By Roberto Gamberini, translated rather freely from Italian by Daniel Stephens

Garage, baguette, brioche, chapeau – I think those are all the French words I know!

Other than the names of rather some good wines, a few famous sauces and the various French teams in the Champions League, my knowledge of the language is embarrassingly limited.

I’ve been to France a few times. I love the literature, especially authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But of course, I have to read them in translation.

I’m a fan of French cinema, too. In my home town there’s a French cultural center, and an academy. Both organize frequent events, which I would love to be able to attend – if only I could understand what was being talked about!

So that’s my motivation – I’d like to learn some French so as to be better able to appreciate the rich culture.

But I also hope to be able to order a Kir Royal in Paris without upsetting the waiter by using English.

And ideally, I’d develop a refined, melodic, and terribly sexy, French accent!

But… I don’t have time to attend an actual French course.

And a private tutor would cost too much.

I’ve already studied a foreign language online, and made more progress than I expected too.

So, I think I’ll try the same approach with French.

DontSpeakFrench.com seems just what I’ve been looking for: a website developed by experienced language teachers which offers abundant free materials.

It’s worth a try, at least.

Trois, deux, un: go!

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Follow Roberto’s progress with French over the next month or so in this series of ten articles. Or join him on his journey: DontSpeakFrench.com

Thanks to Janet, who wrote to me to point out that our beginners’ French course is actually, in places, much harder than typical material served up for beginners.

She’s right, of course.

But whether you’ll find the material on dontspeakfrench.com suitable for you will depend on a variety of factors.

Perhaps the most important of these is your mother tongue. For an Italian or Spanish speaker learning French, the similarities between your first language and the ‘target’ language (the one you hope to learn) are such that a lot of the material should, in any case, be understandable.

That’s obviously not true for a native English speaker who has never learned a foreign language before. English is unlike French in its grammar and much of its vocabulary.

But an English mother-tongue speaker who has already studied another Latin-origin language like Spanish or Italian should have a similar advantage.

Another factor is your previous language-learning experience.

If you’ve never studied a foreign language before, you will likely find the free material available at dontspeakFrench.com difficult, maybe just too hard.

But if you’ve already mastered any other foreign language (suppose you’re Japanese, and have successfully learned English), then the skills you’ve already picked up, in terms of studying, and the confidence already gained in your own abilities, should help a lot.

Conclusion? Our beginners’ French course won’t be ideal for everyone.

How to know if it’ll work for you?

Visit dontspeakfrench.com and give it a try!