..Want to know what really pisses off the French? The Quebecois. The French can't stand the Quebecois speaking in what the French consider to be, their gutter dialect.
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BirdinMo, vous devriez apprendre à parler français, il est en effet une belle langue.
The suggestions offered by everyone that have responded to your thread are good recommendations. The best way to learn a language is to get a grasp of the basics and then just dive in. Do you have work colleagues or friends who speak French? If you do then enlist them to help you to acquire a proficiency by only speaking French when they are with you.
Jason is correct. The French do get a bit miffed by the Quebecois pronunciation. I am from south Louisiana and many of us are bilingual. The French that we speak is closely related to 17th century French that was widely spoken in Acadia, the present day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Since we are isolated in terms of linguistics our French has not evolved with the French spoken in France and many of our terms are out of date, plus we have incorporated English words into the dialect. Some elementary and secondary schools offer a French curriculum and English is only used in grammar, English and American literature classes. Every other class is conducted in French and written homework assignments are in French. That is the best way to learn any language.
Bonne chance, Birdinmo !
DT
I would most likly just read books in french. I would love to go to France but I doubt I ever will.
I lived in France for 18 months and I never found the French, even those living in Paris, anywhere near as difficult as they are so often described, and have been several times on this thread.
I can't account for it ... but there she be -- a completely different experience.
I agree that immersion is really the way to go.
I spent a fair bit of time in Quebec and found that speaking French was often difficult. For all their French-centric nationalism (which the young generation, I might add, are outgrowing), most of them have a pretty good grasp of English and realize that learning English can only be good in this global, English-dominated world.
It was far harder in Quebec than in France to keep the locals speaking their native tongue.
The best way to learn French is to go there and learn it. While that might be said for just about any language out there, it's the only way with French.
Just about anywhere else, even awful attempts at speaking the local language are appreciated by the local population. That is not frequently the case in France and certainly not in Paris. The French will quickly correct you, become frustrated with your impudent attempt to speak their language, and begin prattling away in English just to cut the time they have to deal with you. They vastly prefer you to speak English instead of French simply because you cannot possibly speak it as quickly and accurately as they can speak English. Even if your grammar and pronunciation are technically excellent, they will frequently claim to be unable to understand you and, again, start talking to you in English. I was even sent over to France to learn French and spent the vast majority of the time speaking English simply because I spoke French too slowly, didn't understand idioms, or because I was obviously American.
The further you get from Paris, the more polite people are about it, but in the end, the only people who will tolerate your bad French (again, even if you got A+ in French in school) are people who didn't learn English and most of those people are now quite old.
It's a great language to learn, it's mellifluous and pleasant to the ear, but unless you've got a true French accent and are very familiar with colloquialisms and idiomatic phrases, you're not likely to get much use from it.
Want to know what really pisses off the French? The Quebecois. The French can't stand the Quebecois speaking in what the French consider to be, their gutter dialect.
You can't win.
So learn French just for the joy of being able to read it or speak it now and then with a flourish, but unless you've lived in France and adopted a true ear for French from the French themselves, don't expect to ever use it.
Rosetta Stone is amazing
but if you don't want to use that the best way is immersion.
If you're just trying to learn to speak it, start learning an speaking it. One girl i know was trying to learn spanish and she changed her cellphone to only display is spanish, so she was always reading it.
you can also do that with your computer (keep a click by click track of how you did it, in case you want to change it back and can't read quite well enough to do so)
but if you really want to learn how to read, write, and speak it, you're going to need as much TOTAL immersion as possible
BirdinMo, vous devriez apprendre à parler français, il est en effet une belle langue.
The suggestions offered by everyone that have responded to your thread are good recommendations. The best way to learn a language is to get a grasp of the basics and then just dive in. Do you have work colleagues or friends who speak French? If you do then enlist them to help you to acquire a proficiency by only speaking French when they are with you.
Jason is correct. The French do get a bit miffed by the Quebecois pronunciation. I am from south Louisiana and many of us are bilingual. The French that we speak is closely related to 17th century French that was widely spoken in Acadia, the present day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Since we are isolated in terms of linguistics our French has not evolved with the French spoken in France and many of our terms are out of date, plus we have incorporated English words into the dialect. Some elementary and secondary schools offer a French curriculum and English is only used in grammar, English and American literature classes. Every other class is conducted in French and written homework assignments are in French. That is the best way to learn any language.
Bonne chance, Birdinmo !
DT
Reading, speaking, and understanding what other people say are all different skills.
You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, Kal.
I can read French with few problems, can (or could ... I'm getting rusty) say most of the things that hit my fancy ... but oral comprehension was my Achilles heel.