Learning French

[Slow_boat]

Seeing as we intend to spend the summer cruising Brittany, I'm wondering about 'topping up' my schoolboy French. Is it necessary and if so, how to go about it.

I've looked at the Rosetta Stone courses but they are a bit more than I thought to pay.

 

[Vallich]

Seeing as we intend to spend the summer cruising Brittany, I'm wondering about 'topping up' my schoolboy French. Is it necessary and if so, how to go about it.

I've looked at the Rosetta Stone courses but they are a bit more than I thought to pay.

What about yer local College they might have some courses that are suitable, otherwise check your post office notice board even my local Tesco have adverts from people who offer to teach us French.

 

[Poignard]

The BBC used to offer good language courses, maybe they still do.

Here you go:

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

 

[hartcjhart]

try here
http://www.duolingo.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/
http://www.bonjour.com/

 

[Retired in Crete]

check your post office notice board even my local Tesco have adverts from people who offer to teach us French.

Ignore signs in phone boxes though. They are not about teaching a language!

john

 

[Koeketiene]

Ignore signs in phone boxes though. They are not about teaching a language!

john

First hand experience?

 

[sailorman]

First hand experience?

I am told that the best way to learn a foreign language is in bed

 

[sailorman]

What about yer local College they might have some courses that are suitable, otherwise check your post office notice board even my local Tesco have adverts from people who offer to teach us French.

Do they teach dialects too

 

[FullCircle]

Do they teach dialects too

No, you can get an ointment for that.


Duncan, I sort of know about 6 languages. I carry a Collins Gem dictionary/phrase book. Also, I read shop window notices, advertising flyers, phone box adverts (ahem) anything and after a while local newspapers.
Dialects will spoil it, but listen very hard, and ask them to repeat slowly. If you make the effort so will they. Conversations socially with locals will be held in Frenglish or Franglais.

I learned Brasilian Portuguese, then went to Portugal. Apparently it sounded like me speaking in West Indies patois English. The Portuguese found this funny. As I had a Sao Paolo accent, so did the Cariocas in Rio de Janeiro.

On that basis, your Calais accent won't be readily understood in Marseille.

Ho Hum, you can't win.

 

[25931]

Seeing as we intend to spend the summer cruising Brittany, I'm wondering about 'topping up' my schoolboy French. Is it necessary and if so, how to go about it.

I've looked at the Rosetta Stone courses but they are a bit more than I thought to pay.

Concentrate on vocabulary -you can ignore most of the grammar as we all speak our own language ungrammatically. A five year old child can communicate quite well without ever having had a lesson.

 

[oldvarnish]

A five year old child can communicate quite well without ever having had a lesson.

Mmmm. Haven't they had five years of continuous lessons?

 

[blueglass]

I fully recommend the Michel Thomas audio system. Its very different. You basically listen in, press pause now and again to vocalise a response and he has you doing entire sentences in minutes - very clever and very absorbing.
You can pick up the CD on ebay very cheaply.

 

[Artic Warrior]

Bonjooour no

 

[prv]

I learned Brasilian Portuguese, then went to Portugal. Apparently it sounded like me speaking in West Indies patois English. The Portuguese found this funny.

My dad was taught Russian by a tutor from Volgograd, so naturally that's the accent he speaks it with.

When he got to Russia, he discovered that a Volgograd accent is kind of the local equivalent of thick Brummie.

His role there was fairly senior, involving high-level talks and occasionally even TV interviews.

Imagine if our News at Ten interviewed an Umbongistanian diplomat or business leader, and he opened his mouth and came out sounding like the "cupcake" bloke

Pete

 

[VicMallows]

I have an 'O' level in French; done 2 years at night-school; spent numerous hours with audio courses ........

result: I can read written French OK. They can sometimes just about understand what I say. I still can hardly ever understand a word they say.

Some people are just not made to be linguists

(German is much easier ..... and all I needed to do was live there for a year)

 

[Vallich]

Ignore signs in phone boxes though. They are not about teaching a language!

john

Good French is still good French...

 

[Vallich]

I have an 'O' level in French; done 2 years at night-school; spent numerous hours with audio courses ........

result: I can read written French OK. They can sometimes just about understand what I say. I still can hardly ever understand a word they say.

Some people are just not made to be linguists

(German is much easier ..... and all I needed to do was live there for a year)

Why don't those French folk go on the same French learning courses as us or listen to the same DVDs as we do to learn French? Would save a lotta trouble, misunderstanding and improve the entente cordials etc...

 

[Carmel2]

Try earwoms. Also filmon.com has French TV chanels, the news I used to find quite useful.

 

[BrianH]

I have an 'O' level in French; done 2 years at night-school; spent numerous hours with audio courses ........
result: I can read written French OK. They can sometimes just about understand what I say. I still can hardly ever understand a word they say.
Some people are just not made to be linguists
(German is much easier ..... and all I needed to do was live there for a year)

I too am no natural linguist but have been an expatriate most of my adult life and have managed to pick up a few languages on the way. Really the best (and almost the only) way is to live within a foreign-speaking environment and hang out with the locals, not the expatriate groups that invariably form. Only that way can the ear start to distinguish the words at high speed and interpret the many slurred speech forms and dialects.

Dialects can be a major problem, especially from central and south America when in Spain, where the Castillian-speaking Spanish will disdain anyone from the latter and fall about at anyone with an accent from the former. In Madrid I could always get a cheap laugh by adopting a Mexican accent.

But Switzerland is notorious for its varied Swiss-German dialects, where native speakers from some cantons cannot understand the conversation of their compatriots from another. It is why Swiss TV has to resort to high German for the national news. I was once sent to evaluate how my company could automate some manufacturing processes at the Messerschmitt (EADS) factory in Augsburg, Germany, where main fuselage sections of the Airbus were constructed. After announcing myself to the chief production engineer he quizzed me about my history and then deeply embarrassed me by turning to the entire team in the design office where we were and boomed out something like "get this guys, an Englander in Bavaria speaking German with a Swiss accent". He meant well by warning them not to take the piss, but I could have done without his Teutonic directness.

But Brits are no better. I have been so long away that When I watch UK TV these days there is a great deal of dialogue I cannot catch. Today's actors seem not to have inherited the old methods of clear enunciation but mumble in obscure accents such that I miss entire sentences - Scottish accents are the most difficult for me.

 

[chuckr]

when we were in cartagana colombia we hired a guy who came over to the boat 3 days a week for 1 hour - he was university educated and spoke and taught 4-5 different languages - he also taught at various hostels but would spend most of the day with those folks - so we asked him to speed it up with us and he said no -- his reasoning was at our age - over mid 60s - our ability to absorb a new language was limited and it took a lot longer - it was not a matter of him wanting more $$$ as we would have continued with him regardless -
the older you get the harder to learn one - we are in tunisia and french and arabic - God willing our plan is to winter over here next year - we are headed to the usa to see a new grandchild in a few weeks and will pick up tapes of both arabic and french and try to pick up a few words and pronoucations - there is a book by kathy parsons on french for cruisers but we are having a lot of problems with how to say the word properly so hope the tapes will help