I'm not learning French

Peter, I have removed your comment, please apologise to Derek and we can all move on.

Thanks

Ah yes....all those verbs like avoir/être...then those I was told 60 years ago to classify as 'verbs which describe creating or moving' ie Aller Pouvoir, Vouloir and so on...... make life interesting! Je vais les étudier encore.....!

@ Peter Scawen - I think it is unfair of you to suggest that a fellow SFN Member who was giving his advice on learning French has a Fascist mind set (even if said in jest). Personally, I think you need to apologise to Derek. I would then be in favour of editing your original comment to remove the offending remark.

Definition of fascist from Urban Dictionary:

fascist

1. Someone who believes in a totalitarian state rule by a supreme leader (dictator) who controls everything possible and treats people harshly -- to gain the leader's own success,* to foment an aggressive military nationalism, and to promote a Social Darwinist belief that hard life strengthens the state by weeding out the weak.

Peter Scawen.... Comment que vous aller me parler comme ça... je suis ici pour aider les ex patriés

Have never been classed as having a Fascist mind set

THAT is NOT what I expected from a forum like this

The radio is now on. I won't buy a TV because that's part of the reason I left the States. Too much information! and most of it very bad. Frankly, that's part of the reason, I think, that I might be resistant to learn French. I'm sure if I could understand what is being said, it would be filled with world affairs, etc. that are crazy-making.

Yep, like Vic I have read our 'technical manuals'. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, Émile Durkheim and Pierre Bourdieu are among those people I dare not have never read and being distrustful of translations have mostly only read originals. Foucault in impenetrable in French but in English almost impossible to comprehend what on earth the bloke was rabbiting on about.

I watch Peppa Pig in French (Peppa Cochon) c'est top! It has all the usual daily phrases of family life and the speech is very clear. I recommend French children watch Peppa Pig in English and my kids watch Peppa Cochon. Search Peppa Pig Fr on YouTube.

It's interesting that the anglophone approach is listen and learn whereas the French will start straight away with learning your verbs! My written French is dreadful as I haven't a clue about grammar but all m y French friends say "but you speak our language so well". So - choose what you want and go for it.

Or as my grandson says, Brian, "C'est trop cool"!

Deborah, if you look at Useful Links under Education you'll find a lot of links/advice on how to learn French.

Personally, I studied French for 10 years before coming here for a year as an assistant anglais at a small school. I could write and read the language easily but I hadn't realised I couldn't actually speak it! A full school year speaking virtually nothing but French soon cured that and I still have some of the bad habits I picked up from the friends I made.

French is now almost my first language as I discovered when I spent a couple of days with my family in June and realised just how much English I had forgotten. But then I rarely speak English these days as my wife is French and it's been my daily language for more than 50 years.

Right Mike, 'C'est cool man' for instance. Not just young people but we heard a doctor outside the hospital for a smoke with colleagues using the expression - mid-50s, so hardly a fallow youth! Use of the words like 'Yes' as an emphasised version of oui, stop instead of arrête, go, cash, discount, shopping and, and, and... They are everyday but that is not good reason to not learn what they really are however is really 'cool' when you pronounce them properly. The coup de grâce is pronouncing the H in hello which more and more younger people are but always bonjour for teacher ;-)

Deborah, well yes. You may well be brushing your hair but you are brushing yourself, have a clothes brush at hand to tease your teacher with..., also like je m'élève seems like an out of body experience with one grabbing him/herself and pulling him/her out of bed. The list is extensive and for the Anglosaxon world quite amusing but turn the tables and see the the French get baffled by English.

My coup de grâce thus far was explaining to the the gendarme we know that the etymology of the word describing his job is gens d'armes, translated ‘men of arms', but because they were in and of the community actually literally vigilantes in the modern context. He refused to believe it was not simply a word that was just and always there. He looked at it on the computer and apologised for doubting me. So much for the French knowing their own language.

Hi

You cannot learn a language in a school, no way! You can only practice what you have picked up elsewhere.

I am always a little surprised that people still think that they can lean a language from someone else, that someone can teach them ...

