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Will the French ortograph be reformed? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Kisfroccs Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5410 days ago 388 posts - 549 votes  Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 49 of 55 12 March 2011 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I completely agree with you, you said what I wanted to say (with Chrétien de Troyes and old French). And I think there is a certain logic behind the french spelling... I was taught rules like "after an "p" or "b" the "n" becomes "m" -> why imprudent is not inprudent ? Because of this rule. Why "apporter" has two "p" ? Because all words beginning with "ap" have two "p" except "L'apôtre aplati boit un apéritif sur la route aplanie" etc. But I think that the great difficulty is that these rules are not taught in language books... As I said, I have the same problem in German. You pointed out that German spelling is easier... maybe, but I have huge problems with it, only because I don't know these rules and have to learn a spelling for each word... I wouldn't reform the French spelling, simply because it can be learned and it's part of French history and beauty. Je plussoie Akkadboy.
I'm living in Switzerland but that the land is trilingual (four with Rumansch) has nothing to do whether this man knows or not French. If you live in a certain region in Switzerland, you won't necessary master the three other languages... I live in the French part, I don't hear German or Italian at all, or only if I switch on the radio. I know a lot of people who barely speak German (and definitively not Italian) even if they learned it at school. Same way around in the German-speaking part. Only if your man lived in Tessin, he would be bilingual, because not a lot of people speak Italian and if he wants his point across, he must learn perfectly German or French (you have only to look at the parliament to see this). Even in Switzerland, where 4 languages are co-existing, if you want to learn a national language, you have to motivate yourself and learn it by yourself. But it's definitively easier than in other countries :). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5616 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 50 of 55 16 June 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I completely agree with you, you said what I wanted to say (with Chrétien de Troyes and old French). And I think there is a certain logic behind the french spelling... I was taught rules like "after an "p" or "b" the "n" becomes "m" -> why imprudent is not inprudent ? Because of this rule. Why "apporter" has two "p" ? Because all words beginning with "ap" have two "p" except "L'apôtre aplati boit un apéritif sur la route aplanie" etc. But I think that the great difficulty is that these rules are not taught in language books... As I said, I have the same problem in German. You pointed out that German spelling is easier... maybe, but I have huge problems with it, only because I don't know these rules and have to learn a spelling for each word... I wouldn't reform the French spelling, simply because it can be learned and it's part of French history and beauty. Je plussoie Akkadboy.
I'm living in Switzerland but that the land is trilingual (four with Rumansch) has nothing to do whether this man knows or not French. If you live in a certain region in Switzerland, you won't necessary master the three other languages... I live in the French part, I don't hear German or Italian at all, or only if I switch on the radio. I know a lot of people who barely speak German (and definitively not Italian) even if they learned it at school. Same way around in the German-speaking part. Only if your man lived in Tessin, he would be bilingual, because not a lot of people speak Italian and if he wants his point across, he must learn perfectly German or French (you have only to look at the parliament to see this). Even in Switzerland, where 4 languages are co-existing, if you want to learn a national language, you have to motivate yourself and learn it by yourself. But it's definitively easier than in other countries :).[/QUOTE] Well, of course there's a logic behind it, if one disregards all the exceptions. And of course it can be learned, but it's an orthography that has not changed much since the thirteenth century, while the French language has. Secondly, look to Spain, how easy and useful their language is. And I think it's more important to honor the present French than the one from the Middle Ages.. As for our friend, well he lives in the French part of course, although he speaks fluent German and English as well. He has been living there for 25 years or so ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 51 of 55 16 June 2011 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A great thread. I tend to agree more with those who would change less. For exemple the plurals of -al nouns probably could be one of such things. But for exemple the agreement of past participals have some logic in them and might easily be too much of a change as some other things as well.
The rules of French grammar and ortograph take some time to learn but with removing these things, you would make more damage than improvements in my opinion. Yes, language rules should reflect the evolution of a language and the spoken language (to some point) but saying the main reason is "the rules are hard and unnecessarily hard" is kind of stupid. It's the same principle as saying "let's have only one language for everyone, it's too hard to learn foreign languages." Some posts remind me a bit of Orwell’s newspeak. Every language has some relicts of it's history and etymology but it is not wrong. And it's perfectly normal there are rules where even some natives make mistakes, those are in every language. But the rules are an "ideal" of written language one can (and in many situations should) try to follow. These days, too many of ideals are being put lower and lower in education, ethics and most other areas of our lives. Actually I remember being told that there was an attempt on such a huge reform of my native language, czech, about thirty years ago. In czech, there is an ortographical difficulty with using i and y. They are pronounced the same and their fonction of changing the meaning is limited to quite few words only. The rules are not easy and most ten year olds would swear those were invented as a mean of torture. Many adults make at least an occasional mistake in it and so there was an attempt to remove usage of „y“ and leave only the „i“. How did it end? A newspaper published a classical, well known czech poem (Máj by Mácha) in the new ortograph and it looked so horrible that there was no further discussion about the reform. I wonder which piece of French rich litterature might make such an experimental guinea pig. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 52 of 55 16 June 2011 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I created a thread in Русский about Russian spelling and invite everyone to take part in that discussion. Actually, Russian spelling is very difficult. First, you cannot pronounce a new word because stresses are not marked. Then You cannot usually spell a word you've heard. Unstressed vowels, voiced and voiceless consonants, double and silent consonants and many other even more complicated things like (небольшой - не большой). Russian children spend many years studying spelling at school, and people still make mistakes. I don't mention Russian punctuation... Edited by Марк on 16 June 2011 at 12:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 53 of 55 16 June 2011 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Maybe I was wrong and I should have placed the thread about Russian spelling in Specific
languages? If yes, can it be moved? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 54 of 55 16 June 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think French spelling is too complicated, it should be simplified and useless endings
should be deleted. For me one of the difficulties was that unstressed pronouns (je, me etc.) are spelled separately from the verb. And I could not remember that they are not words but parts of the verb. They cannot be separated, omitted or ephasized by voice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5616 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 55 of 55 16 June 2011 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, of course there's a logic behind it, if one disregards all the exceptions. And of course it can be learned, but it's an orthography that has not changed much since the thirteenth century, while the French language has. Secondly, look to Spain, how easy and useful their language is. And I think it's more important to honor the present French than the one from the Middle Ages.. As for our friend, well he lives in the French part of course, although he speaks fluent German and English as well. He has been living there for 25 years or so ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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