Jump to content

Speaking french


idun
 Share

Recommended Posts

I just saw a mistake in my posting, the guy was 75 and did the 75 marathons in 75 days.

 

When I was with AVF they did English lessons, everyone in the class was a French retiree, none of them were going to be living in England they were just keeping the grey matter in use, they wanted to be able to communicate better on Holiday and with English speaking correspondants.

 

None of them moaned that it was (too) hard at their age.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 115
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

There are lots of elements of agreement and disagreement with the previous few posts.

Learning language is something that is "instinctive" up to an age of 8 to maybe 13 (I personally doubt the upper figure but can give no proof it is wrong). At this age we learn language by absorption, much as we learn our mother tongue. After that we learn by a process of translation - no matter how fast we may appear to be and no matter how quick and automatic our responses may be.

For most (maybe all) of us that puts us in the second category.

As time goes on there seems to be a "syndrome" whereby taking in additional information makes us think we have to push something else out. I have heard this from a number of individuals not related to France or moving abroad. There is an internal feeling (in some at least) that e brain is full. Whether this is real or imagined I am unsure, but it may add to a feeling the "I am too old to learn...... can include French, how to access the internet or whatever).

I personally think this is a form of mental capitulation. I still feel able to learn better French and other things; and I accept that some other things may slip into the background [but not be totally lost.]

Use it, or lose it - is an oft quoted motto of foreign languages and I have some sympathy and personal experience. I think however it goes and applies to aspects of all brain function.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like Sweet, I hate to have the French language defeat me, but it happens at times. My husband's French isn't as good as mine, but I often rely on him coming up with a particular word, it happens more frequently as we've aged and he's a whole 4 months older than me. It happens with English words too, so maybe I'm on the slippery slope..........

Almost all the people in the English classes we give at AVF are retired, all French, and they often remark how difficult English is, but so do the retirees of the several nationalities who attend the AVF French classes and most in both classes continue to attend and learn, although those learning French have more of an incentive to continue French classes as they actually need to use it each day.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Andy.

 

Very well put, I agree with everything you say, no question that the very Young just soak up languages by absorbtion, interestingly when I did an intensive Spanish course in Quito (total immersion) we were taught like toddlers with toddlers Learning aids and it was very very effective.

 

I have however lost all the Spanish which is kind of what you were saying about only having space for so much, I know it isnt lost though, put in a safe place that I have forgotten where like many of my possessions [:D] I sat in on a couple of Spanish lessons at my last lycée because I had the hots for the teacher and it all came back in a sudden rush.

 

I am definitely losing my English big time as until the last year with English speaking customers I had not spoken it for a decade apart from a couple of short trips a year to the UK, in fact I have as much need of the UK TV now to maintain the language as I once did with French TV to learn it.

 

Mental capitulation and use it or lose it, very powerfull and true sentiments.

 

In terms of use it or lose it i am petrified of retiring inasmuch as not having an actvity which taxes me both physical and mentally, I am very keen to bring this chapter of my life to a close but i must have something equally or more challenging to move on to, that is my current challenge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't you fret about "challenges", Chance.

I bet you anything you like that getting old itself is the biggest challenge of all.  Just the challenge of getting through lunch and then struggling to keep awake gets more difficult by the year!

You'd suddenly find that the things you could do with ease a mere couple of years ago have now become a near-impossibility.

All this from one who is finding these things out the ........er....challenging way[;-)]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The section on study skills especially the use of flash cards was exactly how my Spanish was taught, once the initial embarrassment of using toddlers Learning aids was overcome it was the best method I have ever encountered.

 

Without any doubt the worst methods I have encountered are those still in use today in the French lycées, the language labs, study aids and teaching techniques used in my 70's comprehensive school which was one of the worst in the country were in retrospect light years ahead of how the French are being taught English today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are missing the point chancer. There are many people both English and French who cannot learn a language.

It is the way it is.

You telling everyone how well you can learn a language won't change that.

I live in a household where 70-80 % of the spoken language is French. It changes nothing with regards to my ability..

My son can speak french but struggles with English. My little girl can swap effortless between the two and picks up Spanish, Chinese easily as well.

My son on the other hand has been diagnosed independently (like his dad) as being extremely advanced.

Stop judging people who can't learn a language.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember a french friend of mine telling me of a child at her son's school, with english parents and the child about 6 and could not manage french and had been in France since being a toddler.