Being from a tiny country, I have had to learn several foreign languages from a very early age, and I am glad I learned the Scandinavian way.

As a student I taught Danish to immigrants, which was not easy! Some had never gone to school in their home countries, and some where old.

So, here are my humble suggestions to how to learn a language:

Listen to as much as possible, radio, music, tv, you name it.

Read easy French magazines, e.g. fashion, cooking, whatever you are interested in - doesn't matter if you understand every word, just read and try to get the overall message. - When you advance skip to easy read newspapers and mags, e.g. the shortest articles in Le Point.

Pick up some BD for young adults - not kidding, and read them, again doesn't matter if understand every word. When you are comfortable with that, get the ones for adults.

Goon Amazon and buy some easy readers with audio cd, and read and listen.

Grammar may be the basis of a language, and it is important, but you have to get used to the words to be able to use the grammar.

They say that you have to use a word 1000 times before your mind has "adapted" it, so use the words - e.g. join a discussion group. And talk to yourself :)

Buy some self study grammar and vocabulary books and become a weirdo, i.e. talk to yourself in French when you are working on those - in general talk to the radio when there's no one around, get used to saying the words out loud - worry about pronunciation latter on :)

Don't give a rat's a** if the French laugh at you or anybody else for that matter. They probably don't sound so good themselves speaking English :)

You are already well on your way, because you are trying.

Best of luck :)

Mike, "French is just English badly pronounced" : this one is superb, for the real quote was exactly the opposite, more meaningful historically speaking . It was said by Clémenceau ,"the Tiger", somewhen before WWI, but I read it first appeared in one Alexandre Dumas' books, written in the XIXth but situated in the early XVIIth, which makes stil more sense .

My husband and I were fortunate that we did do it in school - at least to a certain standard - although we were told 'You'll never know anyone well enough to address them as "Tu" ' Well that caused a big problem as soon as we arrived. I think it helps to feel part of the community and get more out of life here if you can, but as you say, it's very hard after a certain age!

If you have an Ipad, you could try downloading the Duolingo app. I have found it quite useful in establishing the basics. Good luck.

I found listening to France Info to be very useful, as it repeats itself every hour or so, you get a 2nd chance to listen to an article and try and understand the bit you didn't get first time round

Some mistakes are really funny and make everyone laugh, even the person who said them!

I recall the guy who was so taken by a young Frenchgirl that he suddenly upped and said 'Je vais te tuer' when he meant 'je vais te tutoyer'......Hilarity all round!

Google translate at the moment for me. And le Robert Collins compact which gives you conversational phrases at the back… Starting lessons late September after all summer visitors have gone. My winter occupation with an intent to emerge in the spring a fluent French speaker…

First thing is to STOP, OBSERVE & THINK..... Stop the English TV, SKY etc, English radio & English language newspapers.... and replace them with everything FRENCH (very common mistake living in a foreign country)

GET your ears accustomed to hearing French.... get the brain into learn mode.... invite only French friends to the house or get the English ones to agree to French Language ONLY evenings.... it hurts at first, but later it will become much easier

I came here in 1972, spent learning and sometimes working holidays here thru to 1977, and then moved full time here in Dec 2000 and decided to go for 999% IMMERSION....

cut all the English out of my life for a certain time, and yes, it does hurt.... then having done this my TFI test result (French language examinations for foreigners) was a resounding 860 out of 990.....(160 points is the equivalent of the French BREVET DES COLLEGES taken by the French kids at age 16)(sinking French educational standards again.... but thats another story)

so even after having founded and run a French LTD company, been married to a French national and even gained double nationality.... still room for improvement

There's a big difference between un lapin chaud and un chaud lapin. French is changing as much as any language. No one round here says "est ce que?" to ask a question any more they simply pronounce a positive expression as if it were a question. If they wish to say sorry they don's say "je suis desole" they just say "je desole" which is technically quite wrong. I've yet to meet a native French speaker who admits that they all say Eh! Bah! Oui! (Sorry no accents!)