Where is best school to study French in Paris?

Can anyone recommend a school or place to study french in Paris?

• I want to go to Paris for a month, maybe two, to improve my French whilst on a career break. Can anyone recommend a school / classes or similar? Thank you!

• Answer:

  With 1-2 months, I would recommend Institut Catholique. It has one-month long courses throughout the spring and summer and as part of your studies, you take workshops (e.g., phonetics, conversation) depending on your needs. I have several friends who studied French there long-term (several months to 1+ year) as well as at other language institutes and they all recommend Institute Catholique the most, but they were all serious students studying French full-time (15-20 hr/week). Btw IC does not afford you any greater opportunity to meet French students than anywhere else, yes, IC has many French students, but as a student in the French language program, you will not be interacting with them, unless you do a language exchange, which many language institutes offer. Alliance Francaise is very well known because of their locations worldwide, yet among long-term French language students in Paris, it is not very popular, although I am not sure why. It may be because of price, although IC is not cheap either (by French standards). My recollection is AF has pretty extensive course offerings so if IC is too intense or not flexible enough, AF may work better for you. Also, there are many smaller language institutes where you can study week-by-week, these are good if you want to study one week, vacation another week. I can't recommend one institute over another because really the weekly approach is good not so much for learning but for practice only, in which case the schools don't really differ that much one to the next.