The Dream and The Language

[Teamedup]

I hear about this 'dream' of coming here, so at what point when the idea is agreed to move here do you really go for learning the very complicated language that is french (well for me it was and still is).

I was speaking to someone in England  last year, this lady was just serving me in a shop and she said, it's been our dream to move to France for ten years and we are moving there within the next five years.  She knew no french whatsoever. She had no intention of going to french lessons, she said her husband had done some at school, twenty years earlier. I felt like saying it isn't like riding a bike or learning to swim. One just doesn't throw oneself in and can do it after a few tries.

Even I went for some lessons in that short period between my husband coming here and me moving out, he hadn't as he had an interview and was out here very quickly. The most important thing I learnt was saying the alphabet.

 

[opas]

I suppose ours wasn`t so much as a dream , more the next move in our lives as we(hubby and I )had travelled quite a lot either alone whilst single or together whilst married.

We had holidayed in france for 10 years with our children and could get by in basic French for what holidaymakers need ( food , car parts,caravan sites and even doctors visits). We took on a home tutor for us and later the children to learn French.....and thought we were quite competent until we arrived here! everyday is a learning curve and any new situation makes one realise that we have a lot to learn! examples being ,a visit to the dentist with your children and trying to take in that you child may need corrective treatment, receicing a phone call from a company who wonder if you might want your home inspecting for termites,(I actually thought the lady wanted to know if my post box was properly addressed,) what she had actually asked is do you want your wood inspecting for termites,the words for wood and box sounding simular to a thicko like me!! and recently wanting to sell our car and looking for correct words for Alloy wheels and tow bar(babel fish does not give correct examples of this) and after speaking with a friend whose hubby works for a garage had my ad corrected like a 10 year old doing and essay!

We have a new neighbour(brit) who admits that after living in France for 18 months doesn`t speak French and said he didn`t understand any of the maires speach at the new year bash( our girls said they found it boring as he was discusing how they were doing up old houses in the village to rent of at a fair price to the locals)

Sorry to ramble on , but I think that what ever country one lives in one should at least make an attempt with the lingo as has been said many times before on here.

[letrangere]

What an interesting question, TU.  I've been in Italy for the last six weeks and as heavenly as it was it never for a moment crossed our minds that we could settle there permanently.  Why?  Because although our Italian is pretty competent by tourist standards, it would take years of study before it was sufficiently good to live there happily and, dare I say it, legally.  Hate to sound a bore but I personally believe ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important factors to settling comfortably in a foreign country.  And ironically it's at the beginning of your stay, ie house hunting, buying, moving over, registering everything that you most need the language.  M

[Richardrawlings]

Tu

I have wanted to live in France for at least 20 years but moving there has only become a realistic proposition since I have been learning the language

[Iceni]

Sometimes things happen when you least expect them. We moved to France unexpectedly. We had brought the property and our personal situation changed so we made the move - John before me. He has good everyday business French and I am doing an OU basic French course. He can handle all the words relevant to a renovation - he had no choice.

It would be nice to live in an orderly world but it is not always possible. I once went to Chile with a partner for work (with almost no notice) , neither of us could speak Spanish but we managed.

Yes I am learning, I live in a very rural area and to be quite honest any French I ever learnt at school is a waste of time as the language bares no resemblance to the language they speak here. Wine is veng, bread is peng and as for numbers - it is a laugh. We have to speak the local dialect to get understood. I think a positive mind set is all important. I now know Brits who have been here years who cannot speak any French. My aim is to learn as soon as possible.

There are always the 'best possible ways to do things', some of us have to follow our hearts - and in my case that was literal as I followed John over here.

[Teamedup]

The unexpected isn't the same though and one just gets on with things when that happens......

But I do plan if I can and planning when moving somewhere would involve the most fundamental of things if I were doing it and that is the language.

[Loiseau]

I just returned from a trip to the Vendee, where two (separate) people who have moved out there permanently were lamenting how difficult they found it to learn French.

