Although I’m setting the French aside for now, I wanted to post on where I got to before that point.

As previously mentioned, I’ve done a lot of trial and error. I’ve tried courses and programmes that turned out to not be what I’d hoped they would. I’ve watched films and television programmes in French, to varying effect. I’ve learned to customise my use of LingQ, which I’ll be posting about later. I’ve located French songs aimed at children, which are both comprehensible and catchy.

In the end I’ve come back to Alice Ayel, the first resource I found and in my opinion the best—I’d started out watching her videos on Youtube, and eventually took out a membership to access her self-paced courses. She teaches entirely in French, with a whiteboard, gestures and sound effects, so it’s comprehensible even if you don’t understand a word.

I love her stories; though because of my concentration issues, I have struggled to watch/read/listen to many of them in one go—which is why I went looking for other resources in the first place. When I restart the French, I hope to be able to be organised enough to do them in smaller chunks throughout the day.

I recently had a breakthrough in which, after having completed her Baby Stage, I read and was able to understand the first few Infant Stage stories without having watched the videos first for context. This was so encouraging, and I think means I should move onto the Infant Stage properly when I return.