g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 241 of 436 18 June 2013 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
There is some basic info on the difference between -ai and -ais here and some info on -ez here. The fact I can't differentiate -ai and -ais (yet) is really not the biggest problem with my French right now, but I guess it's one of the (many) things I'll need to try and fix. Right now, trying to remember which final consonants are mute and which are not is proving much more of a pain.
The most awesome thing about German (apart from the fact it sounds beautiful and has the best rock bands and some of the best classical composers and lots of other awesome things) is that you can predict pronunciation from spelling, and spelling from pronunciation, relatively easily. Whereas the French orthography is as ridiculous as English!
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kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese
| Message 242 of 436 19 June 2013 at 3:07am | IP Logged |
Good to see you having fun with French! French was the language I used to want to learn the most, but now... I don't know.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 243 of 436 19 June 2013 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
Well, French is the language I feel bad about not being better at, but to tell the truth I
don't like it as much as German or Japanese. If I hadn't booked a holiday I would have
probably not bothered with it. As it is, guilt is not a good motivator, so I am trying to
find something else in the language to get me hooked. Assimil is ok but not as funny as the
German one. Astérix is amusing but I prefer よつば. MC Solaar is good at what he does but I'd
still rather listen to Die Ärzte. Oh and I tried watching Engrenages and had to turn it off
within the first ten minutes. Graphic autopsy scenes are not my thing at all...
I do have some great childhood memories of France. It's a shame my attitude to the language
was somewhat broken by my A level teacher. She was good at telling me how lazy I was but
spent more time arguing with one of my classmates than teaching us French. No wonder I feel
more guilt than inspiration right now.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 244 of 436 19 June 2013 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
On the plus side I am enjoying le Petit Prince. I've already read it in English and Japanese,
but have to admit that the original French version is better!
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 245 of 436 19 June 2013 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
So I finished reading le Petit Prince this evening. It is definitely worth knowing French
for. It's beautiful and kind of sad...
But I now also feel the satisfaction of having read a whole book, in French!
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 246 of 436 20 June 2013 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
g-bod wrote:
Whereas the French orthography is as ridiculous as English! |
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French is much worse than Italian (which is seemingly worse than Spanish), but English
beats all of them into a cocked hat!
With some experience, you have a chance of guessing the pronunciation of isolated French
words. If German is easier, then that's good as it's next on my list :-)
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 247 of 436 20 June 2013 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
German has its own challenges, but orthography is not one of them. If I hear a word in German
it's pretty easy to look up (same goes for Japanese, actually). Whereas with French I've got
next to no chance! French is my only language where my reading is stronger than my listening,
but given the idiosyncrasies of the language (not to mention high school teaching methods)
this is not a huge surprise. Just something I need to work on, I guess.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 248 of 436 20 June 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged |
I got pretty comfortable with French spelling
before I gave up on the language so I'm sure you
will too. As you've pointed out, the spelling is
really similar to English and I found that it
helped me to spell better in English a lot too.
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