As another friend had told me years ago how excellent she had found the French TV ads were for learning French phrases by repetition, I enquired of each about their television-watching habits. Guess what...  Both admitted to having UK TV via Sky, and so never watching any French TV at all.

I know French TV isn't up to *much* (I have the bog-standard terrestrial channels in my residence secondaire). However, it must provide one of the best means of getting accustomed to the language - and it's fun to watch the UK-format quiz shows like "Qui Veut Etre Milliardaire" (where the questions are, of course, written on-screen for you to see), and "Le Maillon Faible" (with an unlikely French, black-clad Anne-Robinson clone).

Talking of UK-format shows, I watched "Oui Chef" last week - a Gallic version of "Jamie's Kitchen"...

Angela

http://ww.the-vendee.co.uk

EDITED
Oh, just seen something in a very similar vein under "Watching soaps". Great minds obviously think alike!

[zeb]

Oh dear, if one has to be able to speak the language before moving to a foreign country, whatever would the world be like? The western world would not be the exciting multi-cultural hotch potch that it is, that's for sure.

We moved to France much sooner than we had originally intended nearly three years ago. My partner had taught in FE and could do a French AS evening class for free so took the opportunity. I (mistakenly) just thought that I would soak it up like a sponge and got a nasty shock when I arrived and found that most of my neighbours speak the local patois, and like Di, it took me a long time to understand them. Three years on and I understand loads (except on the telephone) and some people can understand me!! Another three years and I'll be laughing.

Hubby can speak French well but this was due to it being just him, French TV and the neighbours for the three months before I moved out here and then he worked with a French builder for 6 months (learnt loads of slang and swear words). If we had stayed in the UK until our language skills were even passable we would still be there. Probably for the next twenty years.......erk.

regards everyone .....helen

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

For those who want to be able to communicate effectively in France the Alliance Française and French institute run courses which are used by businesses (large and small) as well as individuals; it is perfectly possible to learn the language relatively rapidly.

From what I've seen, if you work for a large firm who decides you're going to open a branch in Paris you learn French pdq... it's not "waiting to learn" it's "learning". It takes time and effort, like everything that's worth doing. In my experience.

[Ron Avery]

Just when I thought that I was getting on well and had got the basics, and enough vocabulary to go to the Doctors, dentist, chemist etc and try a conversation with the neighbours,  our teacher is now making us pronounce words as they do in Southern France., Apparently in England we are all taught to speak Parisian or Northern French at school.  In the South everything like sang, pain, (pan(g) ), vin (van(g) ) is pronounced differently and should now be seng, peng and veng,

Strikes me its like teaching the french to speak English "like what they do" on Coronation Street

[Tresco]

Like Di, I moved here much earlier than anticipated, with only 7 months notice, rather than 3.5 years.

We had been looking a Spain quite seriously, but while I could read Spanish, I just couldn't understand the spoken word. People say Spanish is easier to learn than French, but I did not find it so. When we decided on France, and bought our house here, it was supposed to be a holiday home, then to retire to a few years down the line.

Up to that point I was working crazy shifts, and on call every other week, but my employers had agreed to free up certain times of each week for me to attend classes, starting in the Setember at some divey college in Wallasey.

My plan was to spend a year doing whatever O level is now, then a year (or two) doing A level and a conversational class. Don't all laugh - i'm the kind of person who benefits from structured learning.. MHO has a very different learning style, he's a fantastic 'picker upper'. As it turned out, we moved here 3 weeks before I was due to begin this plan to learn French.

It's not easy, I definately did not plan it, and I certainly would not recommend it, it's just how things panned out. 

tresco

[letrangere]

My plan was to spend a year doing whatever O level is now, then a year (or two) doing A level and a conversational class. Don't all laugh - i'm the kind of person who benefits from structured learning

Hey, let's hear it for structured learning.  M

[Teamedup]

I think that any learning can only be helpful. There is a lot to learn, 'something' is always be really positive, and to each their own method of learning.