It happens.

I remember my eldest as a tiny tot, at the paediatre and they tested his eyes. Covered one eye and then showed cards, a car, plane, dog, cat and such things and one eye was in english and the other in french. And that is how the paediatre said that language went in when there were two languages, each chosing a side of the brain. Then the hardest thing is the brain sorting out where the third language goes and after that, apparently it is easy to learn more languages........ as my son did...... me I have enough problems with english, never mind french.

Which does not alter the fact, that hard or easy, for one's own good, I believe it imperative to learn how to deal with medical terms when actually deciding to take up permanent residence, in a country which does not speak the same language.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]You are missing the point chancer. There are many people both English and French who cannot learn a language. It is the way it is. You telling everyone how well you can learn a language won't change that. I live in a household where 70-80 % of the spoken language is French. It changes nothing with regards to my ability.. My son can speak french but struggles with English. My little girl can swap effortless between the two and picks up Spanish, Chinese easily as well. My son on the other hand has been diagnosed independently (like his dad) as being extremely advanced. Stop judging people who can't learn a language.[/quote]

 

The point ALBF or your point?

I get your point completely, I know that you are dyslexic like several of my friends, I get it I read the article as you desired and commented on it positively.

At no point have I told everyone how well I can learn a language, being the proud owner of an unclassified at O level in the days when  being shown as a failure was allowed bears testamant to my inability but it also spurred me on. The level that I am at after 11 years of immersion but also isolation other people in your circumstances (without the handicap) would achieve in 2 years, I am happy with what I have no matter how slow it has been

and am still Learning every day

I dont think that I have judged people other than agreeing that for many citing age is a cop out.

Being thought of as being judgemental makes me feel ashamed, although were I to have a different character  I would be stoked to be  validated by a master of the art [:D]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

idun,

While working full time, and putting our son through a private lycee in Washington,(he is totally fluent in French and English, and is now learning Chinese), we did not have the time to learn French. Also, all our French friends only wanted to learn and speak English.

However, somehow, I have managed to pick it up and have no problem communicating with the French doctors or otherwise. On the other hand, my spouse, had much more time to learn French and even here avoids joining male groups for sports.

I think it is all in your attitude. Since I am the one who deals with all the administrative problems , he can just play games on the computer or fool around in his workshop.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="idun"]

I remember my eldest as a tiny tot, at the paediatre and they tested his eyes. Covered one eye and then showed cards, a car, plane, dog, cat and such things and one eye was in english and the other in french. [/quote]

 

Do you mean that reading with one eye he said that the cards were voiture, avion, chien, chat etc and reading with he said that they were car, plane, dog and cat?

 

If so how fascinating.

 

I have 3 English bikers staying at the moment, decent guys of my age, I am ferrying them to and from town so have a drink with them, I am so so self conscious of speaking in English now, all my sentences are constructed in the French way and as I say them I think "that sounds daft" also I am visualising what i want to say and the words and phrases are coming in French and I struggle to find the correct English terms/phrases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Idun

It is not just about learning medical terms it also understanding accents, something that is never discussed in terms of learning French.

A doctor, medical professional may come from any part of France and their accent will be different accordingly. Even my OH has trouble with certain accents from different areas of France.

My Kiné has a lisp...lol. Seriously, She is so difficult to understand.

The only way you are going to get around that problem is by turning off your humax boxes and watch/listen constantly to French telly or radio. But the reality is that the most common question asked on French forums is 'how do I / I am having trouble receiving UK/Sky telly in France.

So people don't really stand a chance of surviving.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]First question. No, I did not nor care.

Second question, no idea.[/quote]

So why say your child speaks "Chinese" when the truth is, you don't really know what she language she is speaking?

As a parent, don't you think that perhaps you aught to find out what your child is saying?

Yes, I, too, can say I speak Mongolian and perhaps, let me see, Russian, and a smattering of Swahili...............ha, ha, ha!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes Chancer, that was it exactly, I cannot remember which eye was for which language, but we had voiture, avion, chat etc with one eye and car, plane and cat etc with the other. As you said fascinating. When he learned German, in a french college, he spoke it with an English rather than french accent, much to the surprise of his teacher.

