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French in Africa? French or Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ulmo Diglot Newbie Joined 6085 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 17 of 22 15 February 2010 at 2:52am | IP Logged |
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Having met some Portuguese speaking Angolan people, I can say that, at least to me, their Portuguese is as transparent as glass! 100% comprehension.
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| 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 18 of 22 15 February 2010 at 8:54am | IP Logged |
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Learning both might be very good idea. However, starting both at the same time might lead to confusion. I've read many threads where the most common advice was "if you want to learn two similar languages, startt with one and pick up the other one once you have reached at least an intermediate level in the first one".
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| pyroladgn Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5821 days ago 7 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 19 of 22 19 March 2010 at 4:58am | IP Logged |
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In my personal experience, growing up a "receptive" bilingual in English/Spanish, then having to learn how to properly _speak_ Spanish as a teenager (in high school Spanish class, no less), Brazilian Portuguese is relatively easy to learn. I only say this because I had to _teach_ myself how to speak proper Spanish; I understand almost 100% of everything in Spanish but I still get confused when conjugating on-the-fly when I speak.
I've always liked French: the language, culture, history, influence. It just seemed so different than either English or Spanish. Then along came Portuguese. I'd say if you have at least an intermediate grasp of Spanish then I'd learn Brazilian Portuguese first. I did this, beginning with Pimsleur, for three months followed by approximately another three months of listening to Brazilian podcasts and reading Brazilian websites before starting Pimsleur French and ultimately doing very well at French in college. For me, Brazilian Portuguese is the "bridge" between Spanish and French - the written form is very, very similar to Spanish, yet the spoken form has sounds you'll find in French (but never in Spanish), i.e. nasal sounds, prosody. Also, regarding Romance languages and their similarities, you may want to check out this other thread: how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1925 9&PN=3 Good luck with your studies! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 20 of 22 19 March 2010 at 12:35pm | IP Logged |
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I spent a year in Burkina. True, not everyone speaks French, especially when you leave
for the countryside, but French is THE lingua franca of West Africa, save a few countries. There is no other option. In any case, even if the people you meet can't speak French, there is always someone around who can. Sure, accent is different, usage is slightly different, but it's no big deal. In a country where 76% of the people are illiterate, the fact that they can speak French is quite impressive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5566 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 21 of 22 19 March 2010 at 2:49pm | IP Logged |
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I find African French to be very easy to understand. Usually easier than understanding the Canadian French I actually hear in my day-to-day life, which can differ significantly from the European variety of French I was taught in school. In my experience French-speaking Africans tend to have pretty "standard" French.
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| a.k.a. Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5362 days ago 7 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, French, Mandarin | Message 22 of 22 20 March 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
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To amplify on the general consensus in this thread, you're doing yourself a huge favor if you focus on French.
In my experience, the people who say French will be easier for you once you learn Portuguese are giving you a very minor justification for a less advantageous route. Brazilians can understand a lot of Spanish, and they're used to foreigners speaking broken Brazilian Portuguese. If you have limited mental bandwidth, there are reasons to go deeper with French. French is an entire WORLDVIEW (mentalité) unto its own. Beyond spelling similarities, it's simply untrue that there is even remotely a bridge from Portuguese to French. Google "francophonie" from the Google.fr site and you'll see exactly how serious the French bloc is about seeing the world in a different way, and preserving the language's status as a lingua franca. (BTW, get it? Franca?) This is going to sound a bit crass, but it's the reality: If you want to understand Africa, you CANNOT begin to fathom it as an Anglophone student alone. In essence, the politics of Africa, the economies of Africa that were part of France's empire, were more directly ruled, more thoroughly Francified in the last century, than Anglophone African countries were Anglified. Yes, all African countries speak "World Bank" these days, but culturally and intellectually, the most significant African diaspora worldwide -- the most important transnational intellectual capital of Africa -- is arguably still Francophone. Further, Francophone African groups have been aware of this language divide (Anglophone-Francophone) for a century, while the Anglophone Africanists often pretend like Francophone Africa doesn't exist. Forget ubiquity of spoken French. You'll really do yourself a huge favor in understanding the culture and politics of Africa if you learn French. Indeed, the same goes for the Levant and North Africa, for the same reasons. Edited by a.k.a. on 21 March 2010 at 12:36am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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