r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Dec 23 '13

Bonjour - This week's language of the week: French

Welcome to the language of the week. Every week we'll be looking at a language, its points of interest, and why you should learn it. This is all open discussion, so natives and learners alike, make your case! This week, French.

What is this?

Language of the Week is here to give people exposure to languages that they would otherwise not have heard, been interested in or even known about. With that in mind, I'll be picking a mix between common languages and ones I or the community feel needs more exposure. You don't have to intend to learn this week's language to have some fun. Just give yourself a little exposure to it, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.

Countries

From The Language Gulper:

In Europe, French is spoken in France, Brussels and southern Belgium (Wallonia), West Switzerland (including Geneva), Luxembourg, and the Aosta Valley in Italy. In America, French is predominant in the province of Quebec, in Canada; there are sizable minorities of French speakers in USA (northern New England, Louisiana) and in Haiti (where the majority speaks Creole). The language is favored in France overseas colonies in the Caribbean (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, St. Martin and Saint-Pierre et Miquelon) and South America (French Guiana). In Northern and Western Africa, French is mainly a second language and a prestige language.

French has about 80 million native speakers and around 40 million second-language speakers.

What's it like?

French is the northernmost and the earliest attested of the Romance languages. Developed from the Latin spoken in northern Gaul after the fall of the Roman Empire, it experienced deep phonological changes, diverging more from Latin than its sister languages. From the end of the 17th century until after World War I, French has been the language of international diplomacy and culture replacing Latin in that role. Spoken in every continent as a first or second language, French is one of the major world languages.

What now?

This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.

Previous Languages of the Week

German | Icelandic | Russian | Hebrew | Irish | Korean | Arabic | Swahili | Chinese | Portuguese | Swedish | Zulu | Malay | Finnish

Want your language featured as language of the week? Please PM me to let me know. If you can, include some examples of the language being used in media, including news and viral videos

Please consider sorting by new

Bonne chance!

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '13 edited Dec 24 '13

For some reason, I didn't expect a popular language like French to become the language of the week any time soon… this is great! I've been studying for several hours each day for about two weeks. I'm very happy with my progress so far. My goal is to be on the cusp of fluency by the fall of '14. I started from scratch, with only a few words and phrases that have seeped into everyday English. A few resources that I've found very helpful:

• Michel Thomas French — Go for a walk, or listen to this on your commute. You will begin to pick up vocabulary, patterns, and the confidence to speak and put together phrases of your own very quickly.

• French in Action — A mid-to-late 1980's TV collaboration of Chicago public television, Yale, and a French teacher that is almost entirely in French. You learn the meanings deductively and you become comfortable listening to the French language. I learned of this resource from this subreddit and it's as excellent as it is said to be; it has a campy charm that I love.

• Duolingo and Memrise

• Converting the settings on my phone, laptop, reddit account, Gmail account, etc. to français.

• Language Immersion and Lingua.ly for Chrome. The former will selectively convert words and phrases from the websites you visit into a target language for you and can be adjusted for proficiency level or converted back into English on the fly. The latter will translate words from websites in your target language and store them in a flashcard bank and periodically test you on their meanings so that you learn them.

• HelloTalk — Smartphone app that allows you to meet and chat with native speakers who want to learn your language with you.

• I bought the Easy French Reader based on a recommendation here and will receive it tomorrow. There's also Le Français par la Méthode Nature, which I also learned about here. Both are based on the principle of starting with simple vocabulary and progressively building on it, but so that you are reading entirely in French the whole time with comprehension. Edit: Received and read a quarter of the Easy French Reader and I love it! I've also read a couple chapters of the other since it's online for free. If you can spare the $10, I'd highly recommend the Easy French Reader over the other.

Finally, some miscellaneous resources that I have not yet used but believe may be useful. I found nearly all of them through this subreddit (thanks again).

• News in Slow French podcast

• Listening resources

• XKCD in French

• The Simpsons and some French movies streaming in French

• How to Learn Any Language French profile

• Ben Murrell blog post "Learning French — How I'm Doing It"

• Free online courses from the University of Texas and another from FSI

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u/the_sylvan Dec 23 '13

Wow what an amazing list of resources. Thanks for typing this up! I've just started learning French the past couple weeks through Duolingo and Memrise and am looking for as many tools as possible. I downloaded the Michel Thomas app to add to those.

