How to learn French by watching TV shows in French?

French is an official language in 29 countries spread over several continents, the majority of which are part of the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), a group of 84 countries that share the official use or teaching of French. According to the United Nations, French is a world language and a very influential language since it is a language of music, including literature, cooking, dance, and fashion.  It is one of six official languages used in the United Nations. It is spoken as a first language in France. French is also the 18th most natively spoken language in the world, the 6th most spoken language by a total number of speakers and the second or third most studied language worldwide.  In both English and French, a French-speaking person or country is referred to as a Francophone. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

Television Shows include Talk Shows, Documentaries, News, Game Shows, Comedy shows, Variety Shows, Sports, Sitcoms, Dramas, Scifi, Supernatural and Fantasy Shows, Soap Operas, Historical Shows, Adventure or Action Shows, Cooking Shows, Cartoons, Reality TV, DocuDramas, Police procedural or Crime Shows. Some if not all can certainly be a value add to your learning and offer a similar if not same benefit as the movies can!

TV shows will help you develop an instinctual feel for the pace and flow of actual spoken French; and will introduce you to the kind of spoken French that rarely show up in regular French lessons or textbooks. This includes some street slang, subcultural expressions, shortened words, and even some beautiful poetic lines.

Choose a genre that’s simplistic to understand in the beginning raising the bar with every lesson learnt efficiently. Remember that the French language has evolved from the way it’s spoken in the 1960s and 70s to how it’s spoken today, so you may avoid learning from old shows.

Don’t miss watching News in Slow French at any cost. It would be your friend for a lifetime!

Let’s now see how to learn French by watching French Television actively

Watch the show fully without any subtitles and record it simultaneously(if not available online to see again). 

Just soak up on the plot and try to grasp the “feel” of the show, what does it wish to convey. 

Go back to the start and re-watch it scene-by-scene: first, with no subtitles.

After you’re done watching it in its entirety, watch it scene by scene to see which words you can grasp even without the help of subtitles. Every time you hear a word you’re not familiar with, write it down.

Re-watch the scene but this time with subtitles. 

The French subtitles will help you get the spelling and articles used correctly.  But if you want to check if your understanding is correct, switch on the English subtitles in your 3rd viewing of that particular scene.

Pay attention to the vocabulary and the context on how the words were used.

Look out for any idioms and slang, and take note of the grammatical structures used in the sentences. Write down anything interesting you noticed, and be ready to review it later on.

Listen and repeat new words. 

If there are some new words that you cannot seem to pronounce, listen to it and repeat the words and sentences over and over until you get the hang of it.

Look up the words you don’t understand. 

If there are some things about the movie that are bugging you—slang terms, regional jargons, double meanings, wordplays, and subtle humour that you couldn’t quite grasp—do some research or ask a native French speaker to help you understand and appreciate it better.

Re-watch the show until you are confident that you have understood the gist of the conversations and the context of the words. 

Finally, the last step to learning French with Television is to feel free to watch it as many times as you want—with subtitles and without.

France has some of the best universities in Europe which makes it an attractive country for further studies. But basic knowledge of French is required for enrollment in most public universities. In humanities and social sciences, many important writings have come from France.  France has won more Nobel Prizes for literature than any other country in the world. A new foreign language like French will definitely increase your job opportunities and salary potential. France is also one of the world’s major foreign tourist destinations with almost 100 million tourists visiting every year to see the world-renowned landmarks such as the Eifel Tower, Lovre Museum, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Palace of Versailles and famous sports stadiums.

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