|
 |
French in Africa? French or Portuguese | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| elysandler Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5403 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English*, French Studies: Latin, Spanish, Russian | Message 9 of 22 11 February 2010 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My advice would be, if you're talking specifically about Africa, go for neither and instead learn Swahili. Having spent
some time in South Africa, almost no-one I came across spoke French, while many spoke Swahili. Furthermore, as far as I can tell (and this may be a specific quirk, not a generalisation), Swahili is a good way into learning more African languages. I learnt some Zulu while I was over there, and having come back to the UK and compared it to Swahili, they appear to be somewhat similar. On a sperate note, French is wonderful, and you should definitely learn it quite aside from any Afro-desires you might have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dondrimexm8 Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 5879 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 10 of 22 12 February 2010 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks for all the help!
I don't know when I'll go to Africa; I just figure at some point within five or ten years I'll make a trip there for a couple of months. Of course, I'm also planning to do the same with Brazil. For about a week I've been weighing the benefits of Portuguese or French. What I like about Portuguese is how it sounds and some music I've heard. French seems to have a major advantage in literature and available materials. I was thinking of Africa as the mitigating factor in helping to make a decision, and it seems, as a whole, to be one of the most useful languages I can choose without taking up an African specific language, though Swahili is interesting (though I figure there's not much reading material to enjoy at home). I still haven't been able to commit to a choice though. I'm leaning towards Portuguese because it's apparently easier coming from Spanish and in all likelihood I'll visit Brazil much sooner than French Africa on account of it being near Colombia. I'm not actually Colombian; I just live here (wife is though). I suppose French will come after, so long as I don't get sidetracked. Thanks so much for the responses! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5417 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 22 13 February 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I know several people from Kongo-Kinshasa: highly educated people who speak several languages, including French on a native level. However, their English tends to lag far behind. It's obvious that English is nowhere near as important in Kongo as it is here in Sweden. And Kongo-Kinshasa wasn't even a French colony, it was ruled (terribly) by Belgians.
If the situation is similar in other "Francophone" African countries, then French is a good bet for travelling in Africa. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6767 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 12 of 22 14 February 2010 at 9:21am | IP Logged | ||
French is one of Belgium's three languages, of course, and in the colonial days, French was the language of administration for all Belgian colonies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5584 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 13 of 22 14 February 2010 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't think it would be hard to know both languages. Portuguese is very straight forward in my opinion, and if you learn to speak french it should be fairly similar so you could learn to speak even faster. Why not both? :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dondrimexm8 Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 5879 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 14 of 22 15 February 2010 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||
|
Good point. :) Without really considering why I always felt that naturally I should learn one language at a time, but now that I've been trying to decide between two for a while and ebbing back and forth for about a week I don't see any reason why I shouldn't learn both.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5584 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 15 of 22 15 February 2010 at 1:45am | IP Logged | ||
|
Since you speak Spanish at a high level, You should master portuguese in a few months. They are VERY VERY close.
If you have the time and energy to focus on two languages at a time, do it! otherwise, one is just fine too :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6060 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 16 of 22 15 February 2010 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
Please note that, due to the fact that Portuguese and Spanish are close, many times Spanish native speakers have a hard time making progress while learning Portuguese. I've seen people living in Portugal for quite some time (more than five years) who still speak "Portunhol" (communication becomes possible soon, and from that moment on, people tend so stop trying as hard as they have done so far). And another thing: I would not say Portuguese and Spanish are "very very close", as there are some important differences between the two. Anyway, I believe that, since we are talking about a serious interest about learning a foreign language, the communication threshold will not be a deterrent from further progress. Edited by Luso on 15 February 2010 at 2:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
