Best French Language Apps For Travel
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Learning a language for travel can be one of the most exciting things you can do. Not only will it make you happy. It’ll also make your travel experience much more beautiful and comfortable. If you want to travel to a French-speaking country, these two best French language apps will help you learn French and have a better experience. I’ve picked them up carefully, based on my own experience using them, so check them out.
What Are The Best French Language Apps For Travel?
The 2 best French language apps for travel are Lingopie App and FrenchPod101 App. Lingopie App will help you understand the language structure, teach you to compose sentences, and have fun learning French. The second language app, FrenchPod101, will help you with the basics, teach you words in each category, and slowly produce your French dialogues.
I particularly love these 2 French language apps as they’ll help you learn specific vocabulary for travel. In addition, you’ll get to practice vocabulary in each situation while traveling, e.g., at the airport, getting transportation/rental car, communicating at your hotel, or booking extra activities.
1. Lingopie App: One Of The Best French Apps For Travel
Lingopie is like a Netflix for languages. You can watch your favorite TV series or a movie in French, have fun, and, in the meantime, learn French. But not only that, it has even more amazing features that enable you to learn French much faster.
- Different movies from beginner level to advance level
- Subtitles in French or English
- Save French words you want to learn
- Review & Practice words you save
- Stop and listen to each sentence
- Voice recorder and recognition
- TV lexicon – video dictionary
- Lingopie Music
How Does Lingopie Work?
Lingopie has thousands of movies and shows you can watch in French. So go to their TV catalog, and choose a movie that interests you. In my articles, where I teach you how to learn a language for travel, I always mention that having fun is the number one thing to be successful. Lingopie allows you to have fun while learning French as you can watch your favorite show/movie.
It has movies and shows for beginners, so there is no excuse not to learn. If you’re a beginner, start slowly. Watch for a few minutes, stop, and pay attention to the vocabulary. Then, play it once more, note new words, and try to remember them. Move to a different movie once you master the vocabulary in the first one.
When you choose a movie, you can listen to it in French with English or French subtitles. However, I always recommend selecting French subtitles, even if you’re a beginner. Simply because it makes you learn the language faster and think in French.
Save French Words & Review & Practice In Flashcard Section
Lingopie enables you to click on any word while watching a movie and save it to your flashcard section. It’s my favorite feature of the app. So you can first watch the film and then go to your flashcard section and learn all the words you didn’t understand.
Suppose you prefer to learn the words while watching the movie, no problem. You can stop it and listen to each sentence individually.
Voice Recorder & Voice Recognition
When learning French while watching movies, it’s important to remember new words you don’t understand. Do not simply watch it and leave it behind. So once you have new words saved in your flashcard section, review them.
Lingopie has the fantastic feature of a voice recorder and recognition. You can record yourself pronouncing sentences and words from your movie. After, the app will evaluate how correctly you pronounced it. Keep trying until you master French pronunciation.
This is especially great for you, a French learner, because pronunciation in French is one of the most challenging things in this language.
TV lexicon & Video Dictionary
Lingopie also allows you to search specific French words in its TV lexicon. So whenever you need help understanding the meaning of one word, go to the TV lexicon, and it’ll show you all videos/movies in which this word is mentioned. Then watch a few of them; it’ll help you understand when the word is used.
Lingopie Music
Lingopie has recently added a new feature to their app – Lingopie music. This is exciting news as you can learn French by listening to French songs.
Learning French with songs is one of the most effective strategies you can implement on your language journey. Once you remember the song’s melody with its words, I am sure it’ll get stuck in your head. So you’ll be singing it unconsciously during your day. It makes you learn new French vocabulary even faster.
How Much Does Lingopie Cost?
You can firstly get a 7-day trial for free to try the app and see if you like it.
If you decide to go for it, Lingopie offers you three plans, among which you can choose.
First, you can pay a monthly subscription, which is $12. However, this option will be more expensive over time.
You can also choose to pay $67 annually. This option will be for $5.60 per month.
If you want to share your account with your friends or family members, you can get the Lingopie family plan for $99, which is $8.25 per month.
If you think about it, you are paying just $5.60 monthly to learn French in a fun and interactive way while watching movies and TV shows are much worth it. It’s almost the price of a coffee nowadays. So give up one coffee a month at Starbucks, and you fulfill your dream to learn French for your next travel adventure.