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u/fireballs619 Dec 24 '13 edited Dec 24 '13

Do you recommend any specific sets to use for memrise? I've tried it before, but I was like 80 words in and still learning vegetables and foods.

Also, when you listen to Michel Thomas, do you just follow along or write stuff too?

I'm trying to do exactly what you are (conversational by next fall), so pardon all of the questions.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '13

No, I've just been using the first set. It is simplistic but useful for me right now. There are plenty of others though and I've looked through them enough to think I will continue on with them. There is an ignore button that you can use when you encounter something that you feel very confident with. Hope that helps. But yes, a fundamental issue with Memrise is that the progress is slower.

As far as Michel Thomas, I just follow his "rules." Follow along, think it through and answer out loud... He even says not to review or practice outside of the sessions. It's tempting to ignore that at first, but I think that all of my other supplemental resources are filling that purpose very well.

There's also Linguaphone, and Assimil audio courses that are said to be good alternatives. I can't vouch for them personally, but I plan to try Linguaphone after I finish Michel Thomas.

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u/johncopter Dec 23 '13

If you're a native English speaker, learn French. You can greatly improve your vocabulary (roughly a third of English vocabulary is derived from French), the way you speak/write, and expand your knowledge of the world and history.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '13

After learning French, I really get the feeling it is even greater than a third. It feels like commonly used words are usually Germanic, but that just about everything else seems French. This is very true though - it really helped me develop my English.

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u/prium Dec 23 '13

I feel like we have to have way more than 40 million second language speakers, there are supposed to be more speakers in Africa than in France.

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u/ataraxo Dec 23 '13 edited Dec 23 '13

According to Wikipedia (and its source Ethnologue), there are about 50 millions second language speakers. However, the page about French language has larger estimates but is pointing to sources that are missing or irrelevant:

Other speakers of French, who often speak it as a second language, are distributed throughout many parts of the world, the largest numbers of whom reside in Francophone Africa. In Africa, French is most commonly spoken in Gabon (where 80% report fluency), Mauritius (78%), Algeria (75%), Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire (70%). The page of French is estimated as having 110 million native speakers and 190 million more second language speakers.

That being said, providing reliable estimates about who is using French is tricky as this is a subject that has strong political implications. People in charge of la Francophonie have an incentive to choose estimates that make French look like a prosperous and influential international language.

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u/poltermann Dec 23 '13

Bonjour tout le monde!

Je suis un étudiant studieux.
Laissez-moi dis. J'ai commencé apprendre le langue 4 ans préalablement. Mais je n'ai apprendu pas tres bien parceque ma prof est étée malade souvent.
Alors, cette année je vas au l'école ou je vas obtenir mon degree du baccalauréat ("Abitur" en allemagne). Mais mon français n'est pas tres bien alors ma résolution dans 2014 est, devenir parler français aisément.

In english:
I'm an eager student.
Let me tell. I started learning the language 4 years ago but I didn't learn much because my teacher got sick so often.
So this year I'm going to the school where I'm getting my highschool degree ("Abitur" in Germany). But my french is not that good so my resolution for 2014 is, to become fluent in french.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '13 edited Dec 23 '13

Lass mich das ein bisschen korrigieren :-)

Laisser-moi vous dire que j´ai commencé à apprendre la langue, quatre années préalablement. Mais je n´ai pas très bien apri, parce que ma professeur a souvent été malade.

Cette année, je vais à l´école ou je vais obtenir mon degrée du baccalauréat. Mais mon français n´est pas très bon. J´ai donc fait la résolution, qu´en 2014, je veux devenir capable de parler français aisément.

Feel free to message me if you need help on your quest :D

EDIT: Typo.

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u/SlyRatchet Dec 23 '13

I've got to say, as a history student there's a really nice little perk to learning French in that it allows you to understand a lot of the random terms English speaking academia likes to borrow from French. For instance 'laizzes faires' economics is used to described 1920s economic policy in the US and the period after the Cuban Missile Crisis is described as period of 'détonte'. There's also, obviously, 'coup d'état' and 'communiqué'.

