Learning French !!

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  • 4th October 2018 at 11:55 am #415308

    I am a new member ! Hello !

    I am a teacher of languages working with adults, I have been teaching french as a foreign language for years. I had never heard about this forum and I am pleased to see that so many people want to learn the language and I found it very interesting to read your messages !  But now I have a question : “What do you expect from french classes ?” Thank you for your messages and comments.

    Merci pour vos messages.

    Et connaissez-vous RFI ? https://savoirs.rfi.fr/fr/apprendre-enseigner/langue-francaise/tcf-test-de-connaissance-du-francais

     

    4th October 2018 at 2:00 pm #415343

    Welcome to the site Evelyne.

    I only attended French classes before we moved to France and haven’t done so since living here (22 yrs now) but I think what I wanted out of my lessons was to learn, as well as the necessary verbs etc, the small nuances within the language such as those that we have been discussing on the thread ‘similar but not the same’ and to learn the language that our neighbours would use, which isn’t always the pure French that one learns at classes, after all most of us will be speaking more to our neighbours than anyone else and it’s them that we really need to be able to converse with and understand.

    4th October 2018 at 4:10 pm #415398

    Merci Fruitcake pour cette réponse très rapide.  I am sure that your French is brilliant and that your neighbours are happy to speak with you.

     

    4th October 2018 at 4:38 pm #415402

    Bonjour et bienvenue.

    I personally believe that lessons need to concentrate more on how the locals speak rather than the text book french that people are taught in school.

    Please excuse the poor quality of my written french,but I am quite fluent in discussion.

    I remember quite a few years ago when an english expat came into a bar tabac where I was drinking a coffee and said  ” Bonjour Madame , j ai voudrais acheter une paquet de vingt benson et hedges sil vous plait ” ( hello madam,I would like to buy a packet of 20 benson and hedges please) . After he left all the locals had a good laugh at this expense.

    It was quite mean of them as he did go into the bar and ask for his cigarettes in correct french,but is was french learnt in a class rather than the french that the locals used. They would more than likely just go in and ask for vingt bensons or vingt bensons sil vous plait ( 20 bensons or 20 bensons please).

    The funny side of it was that he spoke French in a far more correct manner than what they did !!!

    It is the same for me in the fact that I have learnt my french from the locals and converse perfectly with them,whereas I often come across expats who are tripping over their words by trying to be overly correct. Maybe somewhere between the two is the best place to be !!!

    Anonymous
    4th October 2018 at 6:25 pm #415447

    I personally would like to learn how to understand French (as in when they talk so fast). If that was the case, I’m sure we know enough French to answer back, but it’s this ‘looking like an idiot, with your mouth open’ as you’ve no idea what they just said  :wacko:

    4th October 2018 at 7:37 pm #415463

    Yes when we went to a local evening class in the UK, it was , “ where is the local train station? “ Have you a double room please?”  It Was hard going, there was several in the class who were there to brush up their French, whereas  I was a total novice, totally lost , couldn’t grasp  it all, ended up going to France with little or no French!  French neighbours  were lovely taught me a lot, with the aid  of a aperitifs !   Tres Bon !   :yes:

    4th October 2018 at 7:44 pm #415470

    Hi and many friendly welcomes. Welcome to UIB- GREAT SITE AND HOPE YOU ALWAYS ENJOY IT

    Best wishes

    4th October 2018 at 7:58 pm #415478

    Why oh why are we not teaching children at infants school?  Is that a correct term?  My young nephews age 3 & 4 can both speak Spanish , colours, numbers etc after only 5 weeks !  But then they have parents that talk to their lovely boys and feed their minds with loads of interesting facts, dinosaurs , space etc.plus they can both swim, instead of parents looking at their phone more than their children!! They read to them at bedtime 3 books !   :heart:

    4th October 2018 at 8:24 pm #415491

    jamie

    its all very well you trying to order a packet of  bensons in your local bar, but the chap with the correct French can order a packet of bensons anywhere in France and be understood,  you with your local patois French will not.

    the French are not stupid, as soon as we Brits open our mouths they know we are Brits, why pretend.

    Learn the correct French from the start and be understood wherever you are in France

    4th October 2018 at 8:48 pm #415513

    So where do you go to learn the ‘ correct French’  I wish I had known  that, because what  I paid to learn at evening classes was a total waste of money !  With all due respect   :rose:

    4th October 2018 at 8:54 pm #415518

    Well, I seem to have managed wherever I’ve been in France with what I’ve learnt between evening classes for the basics and my lovely French neighbours for the rest, mind you I don’t smoke  ;-)

    4th October 2018 at 9:34 pm #415555

    Mind you I can read a menu!, :rose:

    Anonymous
    4th October 2018 at 9:37 pm #415557

    Sorry to say this, but reading a menu is soooo easy  :yes:

    4th October 2018 at 10:31 pm #415588

    Yes because I love French food!  :rose: but some still want English food! Sad!

