Learning French

i have a french boat - Jeanneau - that i call my french mistress - i also told my friend that it would probably be cheaper to have a real french mistress instead of the one i have -- his response was yes it probably would but you would not live as long
-hummm - let me think about that
 
sailorman said:
I am told that the best way to learn a foreign language is in bed
Click to expand...

Definitely! (My Spanish is very good... :))

Rosetta Stone comes a close second, as far as I'm concerned. The trouble with language learning is that you really need to get immersed in it - evening classes just don't cut it. Rosetta Stone is fun - when I was using it to learn French, I had to ration my time otherwise work was suffering.
 
Slow_boat said:
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.
Click to expand...

A first step might be simply to watch some French films with subtitles(Youtube..). A lot about learning or topping up a foreign language is about atunement. Reading French newspapers is also good about putting the use of the language into a context.
 
Sybarite said:
A first step might be simply to watch some French films with subtitles(Youtube..). A lot about learning or topping up a foreign language is about atunement. Reading French newspapers is also good about putting the use of the language into a context.
Click to expand...

I would also add to that, that it is well worth watching the news programs on TV. They pretty much all say the same thing on the same day and that way you can get the same thing repeated a few times over, but in a slightly different way each time. In the end you end up understanding it. Then with time you need less and less "repeats".

This worked for me with both French and German.
 
Michel Thomas audio system ordered from ebay.

Unfortunately, it's a few years since I bought anything off ebay and it wasn't till |I'd completed the purchase that I noticed the delivery address is our old house we moved from 5 yrs ago.

Luckily, it's in the same road so with luck the new occupants will take it for me.
 
I have been in Brest since last November, Atlantic France since the summer (worked up from Hendaye) and two years ago hopped from Cherbourg to Sables d'Olonne over 9 months. My French is now slightly less atrocious than previously and I can manage supermarkets, restaurants and marinas quite well.
In Brittany if you are helped with your lines or led to your berth by marina staff then the offer of a handshake with a 'Merci bien, Monsieur' will do more for goodwill than almost anything I can think of.
I always try to thank people in their own language and have the confused, apologetic grin down to an artform.
Try to memorise boat type, length, beam and draught for the radio (if I don't catch a reply I'll just repeat 'Je suis un catamaran Anglais, douze metres quatre-vingt' until I get a useful reply, usually in perfect English. The two hardest things I have found is VHF and telephone (usually with toothache...)
 
We have been living on our boat in France for the last nine months and don't have much trouble with a mixture of pretty basic French and charades. We also have Michel Thomas cd's on board when we can be bothered to listen to them.
 
chrisb said:
You may find that you quickly pick up language when in a country for a while if you make the effort and listen .SNIP.
Click to expand...

Only works if you have some common linguistic basis. Fine in Europe - English has enough in common with other western European languages to make it possible to work outwards, so to speak, from common words. And if you have a bit of French, Latin or Greek, that helps. But it doesn't work at all if there is no commonality.

This is from experience; my wife is from Hong Kong, and her family communicate in Cantonese. While we are in Hong Kong, I am immersed in Cantonese all day, except when they remember to speak English for my benefit! Because there are no shared roots, I can't pick up meanings, and have learnt very little Cantonese. I am sure that if I spent the same amount of time immersed in (say) Spanish, I'd be able to hold a simple conversation by now. It isn't because I don't listen - I very early on picked out some grammatical points of Cantonese, such as emphasis by repetition.

It's worth remembering that ALL European languages (except perhaps Basque) have a common root, and are descended from a common grammatical and conceptual basis. Languages like Cantonese not only have a completely different vocabulary, but the grammatical and conceptual construction is different in subtle ways. It is interesting that my wife - who speaks fluent English - often struggles to translate Cantonese for me, because the underlying conceptual basis is different. It is perhaps symptomatic of the different conceptual basis that Hong Kong people seem unable to give clear and simple directions; the European "go straight, then take the third on the left and the first of the right" simply doesn't seem to work in Cantonese, and giving directions is much less direct.
 
markwilde said:
The two hardest things I have found is VHF
Click to expand...


I once heard a funny communication between a French marina and a British boat asking for a berth


boat: avez vous une place pour moi s'il vous plait

marina: I am desolated, no places, only places to couple

now this is hilarious: I am desolated is the literal translation of "je suis desolé", meaning I am very sorry, and "only places to couple" is literal for "seulement des places à couple", which means rafting, so basically "we do not have free berths but you can raft with someone else"

The British boat replied: "Well ok then, we are married" :D
 
Roberto said:
I once heard a funny communication between a French marina and a British boat asking for a berth


boat: avez vous une place pour moi s'il vous plait

marina: I am desolated, no places, only places to couple

now this is hilarious: I am desolated is the literal translation of "je suis desolé", meaning I am very sorry, and "only places to couple" is literal for "seulement des places à couple", which means rafting, so basically "we do not have free berths but you can raft with someone else"

The British boat replied: "Well ok then, we are married" :D
Click to expand...

Tres bien! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

E
Nimbus 305 or Marex 330
Replies
19
Views
677
Time Out
T
cyberkryten
We finally bought a boat - Merry Fisher 895s2
2 3
Replies
41
Views
2K
Cathy*
C

Share this page

Top