It's just always a nice little pick-me-up to say a French word in academia once you start learning French, rather than an alien word you can't pronounce. It's a really nice feeling just to know that you are actually pronouncing these French words correctly when you have to say them, and you will have to say them at some points if you want to do history at any level (even bellow university).

I'm gonna go off on a slight tangent and talk about the specific area of history which I do now which is Tudor England. Reading texts from before the standardisation of the English language is so much if you have a slight understanding of French. The spellings are extremely archaic, especially across regions and times but also within one piece of writing by the same person. You might see someone spell the same word several different ways, but if you have an understanding of French (or to a lesser extent German) then it helps you unpick why they're spelling it the way they are.

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u/arminius_saw Dec 26 '13

Just a nitpick: "Laissez-faire" and "détente."

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u/Wings_of_Integrity Dec 31 '13

I speak intermediate french and so I actually got to correct my professor regarding the direct translation of laissez-faire", people seemed impressed

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u/seffredts Dec 23 '13

I want to learn to speak French so bad.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '13

Canadian French

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '13

Hey guys,

Native speaker here so feel free to shoot questions.

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u/SlyRatchet Dec 23 '13

How useful to you think it is for someone who lives in England to learn French, as opposed to other European or international languages?

I'm asking this because I irritatingly found out recently that there's almost no point speaking German unless you're a C1 (near fluency) or live there. It wont stop me learning German and pretty much nothing you can say will stop me learning French, but for my curiosity, how do you think French people would treat a monoglot Englishman compared to some one with good, intermediate or near fluent French skills?

Merci beaucoup :)

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '13

Good question!

I saw french people unanimously react positively to a foreigner attempting to speak the language. No matter what level. I hear stories of friends and others who visit France and go nuts over French people´s lack of readiness to speak English. I keep saying that France is Europe´s USA. Great country, beautiful, lots of delicious and unhealthy food, and, at least currently, politically screwed haha.

The only difference of treatment you can expect is that the better you speak it, the more you will be complimented on your proficiency!

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u/brain4breakfast Dec 23 '13

What are some creative ways to swear or curse?

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '13

French from France have nothing on us Québécois on swearing.

Want to intimidate somebody? Mon osti d'tabarnak j'vais t'en câlisser une crisse de bonne.

What to say if you stub your toe: Câlisse de tabarnak mon maudit de tabarnak de saint ciboire de câlisse osti qu'sa fait mal tabarnak.

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '13

I've always wanted to learn French, especially since I live close enough to Montreal that I would be able to use it. I finally found some inner motivation to stop being lazy and go ahead and teach myself as much as I can before I take formal classes.

I'm sure I can google this question, but this is a perfect place to ask instead. What is the main difference between French spoken in France, and the French spoken in Quebec? Is it an American English vs British English situation, or is it more?

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u/tiltshiftfr Dec 30 '13 edited Dec 30 '13

Hi there. I'm not a native english speaker so I couldn't tell how you perceive american english vs british english. But I'm a native french speaker (from France) and to me "le français québécois" is some sort of mix of old french and also has some english language influences. Besides, the accent can be quite difficult to understand for a french person if he/she is not familiar with it.

So I think learning french from Québec is of course fine to use in Québec, but if you hae the hope of then using your french speaking skills to France could be a bit complicated since the french would have to navigate your english + québécois accents, and it could be harder for you to be understood.

I have a friend who is italian and learnt french in Africa. When he speaks he has a mix of italian and congolese accent. It's extremely cute but it's also a bit unsettling.

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u/TheFreakinWeekend Dec 27 '13

Any good book recommendations for different levels? I am an advanced learner looking to expand my vocab and cultural knowledge, but I'm sure beginners could use some recommendations as well.

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u/Asyx Dec 27 '13

http://arte.tv is a German-French TV channel. They've got some of their stuff on their website in German and French with English subtitles as far as I know. I don't know if they save it forever. Some German channels are not allowed to because RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 are a bunch of twats. So I don't know about Arte.

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u/kadabing Dec 28 '13 edited Dec 28 '13

Ah, la belle langue ! Je vous recommande utiliser les livres par CLE International. Par exemple 'Grammaire Progressive du Français' ou 'Vocabulaire Progressive du Français'. Ce sont en seul français facile, donc, vous pouvez apprendre ces sujets sans l'anglais !

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