    Anonymous
    4th October 2018 at 11:20 pm #415595

    As I’m sure Evelyne would agree. having French lessons is of course important in a persons attempt to have a command of French BUT most ex pats I know will then go back to their British friends and only speak French in small spells here and there. Next week another lesson and the same thing happens again and so on.

    The only way one will get to manage any kind of fluency is to fall in with a French “crowd”, maybe through work, if retired through clubs but whatever you need to be speaking French with the locals or wherever and never be frightened to make mistakes. Seriously that is what you have to do, immerse yourself amongst the French.

    Then on the other hand we know many people that have either developed a bizarre patois between French in their village and are a real presence there but if they should go out of their commune, well their “French” collapses of course. Then there are those that get by with little, if any French, well you have to say, enjoying France comes in many guises and as long as people are happy with their life in France, well…………………

     

    Anonymous
    5th October 2018 at 12:13 am #415599

    My views! Failed “O” level French in 1963. French friends say that I speak better French than I think I do. I wear T-shirts with French slogans on the front just to get an interaction with the locals. Will talk to anyone in “French” and usually get on quite well. I usually “dig a hole” when I start talking to the locals eg in Leclercs, but hey it’s fun! I’m the only part timer in our group of English friends and I’m the only one who tries to speak French! The easiest person I’ve ever met for understanding them in French was our sadly dead friend Maureen who taught French in Solihull. Lovely Solihull accent that did something to French that made it understandable!

    5th October 2018 at 1:01 pm #415652

    To get back to the original question:  what do people want from a French language course?

    There are different possible requirements for a French language course.

    For me the most important was to have sufficient French to be able to cope with everyday life and emergencies. This means being able to go shopping , get the car, etc  fixed, get a doctor’s or dentists appointment. This might mean I need to be able to speak a little basic stuff to my neighbours.  For this simple ‘proper’ French (like BBC english) is the right thing.  Most day to day business like transactions are of this nature, and usually the person you are dealing with wil be reasonably cooperative, and possibly helpful. This would also being able to read French, though with online translation tools, this is less important.

    I can do the above, with a 99% success, and not too much grief.

    Where I have difficulty is talking to the average frenchman in his own environment (usually in a bar). I usualĺy can’t follow the conversation, except I can usually guess the subject. They talk too fast, and obviously have local accents.  I don’t think a course would be much use here.  The only way, as has been said, is to immerse yourself in a totally french speaking environment, and wait for it to sink in. I do find listening to local french radio helps attune the ears, so it’s easier to pick things up.

    Hope this helps the original poster a bit.

    5th October 2018 at 1:37 pm #415658

    When I’m in a crowd of French speaking people all chattering together I must admit I’m a bit lazy and tend to listen out for a word, or words, that I recognise and which indicate what the subject matter is and guess, normally correctly, what the gist of the conversation is. I find if I try and concentrate on every word then I just get lost. If in doubt I usually repeat what I think someone has said, saying that I didn’t hear very well and that either confirms what I thought or it’s explained to me, without me looking too stupid!

    Anonymous
    5th October 2018 at 10:30 pm #415793

    That’s exactly where I am Fruits. Still a long way to go though in my eyes  :cry:

    6th October 2018 at 8:21 am #415818

    Hello everybody and thank you for all interesting answers !

    I understand that you are all more or less struggling with the language and do not expect a lot from courses.

    Specially because of the gap between the formal language of couse books (and language classes) and the way people speak in everyday life. It’s true : the language of class books is most of the time disconnected from reality and puts the stress on problems like verbs, gender ….

    Some of you said  that it is not that bad, (teachers are sensible persons ! ):  what you can learn in most classes is correct or standard French and that helps you in most situations because you’ll be understood by the doctor, your neighbours…

    I don’t agree with you when you emphasize local or regional peculiarities. My experience is that the differences are less strong in France than in other countries like Germany and Great Britain. France was unified a long time ago,  we all have the same school and TV programs. And education level is high in Brittany.  By the I wonder what you mean when you speak of a “strange patois”. Is Gallo spoken in the region where you live ? Or is this Breton you refer to ? Don’t forget that Breton is a language !

    The “Benson and Hedges man” got his cigarettes. Communication took place but with a side effect (people laughed). That was not very fair of them, I agree with you. But a learner of a language should not take himself too seriously and have some sense of humour … What we learn from this example is that we should learn in a language course to use the right expression in the right place. The feeling for the appropriate register is part of the language learning.

    You say that understanding is much more difficult than speaking but I think that most of you are doing very well in the sense that they have developed  strategies to survive in a French speaking crowd. And that works. It is not easy but you have managed.

    My opinion is that we learn a foreign language to communicate with other people. It means that we have reached our goal when the communication takes place. Can we expect that a language course will help us ?

    I feel very sad reading Blue Velvet’s comment : “waste of time and money”. I am sorry. Tell us please what you were expecting that you did not get.

    I am looking forward to reading new messages. But first I wish you a very nice Saturday !

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