If you know me, you probably know that I value efficiency a lot, and that I am constantly innovating to bring the most advanced French learning strategies to my clients and students. I have collected for you eight things you can (and should!) do to learn french faster, without having to find more study time or change the way you study.

1) Focus on the important words

Here is Tim Ferriss's (author of The Four Hours Workweek) best tip about learning a language:

"Content beats method every time"

In other words *what* you learn matters more than how you learn it.

Start with learning the words and structures that you will use the most, and refuse to waste time on all the useless bits. Whenever you find a new word or a new structure, ask yourself "will I use it? How often?" - only learn it if the answer it "yes! very often." If the answer is "maybe... you never know", discard it without regret.

You will find that it's much easier to learn your vocabulary when you start using this method, just because you have fewer words.

Those "you never know" words should only ever be learned by people who are already able to have conversations in French.

2) Eat healthy food

Tech experts have a saying: "Garbage in, garbage out". It's true for your body and your brain too. You can't expect your brain to perform at its best if you eat suboptimal food. Bad food causes you to feel heavy and tired and triggers sugar lows and sugar highs on a regular basis

Do yourself a favour and upgrade your diet to include more salad, fruits and vegetables, proteins and food supplements if you need them. It's not only good for your health, it's good for your French learning too: You will find yourself more focused, more motivated and your memory will work better.

3) Sleep

My favourite tip! I can honestly say that sleeping is my #1 priority.

Do you sleep enough? Adults typically need 7-9 hours of sleep every night. If you sleep less than 7 hours, you are probably sleep deprived. The consequences of sleep deprivation are bad memory, low motivation, a higher risk of eating unhealthy food (see above), a number of health risks and overall decreased productivity. Even one night of bad sleep will negatively affect your performance on the next day. However, you will only notice it if you know what your performance looks like, when you have actually slept enough. If you have to choose between spending two hours learning French in the evening, and sleeping earlier to get all the sleep you need, go to bed. You can learn French at virtually any moment.
Prioritize your sleep, and your French learning sessions will have a much better outcome.

Note: If you struggle to maintain an efficient French learning routine, I have just what you need. In my group program, The French fluency Accelerator, one of the first things we do is to create the perfect French learning routine just for you. Click here to check it out.

4) Exercise

You already know that exercise is good for your health, but did you know it also helps with learning?

People who exercise regularly routinely experience more creative thoughts and a better mood during and after exercising, and find themselves more motivated and with more energy to tackle their other tasks.

Even better, you can also listen to your favourite French music or podcast, directly while you exercise. It’s a great way to maximize your time and kill two birds with one stone.

5) Watch your willpower

Numerous experiments show that we have a finite amount of willpower which gets depleted over the course of the day. Every decision we take, no matter how small, depletes our stock of willpower. Eventually we aren't able to make the right decisions (such as studying French rather than mindlessly watching TV) later in the day because our willpower stock is depleted. There are two ways you can work around this issue:

- Study French earlier in the day, while you still have some willpower available

and/or:

- Purposely save your willpower by removing unimportant decision making from your day. For example, I don't really care about clothes, so I wear a similar outfit everyday and all my clothes are interchangeable. This way I avoid having to decide what to wear in the morning. I also routinely prepare meals in advance, so I eat what's in the fridge, rather than considering what to eat three times a day. And I keep my willpower for important decisions which affect my life positively, such as studying.

What decisions can *you* remove from your life?

6) Take advantage of your most productive time slot

We all have a time of the day when we are more productive. Are you an early bird or a night owl? You know if you work better in the morning or in the evening.

If you're an early bird, you should aim to schedule your French learning session in the morning, before getting caught up in your day.

If you're a night owls, on the contrary, you should schedule your French learning in the evening, when your focus is higher. If you are a night owl, make sure that you will still have willpower available when your productive time comes (see point 5).

I am an early bird, and therefore I always schedule all my important work in the morning.

7) Meditate

French learning coach Angel Pretot demonstrate a secret strategy to learn French faster: Meditation. Medidating daily allows you to improve your focus, release overwhelm and liberate yourself from your thoughts. A true blessing when you are trying t… — French learning coach Angel Pretot demonstrate a secret strategy to learn French faster: Meditation. Medidating daily allows you to improve your focus, release overwhelm and liberate yourself from your thoughts. A true blessing when you are trying to overcome the fear of embarrassment and/or think in a foreign language.

When Benny Lewis created his video about the Silent Language Retreat, he was joking. For sure you can't learn a language with meditations alone, however, here are a few ways that meditation will indeed help you learn a language:

1) Increased focus. Since I meditate everyday, I have more clarity and almost never feel overwhelmed anymore. I have a much easier time focusing on what matters the most and shutting down the fear or missing out. These are all things you need to learn a language successfully.

2) Liberation from your thoughts. It will be easier for you to think in a foreign language if you are able to control your existing thoughts first. Since I meditate, I find it easier to code-switch (polyglot slang for "change the language I'm speaking") and changing the language of my thoughts at will than ever before.

You can get these benefits with just 5 minutes of meditation a day. It's totally worth it.

8) Dream

Have you ever spoken French in a dream? If you have, might have noticed that it’s a lot easier to speak a foreign language in a dream than in waking state.

While you dream, the rational part of your brain is disconnected. This is the one that says things such as "I can't, my French is not good. I'm shy. I'll make a fool of myself. What if I can't speak at all?". Suddenly, you can and you do speak.

Now, did you know that you can even do this on purpose? Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. , author of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming dedicates a chapter of his book to the use of lucid dreams as a "rehearsal for living". He suggests that Lucid dreaming can be used to practice both physical skills and mental skills.

Lucid dreaming is a skill that you can acquire, and this book teaches you how. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but it’s really fun. And as the author points out, you have every night to practice, since you do it literally while you sleep.

One caveat though: it’s way harder if you’re sleep deprived so point 3 on this list still applies.

Your turn! Have you tried any of these tips? Do you know any method or trick to learn faster which I haven't mentioned here?

Please share in the comments below.

Your next steps

If you like this way of learning French, you will love to learn with me as a student or client. Please check out:

My 1-1 coaching program, The French Transformation, if you need to improve your French fast.
My group program, The French Fluency Accelerator, if you’d like to join a community of students from all over the world. We have weekly practice calls together and the best online video library to learn French.