Has anyone ever complimented you on your French-speaking abilities? Has anyone ever told you that your French is almost flawless? These are indeed very rare compliments because very few people attain that level of mastery in French, especially if they are adults and if French is not their first language. So can you improve your French so that you become a more proficient speaker? That’s pretty easy. There are a couple of things you should know beforehand.

1. Reduce your French accent. Unless you are great at imitating other people, you will undoubtedly have a slight accent whenever you’re speaking French. It’s not really a bad thing, especially if it’s not particularly strong. However, it is not the best thing. There are certain steps you can take to improve your French accent. The hardest sounds are the u in du and rue. Other hard sounds to watch out for are eu in peut, euil in accueil, and the r in prier. Be sure that you don’t forget to practice the rhythm and sounds of entire sentences, instead of just little words here and there.

2. Learn the grammar fully. You should definitely know how to conjugate the present tense by now. In order to attain advanced proficiency, though, you should also try to speak flawless French with a perfect grammar. If you speak with an accent, that can be quite exotic or cute. However, grammar errors are very noticeable and can be somewhat annoying. Ensure that your pronouns are right. Don’t forget to review the subjunctive tense or mood. Reflexive or pronominal verbs can be problematic. If you decide to review your grammar occasionally, then you can achieve a lot.

3. Imitate the great speakers. Listen to very inspiration speakers and when you hear something that you like, quickly write it down. While you may feel a little bad for copying, this isn’t plagiarism. This is just a way to get you more accustomed to the little French catchphrases that many of us find quite cute or interesting. They can be injected in conversations for added variety. The sky is the limit, really.

4. Find a coach or tutor. Learning French can be quite difficult on your own. If you have someone to practice it with, the job wouldn’t be so difficult. No matter how hard you try or how good you are, it’s hard to correct yourself and find where you are making your mistakes. It’s a lot easier if there’s another person to point out your errors for you. For you to really improve in your French-speaking abilities, get a French tutor or private coach. This is incredibly important if you have to perform speeches or any sort of public speaking in French. You want your presentation to be as flawless as possible, and the only way to do that is if you practice a lot.

5. Get a French dictionary. Start with an all-French dictionary like Le Petit Larousse or Le Petit Robert. If you start to think in French, you will soon stop trying to translate every all the time. Eventually, certain phrases will just come to you rather naturally. Use your dictionaries to find expressions and idioms that a native French speaker would use.

6. Take a class in French. This is probably the hardest thing to do. You will be surrounded by incredibly bright, natural speakers. You might even have to give presentations or write papers in French. You might even have to read books, watch movies, and listen to stories in French. This is the ultimate challenge. Accept it.