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Why would you learn French? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 25 of 52 05 April 2011 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am trying to remember back to what made me chose to learn French, but frankly, I cannot remember a time when it was not a given for me to learn French. I sang "En passant par la Lorraine" as my first shool performance when I was seven years old. When my school had the very first attempt at offering a third foreign language (after English and German which were compulsory), when I was 13, I signed up for that class. And I had such a cruch on my teacher, that I made a point of becoming the best pupil in the class, and the next year I went to France to study for a year.
I cannot imagine a life without knowing some French and German at the very least, since together with English those are the major languages in Europe. With French I can pronounce all the names of my historic roses in my garden and I can speak with people from France, Belgium and Switzerland. Perhaps you do not like the French? Many have misgivings about them, but please remember that there are lots of nice Frenchmen, and with a Belgian girlfriend, you can focus on Belgium, and the Belgians are truely lovely people. A few years ago, we lived in Belgium for 4 months, and I swear those were the best 4 months of my life. My children who have travelled through half of Europe, got to choose where to go for a mini-break in May, and they chose Belgium. It opens up job opportunities - I have needed French in every job I have ever had as an adult, it opens up a whole cultural scene, and it gives you the possibility to get to know the Belgians, who are little known, but are some of the nicest people you'll ever know. Thet love good food, and good drinks, they are not afraid to laugh at themselves, and they treat rules and regulations like an optional. Having a Belgian girlfriend alone should provide you with the incentive to learn it - but if not, then embrace the culture, and you will love to learn French. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 26 of 52 06 April 2011 at 12:14am | IP Logged | |||||
In my culture it's not uncommon for cute girls to hug other cute girls with no ill intentions. ;) Jack, I've been thinking about how I actually manage to learn (some) French, because even though I don't actually detest the language, I don't like learning it, partly because it isn't easy and partly because I feel guilty and inferior for not speaking it already. That feeling is a big demotivator for me. It became easier for me with knowing another Romance language, it's important for me to study in small units (I just don't manage to spend all waking hours of the day on it like I could easily do with Japanese), I have to feel proud and happy about every little thing I've learnt so far and can't allow myself to think of all the things I don't know yet. And I have to work with content that is related to things I already know and like. No exceptions to that. I also can't just look around to find new content that I might like, because the fact alone that it is in French makes me think that I won't be able to relate to it. Used to make me think, at least. But when I know that I like something I know it won't be destroyed by some frustrating experiences with French attached to it in my memory. And when dealing with the topic in French makes sense (!) it suddenly becomes a lot easier for me to stay motivated. I don't care about wine, or chocolate. But I do care about French coverage of African politics and how it is differs from the British one (German coverage is a joke, sadly). Edited by Bao on 06 April 2011 at 2:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 27 of 52 06 April 2011 at 12:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with many posts here, including those saying that you cannot learn it as long as you do not want to.
There are much more comics than Tintin, Asterix or Persepolis. And many haven't been translated, I believe (but I must admit I do not know know much about translations to English). My only badluck with those is, that the french library in Prague usually does own only several volumes of those stories so I often don't know the end! There are comics detective stories, history, sci-fi, horror...anything. (I've liked for exemple series Le Prince de la Nuit, Ombres, Les Naufragés du Temps, Le Triangle Secret, Le chat du Rabbin) From other literature, there is Jules Verne, Alexander Dumas and other classics, but there is as well a tradition of french detective stories (Maigret by Simenon for exemple) and even authors of fantasy (Pierre Pevel's "Les Masques de Wielstadt" are great in my opinion). From music, I am now listening to Zaz. Not sure what is your taste for music so I do not dare to make many recommentations, other things I listen to from time to time are Manu Chao, Noir Desir and a few others I would need to remember for a while. Not sure what to add. Perhaps I'll remember something more but unless you find something yourself, I doubt this thread will be much of a miracle. edited to correct small mistakes Edited by Cavesa on 06 April 2011 at 7:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Reginalee Newbie Brazil poesieart.wordpress.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4981 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: FrenchA2, English | Message 28 of 52 06 April 2011 at 3:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi everybody !
I like to study french because I love to write in other languages, poetries also and I want to improve more and more being exactly an authentic polyglot ... My passion and feelings are in speaking, writing french and I don't know why it manifests thus, but I want to discover. Regards 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6949 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 29 of 52 06 April 2011 at 7:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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One reason I want to learn French (aside from my interests in art, music, history,
travel, and food) is that it's one of the indispensible languages for a polyglot. It must be such a thrill to detect French cognates in languages ranging from Russian to Arabic to Vietnamese! And to use the Assimil method for Lao, Armenian, Tamil, Swahili, Icelandic, Welsh, Zulu.....! In my eyes, learning French would open up not only parts of Europe, Canada, Francophone Africa, and French Polynesia to me, but the whole world. So basically, I'd learn French for the same reason I'd learn English if I weren't a native speaker: namely, "How could I not??" 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 30 of 52 06 April 2011 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I learned French because I was forced to study it in school. Not that I actually learned any of it in school, of course,
but when I realized I'd studied the language for six years and couldn't remember whether in "my sister", the "my" should be "ma" (feminine) or "mon" (masculine) because I'm a guy but my sister's a girl (I guessed, and guessed wrong), I figured that it'd be such a huge waste of time if I didn't actually learn it. So there's some hope! You could end up learning the language just to retcon your decision to start studying it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 31 of 52 07 April 2011 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for everyone's suggestions. They have really helped and I will endeavour to look into all of the suggestions that have been given here, at least so far. Please keep posting :] and thanks again.
Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 32 of 52 07 April 2011 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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La Francophonie en Asie (video)
Edited by Sennin on 07 April 2011 at 2:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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