Reddit reviews A Frequency Dictionary of French: Core Vocabulary for Learners (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries)

I've recently begun to do the same. I'll list off the resources I've come across, and my thoughts on them.

• Pimsleur French (Audio)
  
  Great for learning proper pronunciation alongside some basic grammar and common phrases. I am currently using this as my primary source of spoken French, while learning written aspects from:
  
  
• Easy French Step-by-Step (Book)
  
  I love this book. I looked through a number of different self-study books, and the pacing/order of this one fits me just right.
  
  
• Rosetta Stone: French (Software)
  
  This was actually my first attempt at learning French. I gave up after a while due mostly to lack of interest and a lack of perceived progress. The combination of the book and audio systems listed above have made me feel more at ease with the language than this ever did.
  
  With that said, I've found while studying now that it actually did help me build up a decent vocabulary, and aided a bit with pronunciation. If its price doesn't deter you, I'd suggest considering it as a secondary or tertiary learning tool.
  
  
• Anki (Software)
  
  This is a free, multi-platform flashcard application. As I've been reading through Easy French Step-by-Step, I've been adding the introduced vocabulary, terms, etc. to "decks" in Anki, which I then study until I have them memorized.
  
  I break up what I study based on the quizzes in the book. I.e., I add everything up until the book provides a quiz about them. Study, take quiz, continue until next quiz adding the newly learned vocab, terms, rules. It has worked well for me so far.
  
• A Frequency Dictionary of Core French Vocabulary (Book)
  
  The authors of this book analyzed a number of written and spoken sources of French to come up with the top 5,000 words used in French. In the book they're listed by order of appearance (e.g., #1 is "le").
  
  As the book is already sorted by order of appearance, you can slowly memorize larger chunks, starting from the top, and know that what you're learning is what you are most statistically likely to encounter.
  
  I program for a living, so I went a bit further and bought the ebook, then wrote a script to pull all the info out for me. I'm now able to practice all sorts of things by filtering the data -- "give me the top 50 verbs that end in -re", for example, to practice conjugation.
  
  
• English Grammar for Students of French (Book)
  
  I haven't read this book, but it's another one that was repeatedly well recommended as I did my self-study research.
  
  
• Rocket French (Audio & Software)
  
  From what I've read, this course is somewhat similar to Pimsleur French. However, unlike Pimsleur, of which I was able to find numerous legitimate reviews online, the majority of those I found for Rocket French were astroturfing. They've registered a ton of domains and set up fake reviews of their product. Whether or not it's any good, I don't know, as their decision to do so turned me off from the course.
  
  
• To save myself some writing, I highly recommend you read this blog post:
  La belle in France: Essential French Language Tools
  
  She covers a number of good resources to aid you in learning French. I'd like to single out http://www.wordreference.com (as well as its forums) though, as it has been a fantastic reference site. Easily the best online English<->French dictionary I have found.
  
  
• Another good roundup post:
  Online Classes.org: The 50 Best Blogs for French Majors & Francophiles
  
  I hope that list is of some help.

You can always buy frequency dictionaries. Here is a link for the French one:
http://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Dictionary-French-Vocabulary-Dictionaries/dp/0415775310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375190873&sr=8-1&keywords=frequency+dictionary

They are good, I've used them to help identify the most important words, typically they have the top 5,000 most used words. They will take words and assume you know how to use them, so a while the verb to be comes in mutiple flavors in English it will only be indicated once for an English dictionary in the infinitive. I've also found similar lists for free through Wikipedia of every thing written in wikipedia and each words shows up with how many times it is used across the entire site. Its free but you'll have multiple forms of each verb, present, past, future, etc listed instead of the verb just listed once based on its frequency.

It will expose you to French and force you to use it, but you won't become fluent in French in five weeks nor will your vocabulary/pronunciation/whatever have time to improve significantly unless you do something pretty drastic.

The thing is, unless you spend six or more months living, working and sleeping in French, immersion alone won't do much. Otherwise you have to take a rational approach to learning and use your five weeks as a kind of real life test or laboratory.

Try this :

• First, make sure you know at least the 5000 most frequently used words in Quebec French (maybe use something like this and add Quebec slang from something with a word list and examples, like this). Give precedence to the second, spoken Quebec French list as it will be more useful during your stay.
  
  
• When you learn words, learn them with their determinant since you always need one in French anyway (learn "la chaise" instead of "chaise (feminine)").
  
  
• Learn the stupid French grammar and its plethora of exceptions. Just accept it for the pile of shit it is and don't give it too much thought at first. Most of the really stupid parts don't apply to speech anyway.
  
  
• Learn verb conjugation. Concentrate on the spoken forms if you must, they are much easier. What is important : indicatif présent, passé composé, imparfait; conditionnel présent; subjonctif présent; participe passé (usually the same as in the composé). For the future tense, the modern tendency in spoken French is to use "aller", conjugate it in the indicatif présent, then affix the future action verb in the infinitif présent or passé. For example, instead of "je conduirai" (I will drive), you say "je vais conduire", "je vais avoir conduit" for "I will have driven". You can also use "j'allais conduire" (imparfait + infinitif) for "I was about to drive". Btw, "I will go" and "I was about to go" would be "je vais (y) aller" et "j'allais (y) aller" (drop the "y" when making a statement, i.e. "je vais aller à Québec" vs. "je vais y aller à Québec!"). No one says "j'irai".
  
  
• To practice your pronunciation, use some real sentences from French TV (better something real like news even if it's read because it's more natural than most drama dialogues) and shadow them, that is repeat them aloud as the speaker say them, with half a second delay, and try to match the rhythm, pitch and accent (in order of importance). The accent or the actual pronunciation of each syllable in a word in the French way, can be practiced in isolation and differs in every French dialect. You should have already done a lot of that, but if you don't feel confident, practice each word from the example sentence independently before shadowing it.
  
  
• Think reading aloud is hard? Try it in a second (or third) language! Buy both the audiobook and the written version of some modern French or Quebecois piece of literature and try reading it aloud while comparing to what it sounds like when read by a native Frenchman. Or use it as a shadowing tool if you think your pronunciation still sucks too much at that point.
  
  
• Go in the real world and speak some French like a boss (confidence is key).

> Do you have the French frequency list somewhere neatly structured in a spreadsheet or something with the definitions or do you know of a place where I can find this without needing to look up 2000 words separately?

Not OP, but I spent the day turning this dictionary into a flashcard-friendly spreadsheet. I'm still in the process of collecting decent sound samples, so the last column can be ignored for now.

Not OP but for your last question, you can use a frequency dictionary. Here is an example for french.. The only problem is that they're quite expensive, especially if you plan to learn Thai, German, and Filipino.

you chose 2 grammar book. the second book, the "easy" one, might be too simple for an intermediate. if you want simple grammar drills for repetition, then it could still be useful. for vocabulary, I got this workbook-- "frequency dictionary for french: core vocabulary for learners" by deryle lonsdale.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415775310/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

5000 top vocabulary. I want to make an anki deck with it (app flashcard deck)...... I downloaded a vocabulary premade deck-- not french, spanish-- the deck was terrible as flashcards for me..... the entries were so lengthy with sentence structure examples. horrible for speed drills. maybe there are good premade french decks, but I thought I would start off with exactly what I want by building my own.

edit: fluent-forever recommends adding images and sound to basic anki flashcards when building your own deck. I'll see how my basic cards go first. I want to focus on speed drills and skype conversations with an italki professional tutor. here's fluent-forever's anki advice..... https://fluent-forever.com/chapter2/

Here is the mobile version of your link