second/third that. can be boring but the tv news is excellent as you have the images to help you, the language is correct (if that's what you're after, go for soaps and songs if it isn't!) and you'll probably already have an idea of the international stories if you've watched/read english news. Great cultural source too!
very difficult to find unfortunately - go for a little of everything, books, tv, radio, newspapers, internet... it all helps and exposure to native speakers obviously - clubs/associations...
bonne chance ;-)
a mix of both Brian here it's saping and bieng in the aveyronggg. the vowels change a lot, Bernard Laporte is from Rodez - just listen to him! "weh" yes here too but watch out it doesn't lengthen into ouia which is regarded as Parisain and bad form here ;-)
Bernard Laporte :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP_D7gRVGH4
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xme587_bernard-laporte_sport
but this one's better - an interview on TV Aveyron !
http://tvaveyron.fr/crbst_5.html
a presto
Fascinating as all this "language stuff" is - I don't really think it is helping answer the original question! Any chance that this could have a thread of its own that Linguists can follow!?? Then those who really want to be cheered up can find the info they need!!
For the record - I think that the most helpful thing to do when you need cheering up is to do something that YOU really want to do! Something that is a real TREAT!! Spoil yourself. That is the cheering thing - I think!!
OK, but I am a terrible paper translator and avoid like the plague for it, although I am on editorial boards where we read and select several languages and would as happily send out editorial comments in French as one of the other languages I can write. So, with me it is comprehension before all else rather than the whole bag and as I said, as a bilingual person I already knew that we line languages up and move between the lines rather than trying to translate as we hear. So listening to a French speaker, I receive in French, respond in French then maybe consider our conversation in English or German later although, funny I find, when I listen to Oc it happens in Spanish after!
Right, our daughters have done much the same, despite the older's learning difficulties (she is in CLIS and likely to be held back from college one year). The younger did the same and is one of the top of her class as she was in Wales before we came and that is because it is her way of doing things. At eight she is now learning her mother's Italian and my German because she is the age she is. My French was taught by excellent teachers in the 1960s with, for instance, oui and a nice sharp 'ou-wee' rather than the vernacular 'weh' hereabouts that I now use. The letters 'in' all came out like 'an' but here they are just like the English 'in' so a sapin (pine) is as you read it and not 'sappan'... etc. Ears beat books any day.
Brian, if we take a cross section of the people here, you're exceptional linguistically and I think most others here will agree with me, you had a very good start and your field has, as you have detailed, thrown you even deeper into languages than most academic linguists ever get, I think the whole anthro - languages thing is brilliant, if only I could start again, there again given the age of your tutor and his OH, perhaps there's still time for me, there again there's a family to feed here...! I'm a logical instructions person, that's why I prefer the scientific side of languages to poetry etc.! and most of my translation work is technical too as others don't like to do it and I prefer it because it makes sense, it's logical! we're all different, I just wish I had a better ear, like you, and wasn't such a visual learner ;-)
Hi Roz, you're obviously a mostly kinaesthetic learner (have to actually do it yourself/hands on for it to stick) most of us have an element of this and certainly in the early days of learning a language that's how most people get on - role plays etc. that gets you a long way but if the goal is complete fluency (really not needed for so many people living here for their daily lives, i admit) then you need to get into the grammar a bit, especially for writing correctly (again not needed for many) My father is a perfect example, did French and Latin at school, national service in Germany, has been coming to France for decades and owns a place here too... "speaks" french and german no problem... well that's what most people think because his french and german is just that little bit more advanced than theirs but in fact, although he gets by and eventually gets the message across, his French and german are pretty awfull and he'd struggle to get a descent grade at A level with either. That's not a problem though because it's enough for him. I've offered to help with his french, correct letters etc. but he politely declined saying at his age he can't be bothered and people understand him and I agree, it would just take away the pleasure and turn it into years of uphill struggle to straighten out all his mistakes and raise his game. All that to say that "fluent" varies enormously from person to person. I have met numerous French English teachers here in France and not one has ever dared talk to me in English, we always speak French and they're embarassed about their "fluency" or lack of it despite having a degree, capes and teaching it daily...! Enjoy the language for what it is, a means of communicating, if you want to go the whole hog then most people will need to get their nose into a book occasionally, if it's just for making yourself understood, read the local paper, watch french tv, with subtitles if available, just expose yourself to as many "inputs" as possible.
