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kthorg Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4987 days ago 50 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, Norwegian*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 1 of 10 10 November 2010 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
I am going to be starting learning a bit of French in about a month, but before I start, I was wondering what dialect would be the best to learn.
The most contact I have with the French language is through the Quebecois dialect because my entire paternal family is French-Canadian.
I was wondering if it would be worth it to find Quebec materials and try to learn specifically the Quebec accent, just because I'll be using French most often with my relatives. Another alternative would be to just go for the Paris accent (I actually have family in Paris too)
I've been told that it's best go for something neutral (like the Paris accent) that all French speakers will understand, but I also wonder if Quebecois is worth it just because I'll be speaking to Quebecois most often.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5771 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 2 of 10 10 November 2010 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
Pick your beginners course by the quality of the teaching, not by the particulars of dialect or accent. All varieties of the language are derived from the same basic grammar and phoneme inventory, so you can work on the details later.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5141 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 3 of 10 10 November 2010 at 8:08pm | IP Logged |
The language you will find in textbooks is unlikely to be different enough to cause any type of misunderstanding should you meet people from another dialect. However, understanding people from another dialect might be an issue and in this case, I'd say colloquial Québécois French might require a little bit more work than Parisian French, so proper exposure will be necessary.
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| Patchy Newbie Joined 4888 days ago 25 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 4 of 10 10 November 2010 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
.
No way!
For sure go for Quebec French!
Then the Canadians will really appreciate that you value their minority version (I
think 'dialect' is too strong a word for it) and just wait till you go to France!
They'll LOVE you!
They just LOVE the Canadian accent, and now all the more since Lynda Lemay has come
along and wowed them so much.
I am British.
I learned French in my twenties, and deliberately chose a version with a strong accent.
I now speak southern French, with a strong Toulouse twang.
I'm absolutely thrilled I did, as the reaction of people is a filter for helping find
accepting, innovative and fun friends.
Most French-speakers go (in French): "Wow, I love your accent! How cool that a
foreigner learned something other than she standard boring northern text-book version".
Then you do meet the occasional snobby stick-in-the-mud who 'disapproves', which is
also great fun, rubbing their noses in the fact that you didn't bother with their
'posh' version, but also gives a fair idea of their value system, which rarely
coincides with mine.
'Just a thought,
Patchy.
8 persons have voted this message useful
| Desacrator48 Groupie United States Joined 5068 days ago 93 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 5 of 10 11 November 2010 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
Not that I specifically had a certain accent as my number one criteria, but I first started with Pimsleur French and then moved onto Assimil New French with Ease. Pronounciation was my number one focus in the beginning, and even now some months later, because the learning curve is steep and slow in the beginning, you might as well say properly what ever little you are absorbing.
It just so happens that these two wonderful programs have a general Parisian accent on their audio CDs, which is all I have available to mimic as closely as I can.
I would recommend these two programs highly as your starting point because of their high quality beginners approach, but if you value audio lessons with a Canadian/Quebec accent, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Could someone please verify for me, though, that the speakers on Pimsleur French and Assimil New French with Ease are indeed of the Parisian accent? I'd just like to know what I sound like, but I am glad that I know I don't sound like your typical American speaker of French who has absolutely attrocious, Anglicized pronuciation!
Edited by Desacrator48 on 11 November 2010 at 1:47am
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| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5207 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek
| Message 6 of 10 11 November 2010 at 2:34am | IP Logged |
I studied abroad in Rennes, and wound up with an accent somewhat different from the Parisian but not identifiably American. And I'm now studying Alsatian, while my proper German from university grows weaker and weaker. So I can definitely see Patchy's point about the joys of speaking something other than the proper version that all the foreigners speak. But in my experience, accents and dialects are something that can be picked up through exposure, while getting a solid foundation in a language is hard!
If you learn proper Parisian French with good materials, you'll have the French you need to enjoy things like Assimil's Quebecois de poche, and have a good basis for understanding internet resources about Quebecois in Quebecois. Add to this time with your relatives and you'll soon have a hint of Quebecois in your language, because that's the version of French you've lived. Much better, I think, unless you find some really great resources for learning Quebecois from scratch.
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| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 4874 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine)
| Message 7 of 10 29 November 2010 at 2:15pm | IP Logged |
I am not entirely convinced that all French French are madly in love with the Québécois accent, maybe my friends are all pedantics, but in general it's a pain in the bum to listen to, but then again, being from the North, the southern accent is also a pain in the rear, not necessarily because it's not posh (seriously, people from the North, posh?!), but because, imo, there's no need to add letters that don't exist at the end of word as they do for "vin" or "pain", and also because they speak far, far too slowly for my liking, although I can understand that this may appeal to foreigners.
If you've got more exposure to Canadian French and enjoy it, then go for it, but don't expect to be able to use Canadian French idioms in French French, it's far too different (and by that I mean different enough for films to be subtitled in "French"). My flatmate from Montreal use to constantly ask me to translate stuff in English because we spoke too differently in French. I have nothing against it, mind you, but it depends where you want to use it. If it's for your personal interest, then gaining an accent will probably matter very little. If you intend to spend your holidays in Polynesia, you might want to reconsider.
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6419 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian
| Message 8 of 10 29 November 2010 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
There are many more materials available for French from France than for French from Canada. I wouldn't pass up good materials just because they're the "wrong" kind of French, particularly at a beginner's level.
My sister married a French-speaking man and lives in Montreal with him and their four children. The language of the household is French. When I am with them, we speak French unless it would make things awkward for those in the family who don't speak French. The French I learned wasn't Quebec French, but we all manage to understand one another pretty well.
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