^{In 2019, I noticed that one of my students was progressing unusually quickly in French.  He was only in his second year, but his vocabulary and writing was already rivaling that of fourth year students.  By second semester, we could discuss anything in French.  He had reached fluency, and without any extra help from myself or any other French teacher.}  

^{By the end of the year, I was learning Italian, for a trip I was planning to take six months later.  I asked him to show me how to get there.  This led me to Lingq, which has greatly expanded my vocab, as well as listening and reading comprehension.  Shortly thereafter, I started using Tandem, which enabled me to have conversations with native speakers.  Below is a list of websites that this student, named Geoffroy Zhou, has compiled for mastering French. Most of them are available as apps for your phones as well.} 

Reference:

WordReference – https://www.wordreference.com/fren/

A general translation dictionary. Good for quick single-word references.

Linguee — https://www.linguee.fr/

A dictionary offering translations in the context of sentences.

Expressio — https://www.expressio.fr/

A dictionary of French expressions.

Larousse — https://www.larousse.fr/

A general French dictionary. It also has a forum that is helpful for asking questions.

Dictionnaire de la Zone — https://www.dictionnairedelazone.fr/

A dictionary defining French slang terms.

Forvo — https://forvo.com/

A community-driven database to look up the pronunciations of words.

DeepL — https://www.deepl.com/translator

Translation programme that works better than Google Translate.

Grammar:

Lawless French — https://www.lawlessfrench.com/

A website dealing with different types of grammar concepts in English.

Tex’s French Grammar — https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/

A decidedly « désuet » website covering most basic French grammar topics.

BonPatron — https://bonpatron.com/

A website for entering text and correcting the more glaring grammar mistakes.

Connectigramme — https://www.connectigramme.com/index.htm

A website covering French grammar concepts in French.

Le Point du FLE — https://www.lepointdufle.net

A website covering French grammar concepts in French.

Français Facile — https://www.francaisfacile.com/

A website covering French grammar concepts in simple terms in French.

Études Littéraires — https://www.etudes-litteraires.com/

This is a website designed to help native French high school students improve their language skills, so it’s a great resource once you get a bit more advanced at the language.

 Exercises

RFI Savoirs — https://savoirs.rfi.fr/

Listening exercises with multiple choice questions.

Apprendre TV5MONDE — https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/fr

The same idea as RFI Savoirs.

Conjuguemos — https://conjuguemos.com/

Exercises to brush up on your conjugation.

General Language Learning Tools

Learning With Texts — http://lwt.sourceforge.net/

Reading tool that highlights unknown words and allows you to look them up as you read.

Foreign Language Text Reader — https://sourceforge.net/projects/fltr/

The same idea as LWT. It’s a matter of preference.

LingQ — https://www.lingq.com/

Also the same idea, but it has a provided library of texts. The main advantage of LingQ is its mobile app. This is a paid service.

Readlang — https://readlang.com/

This is also the same thing, but it’s cheaper than LingQ. However, it does not have a mobile app.

Before I start this next bit I’d like to say that I don’t exactly recommend using flashcards as means of learning vocabulary because they don’t permit you to actually work with the language in context.

Anki — https://apps.ankiweb.net/

A flashcard program for the computer.

Clozemaster — https://www.clozemaster.com/

Flashcard website that provides you with words.

Memrise — https://www.memrise.com/

Also a flashcard website.

FInding native French speakers to talk to via text, phone call or video conference

Tandem Language Exchange - https://www.tandem.net/

Create a personal profile by listing which languages you speak fluently and which you are learning.  You can also set age parameters as well as your preferred means of communication.  Tandem will create a list of people you can contact, and some of them will start reaching out to you as well.  A free service.  

Hello Talk - https://www.hellotalk.com/?lang=en

Pretty much the same as Tandem, with a little bit less control when setting your personal parameters.  Also a free app.