<p>My daughter will be starting in the fall of this year. Throughout high school she's been taking Spanish and Latin. She'd like to start learning French before she arrives at McGill. She realizes there's life outside the Mcgill bubble...for instance we were in the Plateau yesterday and there weren't many English speakers as far as we could tell. What suggestions are there for easing up the learning curve? Rosetta Stone? Berlitz? Immersion classes? Thanks in advance for your advice.</p>
<p>Immersion is the most holistic way to go but Rosetta Stone isn’t to be sneezed at either.</p>
<p>believe me you don’t need french at all when you are at mcgill.</p>
<p>if you would like to explore places where only french is spoken though while you are there, i recommend you take french lang courses at mcgill. </p>
<p>if you are just asking how to learn a language, then get a private tutor if you are rich enough.</p>
<p>I agree with whittle - if you have access to an immersion program, that’s hands down the best way to learn any language. If you’re talking about summer programs, Middlebury’s immersion program is supposed to be top notch, although I have no personal experience.</p>
<p>I am also a high school senior going to McGill next year and I speak conversational Spanish (classes through AP). Our public library has the Berlitz CD’s and I gave them a try. I wasn’t overly impressed. I went through a CD and a half out of the three two times and didn’t feel that I’d learned much of anything useful. From what I could tell, Berlitz seems aimed at travelers and less at people who are hoping to become fluent or close to fluent. </p>
<p>I purchased the Rosetta Stone 5 level pack a couple of days ago and feel like I’ve made a lot more progress during the time I’ve spent with it. The Spanish background definitely helps - I’ve heard reviews that say it’s a lot harder to learn a second language through Rosetta Stone than a third because once you know 2 languages you’re more aware of the grammar you’re using. Rosetta Stone won’t teach you any grammar (ie, won’t teach you grammar in English but will make you learn how to construct sentences by matching the structure to other sentences they teach you), you just pick it up as you go along, which is a lot easier because there are many Spanish similarities. The entire course is in French, there is no English used at all.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how coherent that was or wasn’t haha, but I would definitely recommend Rosetta Stone over Berlitz, especially since she already knows some Spanish.</p>
<p>Rosetta Stone is garbage, especially considering it’s price. Programs such as Assimil, Pimsleur, and Michel Thomas are much more effective (and affordable).</p>
<p>Hi!
I think most people here at McGill who dont know french do end up taking french as an elective at some point because they want to know more about the other side of the montreal culture but its really not necessary to know french. Even though you will hear a lot of french on the streets, everyone actually also speaks english, its just that some prefer talking in french. In the mall, at the grocery store, in the metro, in restaurants, everyone is required to be bilingual so it really doesnt matter what language you use.
Also the whole McGill campus & ghetto as well as the Guy-Concordia area are mostly english speaking, and as most of your time (or almost all if your in upperrez) will be spent on campus and in the ghetto, there is really no problem. Even if you happen to meet someone who doesnt know very good english, i’m pretty sure here will always be a friend or even just someone walking by willing to translate.</p>
<p>I would recommend checking out the library’s audio tapes to start with, also utilize online resources! For understanding grammar, etc. I suggest Tex’s French Grammar, just google it. I used that to tutor an 8th grader in French and it helped a lot.
Here’s a link that talks about learning French for free , scroll down a bit to get to the online resources
[How</a> to: Learn French for Free](<a href=“http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/how-to-learn-french-for-free/]How”>How To: Learn French for FREE)</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your advice. I posted this after a final visit with my daughter to McGill a week before we had to deposit. I thought it was a done deal Since then my daughter convinced us that Carnegie Mellon was the best fit and I enrolled her there. From a computer science perspective it’s hard to argue. Not happy about the price difference but she’ll have better career choices upon graduation. Thanks again and good luck.</p>
<p>As my username suggests, I am from Ottawa, ON which is about two hours away from Montreal. I go there fairly regularly. I can speak French but not fluently. Whenever I go to Montreal I speak to everyone in English because I don’t want to embarrass myself and I’ve never had an issue with someone not understanding me. It may seem like nobody speaks English because they will be speaking to French with each other, but your daughter will get by without it, although her experience will undoubtedly be better if she can. Also note that Quebec French is quite different sounding than French from France (although at the end of the day it is the same language), which is what she would be learning from something like Rosetta Stone. Quebec French uses quite a lot of slang and is very casual. I find it easier to understand a French person when they are speaking rather than a Quebecer.</p>