A parting shot regarding the different speeds and approaches to learning a foreign language and putting things into perspective and the situaion of Carol's daughter who learnt French in a matter of months... a foreign child in a typical school day will have more exchanges/messages/phrases/commands and general interaction in French than most foreign adults living here in France do in a year! so it's natural that things take a little longer, mais bonne chance !
Just out of interest Andrew, being a teacher, can you suggest any online sites that are good for teaching French and are free
Quiz programmes are a great idea! Hadn't thought of that! Combo of facts and vocab has to be pretty much unbeatable I would say!!
Love the "No you listen too slowly" as well. I will try to remember that the next time somebody tells me I speak English too fast!!
Share the inability to follow instructions and learn grammar and such things from books Roz, but had that at schoo and uni four decades ago anyway. Instinct, good ear and need help most of all.
Sorry Andrew, lost my internet yesterday so wasn't ignoring your reply, I know you are probably right, the trouble is I am the sort of person who if I have to read instructions I am lost (no patience) but if I am shown how to do something I learn it for good. I think I have got to the age where I don't seem to have the ability to retain information. I would love to be able to converse with the french better but I am not sure it will ever happen, I do something towards learning every day so I remain positive. Thanks for your input :-0
Didn't sound pompous Andrew - just factual. And good grammar does make a difference! Not sure I want to sound like an illiterate French anything -teenager/farmer/whatever - because I have picked up what I hear around me! I find it quite frustrating that I can't find a French class locally that provides what I am looking for! (Teaching of whatever Grammar/Conjugasion etc, followed by a series of exercises to get it to stick and then some conversation practise of what we have learnt!!) It sounds so simple - but I have failed to find it here!!
Meteo France says the cold weather will continue until Sunday morning
Learning French
One idea we found worthwhile for learning French was the endless quiz programmes - if you select "text" 888 you will have the subtitles for the deaf which lets you see the words being used. And in most quiz programmes they repeat the question. It also means one can pick up a number of useful details about France - for example the most common tree in the hexagon is the Oak.
Once I remarked to a French man that he spoke too fast - "No you listen too slowly"
Yes, good point. We used to watch cookery programmes on RAI channels and I found exactly the same, so I imagine you are spot on here too. Plus the vocabulary is relatively small, repetitive and there are drawn out bits because of particular processes so presentation is slow and clear. Brill!
I found that Cookery programmes were a great place to learn (Italian not French but I am sure the same applies) as they tended to talk more slowly so that viewers could follow the recipe!!
"Like"
J has a remedy for the low...he picks up his guitar and begins to twiddle....
Would be nice to find someone for him to have a jam with....BUT no one seems
to play guitar here apart from the bands who play wedding music.
I always feel low when one of the cats dissapears for a couple of days AND then
really happy when the naughty thing arrives home hungry and exhausted.
The thing is Andrew, that I think I am not at all 'exceptional'. People who actually become anthros have almost no choice but to be like this and adapt accordingly. My professor Jack Goody is 92 now and still working. He left his long term wife Esther Goody who is nearly as old and still working about eight years ago. Juliet Mitchell, Jack's girlfriend now, is trying to get him to stop fieldworking and going new places! His English has always been incomprehensible because of being highly posh with an impediment but people understand him in a big bag of other lingos! It is not that we are ahead of linguists, but that of necessity we have to take in languages as international finance people simply shrug off changes of currency and so on. It's in the job description somewhere, so we do it. Esther Goody told me that as an American she grew up believing American English was the only language God uses, as for ancient Hebrew, etc... She has a big bag of African languages and learned them when people in the USA believed that the only thing good from non-white people was their cheap labour and perhaps abolishing slavery was not the best idea... Esther was my college tutor and remains a good friend but still says to me that I will make a good anthropologist one day, but then she is a quarter of a century older and has that amount of time more having learned all those cultures, languages, etc!