I have never really had a problem with accents in France. A friend of my husband is from somewhere in the southwest and says 'sink' for cinq etc, and I just love it, in fact I am sure that I would have picked up that accent if we had moved to the southwest, rather than keeping my 'english' accent.

Victor, really, everyone wants to learn English? That is not at all my experience, in fact I did not even know that one of my best friends spoke enough English to get by until she spoke English when I was abroad with her. And I know english profs and we always spoke french, even when my vocabulary was very limited. OK I get the odd person who wants to speak English, it is rare and not anyone in my entourage, but frankly, in France I find any one doing that genant. Just as a french lady I know in England, finds talking french here genant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I learnt French at school up to Olevel over 55 years ago but never really used it for a long time after that. When I moved to Sweden as I picked Swedish I found I quite often inserted the French word instead of the Swedish one which caused a bit of confusion. I found it much easier to read and write Swedish than speaking and understanding it. Speaking was the hardest bit to pick up.

With French I find the hardest is to understand spoken French unless the speaker talks deliberately slowly. I now also have a tendency to insert Swedish words with predictable effects.

I do think that immersion in a language is the best way to get it into your head. I also firmly believe that you should speak the language of the country you are living in.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

LOL Rabbie, that is one of the tricks our brain plays on us.

I remember going on a works holiday to Austria. There were some fellow brits on the trip and they, like us, could only speak english and french. Brain said automatically,  not in UK, speak french. So if we were sat together we would be speaking english, the waiter would come and we would order in french, the waiters spoke back in english saying that they did not speak french and why were we.

Took us a couple of days to get our brains working as they should.

I know that when I lived in France, an english word would appear mid sentence as I find these days that french words are there, unsolicited, when I am speaking english.

And the speed, well, move to the Mayenne, they speak as snail's pace there and speeaaakkkk reeaalllyy slowly when they hear an english accent, already it is too slow, but when it gets slower it its just not right. M. Idun to me, 'what took you so long in the boulangerie?' Idun, 'trying to get the boulanger to speak quicker'......... and I managed, but only to local speed!

And as I always say, watch french tv all the time and french radio, it is the rhythm/ music of the language spoken at normal speed which, in my opinion, gets the ear and brain adapted and increases vocabulary. Worked for me, I know that for sure, and I am glad that there was no choice but french tv and radio for my first 15 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only way you can adequately understand spoken French is to turn off UK telly.

You can't do both. You have to tune your hearing into 'French' and the various accents, tones, dialects ect.

If you spend your days watching UK TV or at night your brain will not be able to cope. I guarantee that after two or three months you will start picking out more words being spoken. What will then become a problem will be tuning your hearing/brain back into English.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which is where I am at.

 

Only French TV for 9 years plus 100% immersion and I finally got Sky a couple of years ago which brought to an end my immersion.

 

My current failing is not switching the TV to the antenne feed to see if there is anything Worth watching on French TV although I always have the TV's on in the apartments when i am doing the changeovers so I get to see the regional, national and actualités but the problem there is that they all have to speak with the same cadence, every article begins and ends with the same sonority.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't imagine turning UK TV back on. I can't believe you did that Chancer !!!!!

I am not saying French TV is any good....cause it's not... but UK TV is so depressing. It is truly awful. Even when I go back to the UK I can't bare to watch it. I can't have it on.

If you stop watching UK TV for a year you will never miss it. Really. Tiss absolute rubbish.

I will go to the cinema and watch a film in VO, but even then it has become hard work when picking up individual words.

If you live in France you have to tune your mind/hearing into French. Simples.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

<>

I'm another from the NE, a Wearsider; I used to mostly get on fine with accents from all parts of France, but the strong accent around us in the Gard, mainly from people from the Nîmes and Marseille areas, was a big challenge. Still can be after being away for a few weeks, such as when we return later than normal this autumn.

Not only me, but many neighbours and friends who have retired to our town and surrounding villages have difficulties. Georges, a charming man who retired from the Paris area couldn't believe that he couldn't communicate; I, a Frenchman can't speak to another French person in my own country, he would say. and pretty much gave up trying to phone shops etc.

Those from the NE do seem more easily able to pronounce a number of sounds in the French language that others have difficulty with. However, the prof we had instructing us on the use of language on a course I did at the British Institute in Paris many years ago reckoned that the best French pronunciation came from people from Berwick on Tweed.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...