[Chouette]

I've been living in France now for three years.  A year before we came I used to have one, one hour long French class a week (didn't do any French at school).  Since we moved I have continued to go to classes (at present just two hours a week but at one time I was doing 9 hours a week).  I honestly thought before we came that I would be fluent after a year - what a laugh   The best I can say after all the lessons is that I get by, but it is still slowly improving and I am miles better than when I first arrived.  When a French person talks to me I can sometimes understand practically everything they say, yet other times I hardly understand a word.  I still find understanding French TV and radio a struggle and still have problems on the phone.  I have though recently started reading my first French book which I am finding an enormous help, but I need to refer to a dictionary every few minutes

I find that you just have to keep plodding away - if you stop for any length of time you just start forgetting everything you've learnt (must be an age thing) and I've now resigned myself to the fact that I will never be fluent.  

I had quite a heated conversation with a newcomer Brit the other day who told me he has no intention of going to lessons or trying to learn at home via books, tapes etc because he thinks he will just pick it up as he goes along - yeah right!  It'll be interesting to see where he's at in three years time

I'll be honest and say that the language barrier has been the most challenging aspect of moving to France and it has been a great deal harder than I ever imagined.  I still enjoy learning the language though and that's probably half the battle

[chirpy]

I came to france when i was 64 ,learnt french at grammer school 48 years ago -it is amazing what is still in the brain ,not a great deal my wife told me but i tried local class but too elementary.

when i went to docter to be on his list i found he spoke excellent english and told him my biggest worry would be going to the dentist as i did not speak very much french'.However he said it is not necessary to speak french when you visit a dentist----only to ouvrey votre bouche !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!vivre la france.

[Teamedup]

Chouette, I found over the years that it felt like two steps forward and sometimes it really felt like three back, but ofcourse it wasn't. The trouble was the more I learnt the more aware I was of how little I knew. And I remember getting to the stage of a one to two year old, where I understood just about everything being said to me, but I was about as articulate as a two year old when engaged in conversation. And bit by bit it comes. For those of us without the gift it is a long road.

[Chouette]

[quote]Chouette, I found over the years that it felt like two steps forward and sometimes it really felt like three back, but ofcourse it wasn't. The trouble was the more I learnt the more aware I was of how...[/quote]

Thanks TU, you've made me feel a lot better because it seems you went through all the things that I am going through.  I'm definitely at the 'two year old' stage, where I can mostly understand what people say to me, but have great difficulty formulating an articulate reply! 

You are spot on when you say that more you know about the language the more you realise just how much you don't know

Do you think in French now?  I think that's when you really know you've cracked a language.

[Teamedup]

My next problem was that the more french I learnt I found that as I was not having english contact that my english vocabulary was slipping............. my brain would tell me, you knew a good english word for 'that' and there was no way of remembering it. And that feeling of becoming semi lingual in both languages started. That is how I feel now, my english has slipped and my french will never be as a native's.......... thus it is for me who has no talent for language what so ever.......... everyone is different.

Do I think in french, well I don't know. I don't  think any more about speaking french than I do about speaking english. The rubbish can slip from my tongue easily in both languages.

 

NB I have always read a lot, and usually in english as I read very quickly in english and slowly in french. This never helped me keep my english vocabulary either.

[letrangere]

Thanks for a really good posting, Chouette, lots of food for thought.

I have though recently started reading my first French book which I am finding an enormous help, but I need to refer to a dictionary every few minutes.

An idea: rather than stopping each time, why not mark the word with a pencil and carry on.  You'll often find that you can get the general gist without fully understanding each and every word.  You can then go back at the end of a chapter say and check the words you've marked. 

I find that you just have to keep plodding away - if you stop for any length of time you just start forgetting everything you've learnt (must be an age thing)

This is so true.  It's like managing a garden, isn't it?  A little and often?

