How long?

How long would you need (time-wise) to self-teach French to GCSE level, if you previously knew very little of the language?

Reply 1

generalebriety

Depends. Do you know any other Romance languages? What will your other commitments be around that time? How much time do you have to dedicate to French, and what are your preferred ways of learning?

I taught myself Spanish to GCSE in just under six weeks. Six weeks is enough if you have little else to do. It does, of course, mean you get absolutely no enjoyment out of learning it...

Reply 2

chr15chr15

generalebriety

holy **** 6 weeks thats awesome, i was thinking you would need like 6months dedicated work, but it depends i suppose on the person!

Reply 3

generalebriety

chr15chr15

holy **** 6 weeks thats awesome, i was thinking you would need like 6months dedicated work, but it depends i suppose on the person!

Nah, you could learn it in a week if you put in 8-10 hours a day and were good at languages. GCSE is nothing to shout about. The only difficult part would be the oral exam, which needs to be prepared ages in advance (though with TSR, I suppose someone to check your work is never far away) and memorised.

Reply 4

The Nightingale

No, I really don't know any other Romance languages. As for my age, I'm fifteen. I don't really care about enjoying it; I just need a foreign language and French appeals to me the most.

Work- wise, I'm going to be really busy with my other GCSEs and coursework until September, but then I should be freed up till December/ January. I could probably do about 15 hours a week... is that enough?

Thanks for the replies, btw! :smile:

Reply 5

Howells

I didn't do French GCSE, I started it at AS level this year for the first time since Year 9 so I would say not long at all. 6 weeks intensive sounds about right :smile:

Reply 6

generalebriety

The Nightingale

15 hours a week sounds ok. Give yourself between three and nine months, depending on how good you are at languages and how hard you reckon you'll work, and I think you'll be fine. Sadly, though, not enjoying learning languages probably means you won't end up being too good at one and won't have much motivation to stick with it, but anyone could do a GCSE.

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Reply 7

The Nightingale

Do you think-- to relieve the pressure-- it might be worth taking the GCSE whilst in sixth form, doing A-levels, instead?

I just thought about taking a foreign language recently, when I heard that some universities prefer candidates with a language at GCSE.

Reply 8

jonnythemoose

Honestly it depends on your aptitude for languages. You may find you're just useless at it, or you may soak it up like a sponge. It's so an individual thing. Good luck, anyway :biggrin:

Oh, and regarding your above comment...few universities give a damn about a language GCSE. Even Cambridge has been known to accept people without one. It really doesn't matter. And I think it may be a little heavy-going to self-teach French whilst doing A levels. They're very difficult. But hey, you may be a genius, in which case go for it!

Reply 9

hannah_dru

I'm gonna try and re-learn French to GCSE level starting next month. I've got until Oct to do it when I start back here again.

Reply 10

city_chic

The Nightingale

If you're a good/natural linguist and can pick things up quickly then by all means go for it! :smile:

I've done Spanish GCSE this year whilst doing my 3 A-levels and managed it perfectly fine.

Reply 11

afc1886

GCSE standard is really quite easy to achieve, it depends whether you want to teach yourself the 'basics' of the language (like what to say in a hotel or whatever else) or just pass an exam. If you just want to pass, get a textbook from school, learn how to form the past, future and conditional, learn a gd few simple phrases like 'i play/played/will play football in the park with friends' and really you shouldnt get lower than a B in about 6 weeks