Why Learn French? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Why Learn French?
Tags: Reasons for study \| French
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5432 days ago
2704 posts - 5425 votes

Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

Message 9 of 20

11 June 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged

Frankly, I don't see the point of attempting to learn a language, French or any other language, if you are not fascinated--that's right fascinated--by the language. Of course, if you have to learn the language for work or study, that's another story. But, if you are looking for reasons to study a language, save yourself a lot of effort. Do something else.
1 person has voted this message useful

Ubik
Senior Member
United States
ubykh.wordpress.com/
Joined 5318 days ago
147 posts - 176 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish

Message 10 of 20

11 June 2010 at 10:45pm | IP Logged

Person1235 wrote:

For ages now, my friends (all of whom study French) have been telling me to learn
French. They always try to win me over with how "romantic" the language sounds, and
how easy it is. Personally, I see it as English in disguise. The spelling system is
absolutely terrible. It's worse than English. Let's look at the word "Deau", meaning
"God". We have four letters in the word, however we only pronounce two of them. Not
to mention that "Deau" "deux" and "du" all sound the same. Furthermore, the "sound" of
the language has got to be the worst way to convince me to learn it. It doesn't even
sound close to romantic (in the sense of involving love) to me at all. When I hear
native French speakers, it sounds like they're trying to convince me to do something
that I morally disagree with, or even worse- telling me a bold faced lie.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against France or French people; I just have no
idea why I should learn that language other than the fact that I read classic/older
generation books, and I need to be able to fluidly understand the French terms that the
author uses.

Other than the above reason, are there any non-opinionated "because French sounds soooo
romantic" like, factual reasons to learn French? I'd appreciate reasons such as
"French is spoken by X% of the world's population" or "Knowing French will help you get
into college".

Like I said, French is already on my language "hit list", but any other reasons that
can be given I will take as motivation.

Thanks in advance, and I hope I didn't offend anyone,

Scott

You are my new personal hero!

I personally think that French sounds lazy and unenunciated. To me it sounds like the equivalent of someone not picking up their feet when they walk.

Edited by Ubik on 11 June 2010 at 10:46pm
3 persons have voted this message useful

grunts67
Diglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5304 days ago
215 posts - 252 votes

Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Spanish, Russian

Message 11 of 20

11 June 2010 at 11:23pm | IP Logged

Ubik wrote:

You are my new personal hero!

I personally think that French sounds lazy and unenunciated. To me it sounds like the equivalent of someone not picking up their feet when they walk.

I found your remark quite rude for native french speaker specially from someone who didn't seem to have learn the language. Your perceprion of the language is influenced by the language you know and understamd. For me, Persian sound like babling because I don't know it but that doesn't make it a lesser language or anythings. Finaly your response doesn't gave any things useful in the discussion....
12 persons have voted this message useful

Ubik
Senior Member
United States
ubykh.wordpress.com/
Joined 5318 days ago
147 posts - 176 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish

Message 12 of 20

12 June 2010 at 12:16am | IP Logged

Thats my personal opinion. Im allowed to have that last time I checked. I love all languages, and I research and continue to research EVERY language known to man in terms of sound, grammar, culture, script, etc. Even if its a language I never plan to learn, I learn enough *about* the language to form an opinion. Languages Ive never heard before from Gaelic to Fulani I dont think sound like babble and I never said that French sounded like babble as a matter of fact.

No I dont know the language, but that doesnt mean I cant have an opinion about it. I quoted the OP and part of that was his "no offense..." part which I share as well. I could love a language and hate the culture (which I cant think of any examples for), but thats my prerogative and theyre entirely separate issues. Every French person Ive ever met has been an awesome person and I love the culture and I especially love their film industry. I just dont like the language.
4 persons have voted this message useful

Person1235
Triglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5351 days ago
16 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Sign Language

Message 13 of 20

12 June 2010 at 1:57am | IP Logged

Now, now, people... Behave yourselves.

Now that I've been reminded of the "Latin Connection", I would like to see how various
words have been mangled by various languages throughout the years. It will be
interesting to see.... I wouldn't say that I'm "fascinated" by French, but I will say
that I am certainly interested now. I haven't really looked into French culture too
much, but world culture does interest me. As soon as school gets out for me, I'll start
a journal in the Language Journals section of this site to let you guys know how it goes.

Until the 23rd-ish,

Scott
1 person has voted this message useful

psy88
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5593 days ago
469 posts - 882 votes

Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French

Message 14 of 20

12 June 2010 at 2:56am | IP Logged

Why learn any language that you do not want to learn it? In some schools there are language requirements and, so, you "must learn", but that does not apply now. Learning in order to please your friends or others, rather than yourself, will probably end in frustration. There are many reasons to learn French or any other language but if you need others to supply them for you, your heart is probably not in it, so why bother? If you need to be convinced rather than having an inner conviction or an intrinsic interest in learning the language I doubt the outcome will be good.
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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 6036 days ago
1457 posts - 1759 votes

5 sounds

Message 15 of 20

12 June 2010 at 3:50am | IP Logged

My principal reasons:

1) Thanks to French I have discovered, and continue to discover, a lot of brilliant animated films, and generally good cinema

2) I want to read Jules Verne in the original; And also some of the other classics.

3) It's a way to enrich my English; Learning French helps to explain and understand some of the strange quirks of English.

4) France is an important European economy, and also one of the biggest in the world

5) French is also spoken in other cool places, like Quebec

6) This is an odd one - I like the spelling; Sure, it's difficult to master, but I like the way French looks on paper.

7) I also like the sound of it. It can be sexy, it can be macho, it can be everything. There are many different accents.

Edited by Sennin on 12 June 2010 at 3:59am
3 persons have voted this message useful

Smart
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5341 days ago
352 posts - 398 votes

Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French
Studies: German

Message 16 of 20

12 June 2010 at 7:00am | IP Logged

Sennin wrote:

I agree with this post. All of it is definitely on the money.

As someone who has been influenced by the French language since birth (my first word was French) it was almost natural for me to learn the language.

However, I am by no means unbiased, and in fact am very biased, I have a HIGH view of French and would like to see it recover from its lost ground (the Americas, North-Africa and as a dominant language of Europe+Eurasia)

Since no one will probably mention it, I have found French creole much more interesting than English or Portuguese creole.

I'm not sure why it was said French sounds "unenunciated"... compared to what? Arabic? I think it's fair to say French is more enunciated than its relatives (Spanish/Italian). Feel free to disagree with me my fellow Romance aficionados. :)

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