My dad knows french. Around the dinner table he would speak french and we would have to reply in french as well. His attempt to teach us the language. I resented him for it and consequently put most of it out of my mind. Recently though, I've wanted to go back to learning it and find it incredibly easy to read and understand. It's the pronunciation of placement of words that get me. For example, feminine and masculine and where to use certian words. There are several sites that give you daily lessons and have the audio so you get an idea of how to actually say a word. I had to laugh at myself after I tried to pronounce before I listened... Like learning anything else though, practise, practise, practise! If you don't stick with it and do a little everyday, everything you've learned goes back in those dusty corners of your brain. I never plan to live or visit anywhere where I'd have to use it and the only benifit of knowing it where I live is that it "might" get you a goverment job.
I live in Belgium where the official languages are dutch and french. They start teaching us french over here from the 4th grade so I suffered through 9 years of french at school and when I have to use it my french is still terrible. The best way to learn a language is to actually use it. Get some basic notions and then take a trip to France and start talking to the people. Bonne chance !
I too am intersted to learn French. Right now, i only knew some words like the french like the first ten numbers and some common words like cat, dog...etc. I was reading some french comics with english subtitles.
I took Spanish in high school and one semester of French in college. Most of my college class had also studied Spanish in high school. I think the best part of the class was watching the teacher go nuts every time someone pronounced a French word the way it would be done in Spanish.
Personally, I'd take a latin class. Learn latin and you'll be able to at least grasp the other romance languages (italian, french, spanish, etc) in writing even if you can't make it out entirely. Plus, its a real head start in learning those as well as it gets you used to verb syntax, sentence structure, etc. Learning it has lots of other side-effects too, vocabulary improvement as well, plus being able to decipher the words on lots of buildings around the world LOL
Best learn a language for a country you are going to spend time in. Unless you have the day-to-day use, learning a language out of context is a waste of time.
German kicks to much a$$, I wish I would have paid more attention in German, you can scare the hell out of anyone with it There is a Tool song the name of which escapes me that is a bread recipe in german and it sounds like he may be trying to overthrow a government
Go to a real Chinese restaurant in HK (as it used to be) or China and you'd think everyone was trying to gut each other. They sling the crockery round like they want to take off your ear and scream out the orders at the top of their voices. By the time your Chung Goon arrives you are afraid that if you don't eat it it will be stuffed down your throat. I loved it. By the time I got to work after Yum Cha my adrenelin was pumping so hard if anyone came within six feet of me I'd take their family jewels home in my handbag.
I've tried a few times to learn French but normally give up after a frustrating few months, I just think learning languages isn't for everyone.
Hi hmmm.. Learning French? what i heard is its not that difficult. I forgot a best resource for learning french i will update here as soon as i can retrive it from my database Hima
I was born from Italian immigrant parents in a French province (Quebec) and went to school in English. Talk about being confused . Growing up in Montreal like so many other people I got to learn three languages, English, French and Italian. French is a very precise language, there is a rule for everything. The accents tell you how to pronounce the letter. For example è, é and e all sound different. The key is to learn all the rules and let me tell you there are many of them. But just like any language that you learn practicing it is the key to retaining and getting better at it. It could be fun if learning languages is your thing. In terms of importance I would say that English, Spanish, and French are probably the three most important languages in the World. Knowing these three languages you can travel almost anywhere and be sure you'll find someone who speaks one of these three.
I've been learning french for a year at AF. IMO the best way is to go to a language school rather than learning yourself since a teacher can correct your pronunciation/grammar mistakes. For grammar book, I'd recommend Grammaire Progressive du Francais for intermediate. For online learning, try BBC.com or french.about.com
Le francais n'est pas trop dur en fait ... nicht sehr swer But german is so langweilig !!!! I hated German because I couldn't learn it !!!! I like english and wanna study in USA but the whole problem is that Tuitions are so expensive there How do you pay your Tuitions mates ?
yeah, I agree with you. You can go for a while in France(forget Paris, go to the country site) or just go in Québec as well If some of you have troubles in learning french, I surely can answer some grammar or vocabulary questions just send me a private message