Oops

[alittlebitfrench]

I just googles 'Michel Thomas' who I have never heard of until today. According to Wiki he was interrogated by Klaus Barbie.

Now Klaus Barbie is someone you wish to be more dead than he is.

[YCCMB]

Going back briefly to "how" I teach French, I'll repeat for the nth time what I've already said several times already. I teach according to the needs of the learner. Or, to put it another way, I adapt my teaching style to what the learner wants. That's why I said, again, several times, one size doesn't fit all.

As for French people not being bothered about grammar...you are having a laugh. A few years back during our annual village fair, the librarians organised an exhibition about the history of the village school, and, in conjunction with the expo, they set up a dictée for anyone who wanted to go.

My dear departed friend Denise persuaded me to go, and I thought it would be a laugh and stretch my brain. Who knew that on a Saturday afternoon in August, half the village would turn up? A hall full of people from eight to eighty. And who knew that I'd be the cabaret, as the only non-French contestant? Anyway, we set to and did the dictée, ably managed by the former teacher from said village school, and at the end we did the marking, and I got a very respectable 18/20, having made the same mistake twice.

We then had to sit through an incredibly complex explanation about why each sentence was written the way it was, and I was given a long and (supposedly) helpful explanation of my mistake, which was to do with conjugation of the imperative in the verbs of the "premier groupe". Hands were thrown up in horror when I said that I had no clue what verbs of the premier groupe were, or indeed what the premier groupe was in the first place. The teacher nearly had to call the Samu.

All the rest of the grammar stuff? They were lapping it up. For a bunch of folk who aren't bothered, they seemed extremely bothered.

[Patf]

I believe there's an  ancient and highly respected organisation, probably based in Paris, which exists to protect the sanctity of the French language. Can't remember the name.

If someone wants to introduce a new word into the french language they have to approve it first.

They must be lowering their standards to accept some of the words being used now such as "relooking", etc.

My french neighbour was a language teacher, now retired, though she refuses to speak english. She helps me with my questions and gives me books in french.

[idun]

I'll tell you when I would use 'casse', even though it is a bit vulgar and that is if we were somewhere I didn't want to be, or in  company I didn't like...... I'd probably whisper to friends or family...... on se casse!

[mint]

[quote user="Patf"]I believe there's an  ancient and highly respected organisation, probably based in Paris, which exists to protect the sanctity of the French language. Can't remember the name.

If someone wants to introduce a new word into the french language they have to approve it first.

They must be lowering their standards to accept some of the words being used now such as "relooking", etc.

My french neighbour was a language teacher, now retired, though she refuses to speak english. She helps me with my questions and gives me books in french.

[/quote]

Pat, do you mean la academie française?

Guess what, even I, the ultimate refusenik when it comes to grammar, am knuckling down to, yes, la grammaire.

When I first came and had virtually no French, I had to get on with making myself understood, so grammar was a luxury!  Yes, I do mean that;  when you arrive at your French house and there is no water, what do you do?  Yes, you ring the water people.  When EDF won't connect you, you ring them up.  When you want to register for CPAM, you go and see the CPAM representative.  When you want to find out about walking groups in your new home, you go to the tourist office and you ask.

THAT'S what I meant, grammar was a luxury............no time to learn it, just had to get on with life in France and that meant using every French word and phrase I knew or could remember and accessing all the services I needed and communicating to make friends and exchange small talk with the neighbours.

Then, I stopped envying all the Brits who had studied French at school, university, etc and who could conjugate verbs.  I was able to stop regretting my lack of French from school or elsewhere when I found that just by living in France and talking to people, my oral French was more admired and useful than their book-learned French.

So then, I got complacent (are you listening albf?) and I thought who needs this grammar stuff, I am just fine, on va bien dans ses baskets?

But recently, maybe in the last year or so, I find my lack of grammatical knowledge VERY frustrating.  I couldn't be precise about what I wanted to say or to write because I didn't know enough grammar.

Now it's back to the drawing board and I am enjoying learning grammar.  Having said that, I continue to come across occasions when I think I have got something right, only to be told that I could IMPROVE on what I am saying.

For example, I told my neighbour "Le week end dernier, j'étais très malade".  She assured me it would have been more correct if I had said, "j'ai été très malade".  I have thought long and hard about it but I still can't see why the one is better than the other.

Perhaps, Betty or Norman or Chancer could enlighten me?

BTW, I am stopping French lessons for this trimestre because I want to have time to revise some tenses, like the conditionel, and do some reading on my own and not be driven to only learn those things I need in order to do my homework[:P]

[YCCMB]

It's an event, not a circumstance, mint.

Because you're stopping French lessons for a bit, but I know you like these things, here's a bit of (lengthy but useful) reading which will explain in detail, more clearly than I ever could without sending the forum into meltdown.

https://languagecenter.cla.umn.edu/lc/FrenchSite1022/VERBpcvsimpMYTHS.html

[Chancer]

You raise some interesting points, my Spanish Learning showed me that you can make fantastic progress in a language by completely ignoring grammar and any formal Learning, had I stayed in Spanish speaking countries I would soon have reached my limit though, the first Michel Thomas tape is another example, very rapid progress and it gives you lots of confidence. Someone using M.T., Mint in her first years or ALBF with his pillow talk will outwardly make massive progress compared to someone slogging through formal Learning like I had no choice other than to do, I was so jealous of those others that seemed to be so confident and so articulate compared to me.

 

But now I know different, Mint has found the point where she needs the grammar and the understanding of the tenses, conjugaisons etc to progress, I say this in the nicest possible way and not looking to put down or score points but I reckon ALBF hit his limit after a few years and his progress since then has been much slower, a greater vocabulary but not a greater command of the language.

