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French learners: What’s your main problem | ||
Tags: Difficulty | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes  Studies: French | Message 33 of 43 22 March 2009 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi SlickAs,
As you say, perhaps not the place to debate Canadian politics, but it is where you initially chose to strongly raise Canadian political issues. Not to belabour a discussion which may be misplaced, but as you have raised specific issues in your reply... 1. yes, in "Quebec french" the title of the leader of the ruling provincial policital party is referred to as "premier ministre." When one is communicating in English (as you were), the title of the leader of the ruling provincial political party is referred to as "premier" as I have said. One occasionally speaks in Canada of "first ministers" when referrring to provincial premiers. It is entirely wrong, with respect, to refer in English to the Quebec premier as the "prime-minsiter" as you have done. The Prime Minister is a reference to the leader of the ruling federal party. Parizeau at the time was the Quebec premier. Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister. 2. Again with respect, I do not believe you are correctly stating official bilingualism in Canada at all correctly. Not at all. 3. Yes, Parizeau was referring to the ethnic vote rather than (as you initially commented) non-French speakers. Not equivalent. 3. Have I ever lived in Quebec? Nope. Nor in Alberta as you seem to suggest (not sure where that reference comes from). My wife, a native French speaker, is from Montreal and I have visited Montreal approximately 40 times for various personal and educational purposes, including some extended visits. I am employed with the Canadian federal government and have some passing knowledge of the issues on which I opine. I acknowledge your better on-the-ground familiarity with life issues in Montreal. I don't believe my clarifications have muddied the water. Best not to hijack the thread further. Let me know if you are interested in further discussing official federal bilingualism and perhaps we can do it in a separate thread. I have an interest in this issue at both the federal level and differentially within various of the provinces/territories. Regards, Spanky Edited by Spanky on 22 March 2009 at 6:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5877 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 34 of 43 23 March 2009 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry, Spanky, I did not mean to condescend. Many of Montreal anglophones, when we travel to other provinces, defend the sovereignist position because the rest of Canada seem to be ignorant of the real issues for both us and for the Quebecois (I can see you are not one of those). We bitch and complain about our rights in Quebec to be equal citizens, to be allowed to send our kids to school in English for example, to be able to not be harassed by the language police, to get medical services, and psychiatric services for the weak members of our community in English, and not to be treated with scorn and derision at city-hall, etc and then we go to Toronto and realise that once French is the minority language you can not even do a tour of the CN Tower in French ... the very symbol of the city ... the icon ... English only. "What bi-lingual Canada?" It outrages us for the double standard, and "the sovereignists have a point about it being 2 countries" and you feel like stomping into a McDonalds and expecting service in French just to see what would happen. So what I wrote was not directed at you, it was more about me.
(BTW, as an asside. There is no question that Parizeau, when talking about "nous" (us) in his 1995 speech meant the Francophone voters. "Nous" is a common euphemism for pure-laine Quebecois in Quebec. They call Quebec "Chez Nous" in everyday speech, and "Maîtres chez nous" (Meaning, "us Quebecois need to be masters of our own province") is a political rallying cry (as is "Le Quebec au Quebecois"). There was no ambiguity in who the "nous" was that Parizeau was talking about who voted 60 percent for "yes", and that "nous" certainly did not include any maudits anglais or Germans). But for the poster who said that pronunciation is easy, the politics of having to walk around Montreal with a bad accent asside, without good pronunciation you can not be properly understood. Take some vowel pairs: douzieme/deuxieme or long/lent or les cieux / les yeux or Seine / saigne ... perhaps next to each other by contrast a French speaker will easily know which you are referring to, but isolated in the middle of a spoken sentence, if you are not nailing perfectly all your vowels with exactly the right sound in a predictible way, they guenuinely do not know which you mean, and can not understand you. In a social situation, they would therefore rather just speak to you in English for simplicity even if it is against their principles. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5956 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 35 of 43 23 March 2009 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey SlickAs, thanks for the response and I hope I did not sound too uptight in my comments, though I expect I probably did. As interested as I am in language politics generally, I will always be limited to an outsider view of French and English language issues in Quebec and accordingly I definitely appreciate hearing your comments.
As a French language learner, I share your comments about similar sounding word pairs - they are driving me nuts right now. Cheers, Spanky 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| heavydust Newbie Canada Joined 6084 days ago 18 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 36 of 43 07 May 2009 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
Yes Chinese is ridculously easy to understand in the spoken form because it takes the EXACT same word order as English so its easy to predict what someone will say next even if you don't know all the words. so if in a sentence all I understand is the word walk I just have to listen to wear next the speaker is walking to, in french the order is different so the time I spend thinking about the difference I miss a bunch of words. Also Chinese mandarin has 4 tones which means words that may sound the same in French sound completely different off tone alone. After hearing a word 3 times its tone become normal. Now spelling Chinese is pure bullshit, and reading it will make your eyes go from round to slanty, but Chinese mandarin has got to be the easiest spoken language that could be learned for a English speaker. chinese doesn't have similar sounding sentences because of the tones. So Ni hao in one tone sounds different than ni hao in another tone more so than a manger sounds just like ammenager. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 37 of 43 07 May 2009 at 1:25am | IP Logged | ||
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My biggest problems with French is bad self confidence.
I know enough French to get around town without any problems, but speaking French always makes gives me very bad self-confidence. Many French people look at you like you are complete idiot if you get stuck or make mistakes, or if tiy have to ask them to repeat something. (I'm talking about Parisians now. I don't know about the French countryside. But I think that the Swiss and Belgians are nicer about speaking with foreigners. Swiss are always easier to understand but I am not quite sure why. I really like the people and accent of canton of Vaud!) I also feel dreadful because I have studied French for so long, but I am really not very good at it at all. (never made any effort at all with French in school... now I regret this) Sometimes I just feel so miserable about French that I do the "English-person-with-no language-skills routine" even though I am not English (but I can fool most people, certainly the French). That way you get the "Stupid English" look and not the "Oh-my God-her-French-is-a-joke" look..." I once dated a French guy who said he'd take me to this increadible French restaurant if I promised to only speak French during the entire meal. It was too good to turn down, but I blush and cringe just thinking about it. The food was fantastic though. In work situations I'd never speak French under any situation whatsoever. Let the French sweat it out in English, lol.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5765 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 38 of 43 08 May 2009 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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This topic is beginning to depress me now! I really want my French to be good enough to attend a French University in 2 or 3 years time- I feel I will be able to get my reading and writing to a suitable standard, but hearing about so many people who have studied the language for several years and still have difficulties with speaking and listening comprehension is kind of worrying. My ability to speak French is miles behind my other skills in the language- at the moment I can only converse with natives if they are very kind and patient types.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5699 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 43 10 May 2009 at 2:15am | IP Logged | ||
Pronunciation is the main problem for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5983 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 40 of 43 13 May 2009 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Its astonishing that courses often focus too much on grammar without paying enough
attention to other aspects of the language that are equally important. Of course it's very easy to confuse dessus/dessous, tu/tout, and douzieme/deuxieme unless you have been taught to think of these as completely different vowel sounds. The scary thing is that it's so easy to say what you don't want to say, which is much worse than not being understood at all. Edited by JS-1 on 13 May 2009 at 4:39am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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