However, you must be careful because not all French language software were born equal. Some have very little features and some are way too complicated to use or follow through. There are some features that you must make sure the software you want to use includes.

The first feature would be a progressive lesson system. This is crucial because it will let you go through lessons in an ordered manner from the essential knowledge (for beginners) all the way to advanced speaking and writting. You want to be able to have a complete view of the language but not all at once, little by little at your own pace.

A second very useful feature would be some French interactive tools to help you learn French vocabulary and grammar easily. Both can be pretty complicated and definitely boring if you don’t have a good way to learn. Look for what is called an image and word association tool. Basically it is a sort of game where you will see some words and see the corresponding picture. This trigger both your lexical and visual memory making it much easier to remember.

Finally, because your learning experience will be done over an extended period of time, you want to make sure that you will remember what you learned in the prvious lessons, so the French language software must include interactive quizzes and a way to track your progress over time.

It is a pretty tough list and most software on the market would not qualify if you are looking to get everything, so it is without any problem that I recommend a good software when I see one. Rocket French is one of them. It includes everything on the list and as a bonus, the creator as put together a French community forum where the students can go and ask any questions on any subject related to learning French!

That was fine when we had the time! In our fast paced society, who can spens months and month going to a school to learn so slowly? We want ways to learn French fast and efficiently! So say goodbye to textbook, physical audio cds and boring learning exercises and say welcome to the new way to learn: French Language Software!

However, you must be careful! Beware of the ones trying to trick you into buying a software that they claim will help you “learn perfect French in 7 days!” or “be fluent in 2 weeks!” As a French native speaker, I can assure you that you can’t learn French in 2 weeks. Maybe you will be able to ask for the bill at a restaurant or ask where your hotel is, but that will pretty much be it! And the worst part is, you will most likely have forgotten everything you learned 2 weeks later…

However, if you want to make sure you remember what you learned and get your money worth, make sure you pick the right French language software. To do so, you must make sure that it includes all of the following:

• Mordern French lessons. You don’t need to learn philosophy so make sure it is up to date in what it teaches.
• Audio lessons because you want to train your listening skills. Make sure they come with transcripts. This is very important as you will be able to associate sounds with written words.
• Interactive quizzes so you can test yourself and see how you progress over time. It will make you fell good about your progress and push you to learn more.
• French games because learning a language must stay fun so you can stay motivated over time. This is a very important feature!
• If you’re like me and you tend to forget were you put things in your house, I recommend that you find a software that has all the course material on-line. No risk of loosing your CDs or books!
• You must get the complete course from simple notions to advanced training. You don’t want to spend your hard earned money on a course just to realize that you bought only the part one of a three part course!

These advice are true for French but for any other language as well. French language software have help millions of people learn French efficiently and they are used more and more in classrooms and government institutions.

So if you decided that learning French the easiest and the most efficiently way is what you want to do, I recomment you replace the outdated methods and make it easier for you to learn French efficiently with a French language software.

But first, you must remember when you were young. The way you learned new words was by listening to your parents and to everybody around you too. You would no spend one day without learning a new word and trying to repeat it as many times as possible. The way to do it nowadays would be to listen to people speaking French all the time. Not too easy if you don’t live in a French speaking country.

You can read book or novels and try to create a vocabulary notebook but this is way too boring to help you learn vocabulary successfully. You don’t want to waste your time checking the dictionnary every time you find a new word! There must be a better way.

And there is. Some experts have studied this field for many years, they have studied the way kids learn and they found out that the best way to learn new French vocabulary is to immerse yourself in the French language. It makes sense but teachers are not really teaching that way. So new French language software were developped and optimized to help students all over the world learn French.

If you can’t go to a French speaking country, the alternative would be to get some French audio courses where you can hear native French people speaking. You don’t want to deal with physical CDs you have to carry around and that will break after a couple of weeks of use… So make sure that those courses are available online and are downloadable so you can put them on your mp3 player and carry them with you all the time! Remember, immersion!

One last advice. When you compare and see which one is best for you, see if the software includes other methods to help you learn such as interactive quizzes and games. So if you are serious about improving your French, get one of the best French language software on the market and start learning efficiently today!

1. Tell Me More French

Tell Me More is a pretty new comer in the french language learning field but they created a buzz in the industry when incorporating a voice recognition system in their french learning program. Tell Me More French is one of the best french language software because of this and also because of all the available content; more than 300 hours of French studying course. Yet the Tell Me More french language course is mostly targeted to intermediate to advanced users. This program shouldn’t be used by novices. Another negative point is the user interface. It’s been created in a wrong way that is not intuitive at all.

2. Michel Thomas French

Michel Thomas differs completely from the above french language softwares as it isn’t delivered with any script for you to read and it doesn’t ask you to write anything. The creators based their course on teaching you how to SPEAK French. So if speaking french is your priority and do not want to learn writing and reading, then this is the software for you, but unfortunately the opposite is also true and you will not learn writing and reading (and you will need to buy a separate software).

3. Rosetta Stone French

Rosetta Stone is also very famous in the language learning domain, they have also included speech recognition feature into their french language software. Rosetta Stone course has photos showing and relies on word association with the photos being showed. It works because there is a sense of immersion involved, with no translation at all, you are really made to imagine. Rosetta Stone is unquestionably amongst the most costly software, so it may not be the best French learning program for a beginner.

4. Rocket French

Rocket French is another pretty new french language software which has components of Michel Thomas, Rosetta Stone and Tell Me More and some other programs in it. The audio part is exactly like Michel Thomas’. Moreover, Rocket French includes some great french games (because learning the french language must be fun!) and other memorizing techniques. Overall Rocket French is the best french language software for beginners as it is simple to figure out, inexpensive and it is fun, all of which are necessary for beginners. It is also great for intermediate and advanced users as they will be able to train their listening and speaking skills with the help for the audio course. Something to mention also is the french speaking community available to Rocket French customers for any question and much more.

So you can pick any of the above course and you can be sure to be satisfied as they are all good. However, if you are looking for a versatile french language software for beginners, intermediate and more advanced students, go with Rocket French, you won’t be disappointed by its overall excellence.