Learning French

[gaijin]

If you want to become uber fluent you have to move there really. That said, I have a friend who speaks fluent Mandarin and he didn't move to China until 6 years after learning the language.

TV, newspaper and radio helps a lot. You have to totally immerse yourself in it.

Converstaion is good, and normally they are societies and meet-up's for people wishing to converse in a certain langauge regardless of their ability.

[StrikerCW]

I want to learn French and Chinese (preferrably Cantonese because that is ancestry but whatever) before I die in 1000 years :rolleyes: I see the French coming alot easier than Chinese though.

I mean I don't nessecarilly want to be fluent (well I wish to be alot of things, but..) but I definatelly want to be able to converse freely when I take trips over to Europe in the future.

[gaijin]

Cantonese wouldn't really open that many doors for you, unless you want to it for pure fun and spiritual enjoyment as you say...

Mandarin, even basic Mandarin would probably be 100 times more practical to be honest.

Sadly the language people seem to be wanting to learn on the continent is English.

[StrikerCW]

Eh, the way things are now I will just be learning any language for fun and making myself feel special. At least in all places I have been (barring Italia) I could converse in English with alot of people. And even if you didn't you could get by with pointing.

I think when you travel if someone is learning English in say, France or Germany, they will want to talk to you in English so they can practice while you want the opposite.. :(

[prymetyme]

that happens a lot still, but with Germany and France if you go to smaller towns a lot of the time they dont speak English. Especially the owners or bartenders of shops/pubs.

[gaijin]

Shit happens.

I've never encountred anyone in both Russia and France who wanted to 'test' out their English on me, only if we were having a very broken conversation due to cultural differences and misunderstandings...

[Gnafron]

Shit happens.

I've never encountred anyone in both Russia and France who wanted to 'test' out their English on me, only if we were having a very broken conversation due to cultural differences and misunderstandings...
French people have a strange relationship with language, they are often ashamed to speak a foreign language when they know that they don't master it and may make mistakes while speaking.

You could try to watch TV5 (also called TV5 monde) which is a french TV broadcasting movies, games, TV shows, and so on… gathered on other French speaking televisions (French but also from Quebec, Switzerland, Belgium, Africa, et cætera…), the idea is that most programs are in french but with French subtitles: a very good way to improve your french rapidly in my opinion.

As i said before: try to read french books while listening to the audio book in french.

[ilv2]

You could try to watch TV5 (also called TV5 monde) which is a french TV broadcasting movies, games, TV shows, and so on… gathered on other French speaking televisions (French but also from Quebec, Switzerland, Belgium, Africa, et cætera…), the idea is that most programs are in french but with French subtitles: a very good way to improve your french rapidly in my opinion.

agreed. more specifically, news programs and political discussion emissions are the best as the language they use is more refined whereas on game shows (cough la methode cauet) will go off and use a lot of slang and argot.

[Pierre-Henri]

I have no TV home, but sometimes I play freeloader at my parent's house, and I must say the only show that is worth the view is "les maternelles", on the culture channel.

http://www.france5.fr/maternelles/

You can watch it online, but it's more interesting on wider screen. Intellectually speaking, I mean.

Ok, ok, it's about family issues. I'm not married, but when she talks about this, suddenly, I feel like a "papa poule". Sigh.

I stop here before someone starts to witter on Melissa Theuriau again.

[Nanbawan]

As i said before: try to read french books while listening to the audio book in french.

People can also play DVDs with french audio and french subtitles. Watching TV programs concerning topics you're interested in can also prove useful. I've been watching Eurosport in English for years, it helped a lot for the extra cursus learning.

And while I'm unable to actually speak the language and have a proper conversation in Japanese, the ones I had the chance to talk to said that my pronounciation was good (mainly because of all the animes I had been watching).

Europe 1 has an all encompassing sport broadcast that can be interesting (20:00 - 22:30) ; hell, I've always been a TV kid but programs are so crappy today that I happen to set the TV on a channel that broadcast beautiful and/or unsignificant images and turn on the radio...

I repost the french radio portal.

http://www.annuairedelaradio.com/

[Jon Pall]

Good to see this thread is still going. :)

I have enrolled in a one-year French language program in Lyon starting in September. My goal is to acquire a level sufficient enough to apply for graduate schools in France for economics and international relations or maybe in a French speaking country like Morocco or Algeria.

Two months ago, I almost gave up on this and resigned myself to return to Brazil to complete my education, but am very happy to have stuck with my original plans. I've met many French exchange students here in Mexico and they have started teaching me the basics of conversational French. I got to tell you though, it seems to me that it is the most difficult and rigorous of the main Romance languages. The pronunciations are difficult to master and the spellings of words are a nightmare!

First comes the troublesome visa process...I would kill for an EU passport right about now.

[PsychedelicCeltic]

Buy L'Equipe. It's not written for people from the grandes ecoles like Le Monde, and you'll have more fun trying to read the football/rugby reports than another newspaper.

[quentinc]

Where can you buy it? I read the website, but that doesn't seem very substantial.

[DaeHaMinGuk]

Interesting thread...

I took a summer school program to finish up my French language classes for college in Paris and Lyon in the summer of 2004. I haven't had enough time to continue taking French, but I keep up with it by thinking about it in my head.

After I say something in English, I ask myself in my head "How do I say that in French, again?" and for the most part, I'm able to do it ok. That has helped me a lot in retaining the tremendous amount of French that I did learn in my time in France.

When I went to Lyon this past March to visit the "mother" in Lyon who I stayed with for summer school, she said that my French somehow improved from 2 years ago, when I was taking classes.

It's very difficult for me to find anything to improve my ability to listen to French, but reading is pretty steady. My ability to write and speak French is very good though.

[bigp]

I've learned French since I was a kid but my French skill still aren't that good. My pronunciation sucks and my listening skills are poor because when people speak in French they speak so fast. I took French courses all the way to OAC(Grade 13 in the old Ontario curriculum) and there are a bunch of French channels on TV like TV5 but I can't seem to improve. Anyone here know any ways to improve the listening and speaking aspects?

[Nanbawan]

Anyone here know any ways to improve the listening and speaking aspects?


A French mistress...:o

Maybe, you should take a movie you like and work on it until you're somewhat able to make an impression of one of the characters. Using a DVD may help you to work scene by scene too.

I repost this, I guess it's more for beginners and those who have little ressource at hand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/index.shtml

[Nanbawan]

Exercise : watch this (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7793492&postcount=127).

Yeah, I'm spamming my personal tastes. Besides that, I've always found they often (not always) spoke particularly good French with nice diction in this series. If you were able to speak with the same prestance as the character named Shaka, people would stare at you with fear and respect in their eyes... :D :rolleyes:

I want a report on what he says at the end. :p

[PsychedelicCeltic]

I've learned French since I was a kid but my French skill still aren't that good. My pronunciation sucks and my listening skills are poor because when people speak in French they speak so fast. I took French courses all the way to OAC(Grade 13 in the old Ontario curriculum) and there are a bunch of French channels on TV like TV5 but I can't seem to improve. Anyone here know any ways to improve the listening and speaking aspects?
Visit Quebec, and just stay there for a while. Force yourself to use French.

[PsychedelicCeltic]

Where can you buy it? I read the website, but that doesn't seem very substantial.
Most big cities should have a newsstand or two that sells it.

Depends whether San Antoine is big enough.

[prymetyme]

meet french kids. there are 5 chez moi right now. they all have thick accennts i love it.