Réapprendre le français
Je suis réapprendre le français. J'utilise YouTube, “ Learn French with Alexa .”
“Bonjour et beinvenue” is how most of her videos begin. I took French in High School (Freshman year), but that was quite a long time ago. I was actually surprised at how much I actually remembered. I don’t think that I would go through the trouble of relearning French if I didn’t have people to practice with regularly. I work for a global company and I’m in the Engineering IT team; I have one French counterpart, but there are many people that I have worked with in the past [in this company] that would likely help too.
What triggered this attempt for this endeavor is when I met with my French counterpart [he speaks English well], and also with one of our process developers; she does not speak English very well. She speaks English about as well as I speak French currently. She does not have to use her English-speaking skills very often; therefore, what little she knows, doesn’t extend beyond that very much. She was actually surprised that I knew any French at all.
I had a conversation with my French counterpart after our meeting. I had told him that I made it a point to learn the basics of the language of any country I’ve had to travel to; hello, do you speak English, where is the toilet, and how to get my coffee the way I like it. He said, “Every country? Wow.” I explained that I already knew how to say those things in French, but I had to learn those basics in Romanian... I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember all of it now. I remember, “Buena” which is hello, but I remember, because it reminds me of Spanish or Italian. I was informed not to worry about learning Swedish when we went to Linköping, because 98% of the area speaks English. I told him that I didn’t want to come across as a “typical American jackass” when I went elsewhere. He said, “You’re not a jackass.”
I don’t know... I just think it’s pretty arrogant to think that the entire world should speak English. Yes, that’s just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. I think that it’s important to just being able to say, “Hello, do you speak English,” in the native language. While it’s a tiny effort, it still shows that you respect them enough to make that tiny effort.
My family came to North America [what’s now Canada] in the 1500s from France and Belgium. The last of the French speakers died in 1995. I just think it might be neat to carry on the tradition to some extent. I’ve learned a tiny bit of the Wyandot language... that’s NOT an easy one at all. My last ancestor that probably spoke Wyandot, was my 8 th great grandmother, “Catherine” Annonentak, who married a Frenchman in the 1660s.
Have you ever tried to learn a new language? If so, what did you learn? Is English your first language? If not, what is your first language?
NO POLITICS! NO PRESIDENTS PAST OR PRESENT!
NO POLITICS! NO PRESIDENTS PAST OR PRESENT!
A French associate of mine told me a joke when I was working with him in France:
People who speak three languages are called tri-lingual. Those who speak two are called bi-lingual. What is the label for those who speak only one language?
( an American )
Funny guy. (I speak some German but am not fluent).
Thing is, learning at least one other language (English in particular) is almost a necessity in Europe. Here, we can travel the continental USA (49 states ... 49 nations) and all of them speak English with at worst variations in dialects. Much of Canada speaks English too. Thus we do not have the immediate need to learn a second language. Our most logical second language choices would be French (for Canada) and Spanish / Portuguese (for South America).
With the ever shrinking globe, we will continue to find need to break free of our uni-lingual education and prepare future generations to deal with others around the world without the need for translators.
I'm going to have to tell my French counterpart that joke. He'll find it hilarious.
I am sure he has heard it.
He hadn't. He thought it was awesome. He said, "That could be for French too. My parents are perfect examples."
I burst out laughing when I read that. Very few Canadians DON'T speak English - and you'll probably find those who speak only French (with a Quebecois accent) in small villages or countryside of Quebec Province and a bit of the Maritimes. Most Canadians learn French as a second language in high school, where I learned to say "Je parle Francais comme une vache d'Espagne". French requires knowledge of the gender of nouns and I have no idea what the rule is about that. "Shut the door" in French is "Fermez la porte" (and "la" is the feminine form for "the" because a door is feminine, whereas you say "Read the book" as "Lirez le livre." (wherein "le" is the masculine form for "the" because "book" is masculine). (Am I right, Bob?)
Personally, taking into consideration the direction the world is heading, I would encourage people to learn Chinese, but languages are a lot easier to learn when a person is young than when they are old like me. Fortunately English is used extensively in China, and many urban Chinese people speak it a little having learned it in school, so I've never had a big problem with language here..
I was referring to the existence of provinces in Canada where French is dominant such as Quebec. I know that most Canadians (even those where French is their primary language) speak English. I was not suggesting that the French areas consist of populations that cannot speak English.
Compared to the USA (where every state has dialects of English but it is all English nonetheless) Canada is unusual.
Okay.
By the way, in Canada French is not a SECOND language, it is one of Canada's two equal OFFICIAL languages.
Yup
Don't forget Michif.
May have been around a lot longer than English and French, but it's not an OFFICIAL Canadian language.
True, but it is slowly returning to many households from what I've been reading.
Je te félicite pour ton courage !
Bonne chance!
Merci.
Mrs. Gee can speak French and German pretty well. I can speak some Spanish but, in Spain, they called it Mexican.
I took the equivalent of 6 years of French in high school and college. Can barely speak a work except to say S'il vous plais (please) and merci (thank-you). I can tell someone my name Je m'appelle Trout Giggles and that is about it. I can read it better than I can speak it because I'm a visual learner
I like the way that Alexa, the lady on the YouTube videos, teaches and ensures you take note of how she says something along with how her mouth moves when she says something. She has said that she taught young children as well as college age; that helps me a lot... I'm more like the little kids. :D
English is considered the international language due to its being spoken in more countries in the world than any other language. It is also the required language for pilots of airlines that make international flights.
In Lebanon, they're required to learn a second language in high school; either English or French.