and then show up for yourself at these times.  Don’t make excuses and find other things to do. Get yourself ready and DO what you decided to learn or practise. The more you do this, the more it will become a habit and part of your regular routine. 

In order to speak French you need to speak French. In order to improve your speaking you need to get in the habit of having regular conversations. Find opportunities in person and online to get talking with REAL people and watch your progress accelerate.

The most successful French speakers have made learning, practising and speaking a regular habit.

5. Get an ACCOUNTABILITY BUDDY 

It’s proven to work, that when you have someone holding you accountable to your goals you are more likely to achieve them. 

 What is an accountability buddy? Well it’s someone who

1. Commits to showing up consistently and taking action with you
2. Makes sure you stay on track 
3. Gives you feedback 
4. Checks in to see how you are getting on

They are not your teacher. They’re someone learning with you. This means you are not just committing to yourself to get results, you are also committing to someone else. This makes it harder to give up.

Think about going to the gym or going for a run. How many people find it easier when they have someone waiting for them. Or they have signed up for a class with other people that are going to hold them accountable for turning up and showing up for them too. It's no different with speaking French.

Get yourself an accountability buddy so you can keep showing up for yourself and making progress. 

6. GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

Just like roadworks on a car journey, you are likely to experience blocks or difficulties. Don’t let this stop you. Be engaged and curious as to why you are struggling. If your accountability buddy can’t help, this might be the perfect time to get professional help.

Rather than trying to find the solution yourself, find someone who can help overcome your learning roadworks and set you back on your own route to success again. Do this quickly, as there is nothing more disheartening than spending hours getting frustrated and blaming yourself when there might be a simple solution!

When it does get hard to keep yourself accountable, be kind to yourself and embrace your mistakes, don’t use them as excuses not to carry on. 

7. REVIEW your learning roadmap

When you have achieved your goals, they change or you need to move on, you need to review your learning roadmap. Going through the steps again allows you to make new adjustments and move on. It allows you to create the conditions for success to make it to a new exciting destination. 

And there you have it. These are the 7 steps to creating your own French learning  roadmap that will get you away from endlessly drifting around the internet with no progress. It can put you back in the driving seat, get you taking control of the route and will significantly reduce the time to your destination! 

Summary

Let’s recap the 7 steps to creating your own learning roadmap. They are: 

1 Choose your WHY 

2 DECIDE what to learn

3 Make yourself a  TIMESCALE

4 Make it a HABIT  

5 Get an ACCOUNTABILITY BUDDY

6 Get PROFESSIONAL HELP

7 REVIEW your learning roadmap

Thank you for reading this blog post. Are you going to use these steps? Did you skip any when you were trying to learn French?

Comment and tell me what your goal is and what you've been doing so far. 

Be sure to give the YouTube video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel there so you don’t miss future videos about how you can finally speak REAL French.