Software can be an interesting addition to one's language study. While not a replacement for a teacher or conversation partner, software can help you improve your listening and reading comprehension as well as learn vocabulary, grammar, and even, thanks to speech recognition technology, pronunciation. If you're looking for an interesting way to get more French practice and improve your skills, check out my recommendations for French learning software.
1. Power-Glide French Ultimate
This excellent software program is equivalent to two years of high school French classes. It includes two workbooks with more than 800 total pages, 10 audio CDs, and a CD-ROM with lessons, games, quizzes, and much more to help you learn French.2. Tell Me More Premium
Speech recognition and individual progress evaluation set this award-winning French learning program apart. Tell Me More Premium provides 4,000 lessons / 850 hours of learning divided into complete beginner, beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.3. Rosetta Stone French Personal Edition
Award-winning software from Rosetta Stone uses word association, language integration, speech recognition, and error correction to help you learn vocabulary and grammar; develop pronunciation and the four skills; and even start to think in French. Used by U.S. State Department, Peace Corps, and NASA, beginning to upper-intermediate level. The two-level set includes 500 hours of French instruction in 2,500 activities.4. À l'écoute de la langue française
This self-study French class is divided into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels, with 36 lessons for each level and over 400 practice exercises. As you progress through the program, you are gradually immersed in French.5. Before You Know It
BYKI is a flash card program that can help you learn and remember French vocabulary. The Lite version is free and comes with about a dozen lists including audio files, while the premium version offers additional lists and the ability to create your own word/phrase lists. The program keeps track of your progress so that you always know which terms you've mastered and which still need some work.6. Instant Immersion French, by Topics Entertainment
This 5-CD set is a decent program for the price. A complete immersion program based on the language-learning technique of listening and speaking, it includes games and stories to keep it fun. On the down side, although it's aimed at beginners, it assumes knowledge of basic grammar and pronunciation. Upper-beginner to intermediate level, "fun" approach is particularly suited for younger learners.
7. RiverDeep Learn to Speak French
Interactive French software with voice recognition to help you compare your French to that of native speakers.