You can try Lingopie for free by clicking the button or the image below.
2. FrenchPod101 App: One Of The Best French Apps To Learn The Basics
FrenchPod101 is an application and language platform that will teach you the French basics. They cover all French levels, from elementary to advanced. However, I recommend only sticking to the basic level. Once you learn essential words in each area, in which you’ll need to speak. Then you can move on and use other tools.
One of my favorite parts of FrenchPod101 is their pdf sheets you can download for free. It’s perfect because you can still learn even if you’re offline or you don’t have an internet connection.
If you’re an absolute beginner, choose Level 1 French and follow the study program this app will give you. If you already know a bit of French, go for Level 2. Generally, I suggest my students only do one level and then move on to a different tool. One level will teach you enough basics and kick you off to speak French.
How Does A Lesson With FrenchPod101 Looks Like?
One lesson with FrenchPod101 is composed of different parts. These are dialogue, a vocabulary section, lesson notes, a transcript, and comments.
Lesson Dialogue & How To Learn French With FrenchPod101
First, there is a dialogue you can follow in written form and listen to. This dialogue includes all the necessary words you’ll need to learn during the lesson. I recommend first listening to the dialogue twice or three times. Afterward, get the transcript and highlight the words you want to learn. Then translate these new words into your native language. Once you learn the words, listen to the dialogue and see if you can understand it without looking at the text.
Vocabulary Section
The next section of a lesson is vocabulary. This part will help you to learn new words. It contains each word/short sentence translated into English. There is an option to only listen to the word/sentence. One of my favorite features of this app is that you can also record yourself when pronouncing new words. It’ll help you learn French faster and easier to speak once you travel.
Lesson Notes Section
Lesson Notes will explain when it’s suitable to use particular words. This section provides extra insight into French sentences and vocabulary. It’ll explain your grammar and vocabulary usage so you can use the words correctly.
What To Do With A Lesson Transcript
As I mentioned above, the lesson transcript is one of my favorite parts of this app. You can download it, print it, and highlight words. I think that solely learning languages online is not so successful. It goes faster when you get to work with physical papers and highlight what you need.
Comment Section
After, there is also a comment section where you can ask questions. Tutors or other students will respond to your questions and help you to understand French better.
Extra Features Of FrenchPod101
If you want to spend extra time learning French with FrenchPod101, you can go for other features such as Lesson Library, Flashcards, Core Word lists, and quizzes. These are different sections you can use to boost your learning experience. But following the lesson plan will be enough for you to learn the French basics.
You can use the lesson library and pick specific travel topics to learn. For example, choose a lesson and learn the specific vocabulary if you want to learn how to communicate in French at the airport, or in a hotel.
In the flashcard section, you can save new words and create flashcards to remember them better.
How Much Does FrenchPod101 Cost?
FrenchPod101 offers you three plans: basic, premium, and premium plus. You can get the basic plan for as low as $5.00 per month. It includes all the basic features I described above.
The premium plan also has flashcards, core word lists, interactive quizzes, and the basic program.
I wouldn’t care much for the Premium Plus plan. The only difference with this third plan is that you’ll get a personal teacher who will help you and correct your assignments. However, it isn’t necessary.
If you want to practice French with someone, I recommend you sign up for iTalki. It’s the best language app to start practicing speaking with locals.
FrenchPod101 almost always offers discounts. For instance, before New Year, they can give you up to 60% discount on all their plans. In addition, they sometimes have 25% or even 40% discounts during the year. So check them out and start learning.
More Tips For Language Learning
These best French language apps for travel will help you learn French and improve your travel experience. So choose one according to your needs and start learning French.
In case you want to learn French for travel, check out my article about the best way to learn French for travel.
If you need more help with learning, follow my step-by-step guide on how to learn a language for travel.
If you want to learn vocabulary effectively, check out my article about how to learn vocabulary fast.
Finally, if you want to start practicing speaking, check out my post about platforms where you can practice language with native speakers.
In case you don’t know whether it’s better to learn French or Spanish, check out my article about ‘Is French or Spanish more useful in Europe?’ It’ll answer all your doubts.
Go to my language blog for more inspiration on French learning. And get my Language Notebook for free to make French learning more effective.
Happy Learning!