I had quite a heated conversation with a newcomer Brit the other day who told me he has no intention of going to lessons or trying to learn at home via books, tapes etc because he thinks he will just pick it up as he goes along - yeah right!  It'll be interesting to see where he's at in three years time

I'm so relieved to find someone else articulating this point of view on the Forum for it's one I've expressed a number of times.  I'm not surprised the conversation got a little heated.  Still, it will be interesting to see just how much progress (or lack of!) he's made in 3 or 6 months!

I still enjoy learning the language though and that's probably half the battle

Oh absolutely, you have to enjoy it. 

Like TU, I too sometimes feel that there's still a long way to go.  I've said before on here that I suspect I'll be learning French for the rest of my life.  Still, there are worse things to do.

M

[Battypuss]

I spoke schoolgirl french, learned some 25 years previously and never much good. Still, it was more than ex-husband spoke, or daughter aged 9. Small daughter I'll let off, she was only 4 months old.

Somebody had to deal with all these people here and of course I was elected. Ive always been a great talker to people, so I plunged in at the deep end and having no idea what the grammar structure was meant to be, ignored it completely!

People found me so funny they helped; they corrected my French, laughed a bit more and helped a bit more. It got better. DD1 overtook me after the first year (little cow) and the other two grew up going to French schools and having French friends, so never found it a problem.

12 years down the road, I can read as easily in French as English. I tend to think in French when I am speaking it, which is all the time apart from with the remaining two daughters (who answer in French). Frequently I can't think of the English word on the rare occassions I am called upon to speak English.

And I still don't take any notice of grammar!

[Piprob]

When we started French at school at the age of 11, I had not really grasped the fundamentals of the English language! Hergoodself, always a proper 'goodie-two-shoes', had mastered 'A' level and it was one of her subjects when she went on to teacher training as a mature 'whatsit'.

Subsequently. it cost the proverbial arm and leg to support our daughter, who announced one day she wanted to go the Uni at Brest. (I sound mean but we seemed to have been supporting miscellaneous young men of indeterminate nationality at the same time). But our daughter's french took off vertically only when she got a part-time job (allegedly) at a bar - a frightening place where Jean public did not apparently take prisoners if they detected the slightest English accent.

However, they were both equally useless to me personally in France. After all, no one else can answer when someone talks to you. My 'breakthrough' has come as a result of three things:

• We committed to building a house in France, and from that moment it was a case of  communicate effectively or 'perish'.
• I learned to get comfortable with my own 'howlers' - I found the 's*d-it' mentality.
• I stopped reading English books and read ones in French, instead. I still do.

Start now.

[Chouette]

"An idea: rather than stopping each time, why not mark the word with a pencil and carry on.  You'll often find that you can get the general gist without fully understanding each and every word.  You can then go back at the end of a chapter say and check the words you've marked."

Thanks for that MWJ, I'll give it a go

[LisaJ]

I know it has been said before, but as he has just died (what an amazing life - see the obituary in today's Guardian) it seems a good time to remind people about the excellent Michel Thomas courses. We bought ours new, but I have since seen them advertised on e-bay. It has really worked for us, beginners, advanced and language builder. I don't quite know how it works, but I do know that he has increased my available vocabulary and grammar structure enormously in a very short time. I listen every day on my drive in to work and it is quite painless. It seems to me that whatever level you start at, it is important to learn and keep learning the language.

Who was it who said, "learning is not compulsory, but neither is survival"?

regards

Lisa

[letrangere]

Talking of Michel Thomas, an odd thing has happened, someone has sent me his beginner's course on cassette.  I have no idea how or why, it was completely unsolicited, neither of us needs it, I can only assume it was a mistake.  Or, have I at last won the LF magazine crossword competition and it's a prize?  But why would they offer a beginner's course prize for an elementary level competition?  It's baffling.  M