 

Its a bit tortoise and hare or doucement mais sûrement, I was very slow off the mark, the others left me way behind but now that I have hit top gear I have reeled them in and left them behind, I met one recently, a national sales manager in France for a large language school, a very confident articulate speaker but now I am able to see his limitations, that said he has done superbly well and continues to do so with a level of French which I have finally exceeded, its not what you've got but what you can do with it and having the confidence to do a lot with often very little.

 

Mint, at one time I would have used j'etais but now would say j'ai été but that has come from carefull listening and observation of others, the imparfait is correct to follow the passé composé or a marker of time like le week-end dernier and I think that is what I was taught but now I would say j'ai été, perhaps its because you are clearly no longer malade? I'd like to know the answer to the question also.

 

I do so envy you having a friend that will not only correct you but even to show you how you could speak even better when what you said was correct.

[Chancer]

I have just seen Bettys reply, so I will send the forum into meltdown [:D]

 It shows that I was right to modify my speeech and I learned to do so by observation like ALBF but I wasnt sure, often I decompose things and think that I have finally "got" a new tense or form of construction and then have to look for written references and explanations like the following, a good example is when I worked out the coulda shoulda woulda's as Judge Judy calls them, I eventually started saying j'aurais du, j'aurais pu, j'aurais été etc without knowing any grammatical reason for doing so, eventually I found what the compound tense was in Bescherel but still could not tell you what its name is.

Myth #3

Sometimes people say that the passé composé is used for completed actions, whereas the imparfait is used for actions that are still going on in the present. This idea is not as wrong as the previous myths, but it's not very correct either.

The difference is not that the passé composé is used for completed actions and the imparfait for uncompleted actions. It is more that the passé composé tells you that an action has been completed, whereas the imparfait doesn't concern itself with telling you if an action has been completed or not. The action may, at a later point in time, have been completed. Or it may not. It's left up in the air. (If you ask a passé composé if the action has been completed, it's response will be 'yes'. If you ask an imparfait if the action has been completed, it's response is not 'no', but 'no comment'.)

Le papillon voltigeait dans les fleurs. (The butterfly was fluttering in the flowers.) (Has it completed its fluttering? This sentence doesn't tell us, although the sentences in Myth #2 tell us that it is dead, so in fact it has completed the action (at a later date).) Il y a vingt ans, j'allais au travail. (Twenty years ago, I was going to work.) (Was the journey completed? This sentence doesn't tell us, although the stories in the previous explanations tell us that the narrator witnessed an accident, helped an unfortunate young man to reach a hospital, fell in love, and never made it to work that day, so no, it wasn't.)

And furthermore, if you want to talk about an action that started in the past and is (for sure) still going on in the present, you don't use the passé composé, and you don't use the imparfait, you use the present tense, with depuis.

J'habite en Provence depuis 7 ans. (I have been living in Provence for 7 years.) (I started living in Provence in the past, and I'm still living there in the present.)

[NormanH]

I don't agree with with this

"Novels and stories use the passé composé to tell you what

happened."

they might, but equally they might use the passé simple which you certainly won't pick up by chatting.

La nouvelle reine reçoit les compliments de son miroir tous les jours. Mais un matin…

« Reine, tu te retrouves numéro deux. Blanche-Neige

est la plus belle à mes yeux! » La reine encaissit mal le coup et se

metta à crier : « Son compte est bon! » Elle faisa venir un chasseur de

la cour et lui ordonnut d’emmener la fillette dans les bois pour la

tuer. « Ramène-moi son cœur fumant! » Le chasseur entraînit l'enfant si

ingénue au fond de la forêt. Comprenant la combine, la pauvrette

suppliut: « Sil vous plaît, soyez bon! Mon cœur est innocent, ne me tuez

pas! » Du dur chasseur lui-même se ramollissa le cœur qui fondut comme

une motte de beurre. Il murmurit: « Allez, tire-toi, c'est bon! » Afin

de se tirer d'affaire, le chasseur allit voir la bouchère et lui achetit

pour sauver sa peau un joli beefsteak et un cœur de veau. « Majesté!

annoncit-il d'une voix forte, Ca y est! Cette petite saleté est bien

morte! Voilà son cœur dans ce paquet. » La reine répondissa: « Bravo. »

[mint]

Bu[quote user="You can call me Betty"]It's an event, not a circumstance, mint.

Because you're stopping French lessons for a bit, but I know you like these things, here's a bit of (lengthy but useful) reading which will explain in detail, more clearly than I ever could without sending the forum into meltdown.

https://languagecenter.cla.umn.edu/lc/FrenchSite1022/VERBpcvsimpMYTHS.html[/quote]

Betty, I enjoyed your link and I now do understand why j'ai été malade would have been more appropriate than j'étais malade.

When I said "j'étais malade", I would have had to say something else to finish the statement properly.  For example, I could have said "Le week end dernier, j'étais malade mais je suis allée au bureau quand même" (what a trooper!).

But if I said "j'ai été malade", that was it, I was ill and now I am over it.

[YCCMB]

So, in other words, it's not wrong, merely incomplete. And as the excerpt is simply being used as an illustration of when the pc is likely to be used, it's easier not to muddy the waters.

You pick up (or not) the passe simple by reading (some) literature. If you don't read books in French, the likelihood is, you'll never need it. Sure, it's useful to be able to recognise it, but other than that it's unlikely it'll ever trouble you. Especially as you rightly point out that you won't hear it in everyday conversation.

[YCCMB]

That's the thing, mint. J'ai été malade makes it a finite thing that's over and done, no connection to anything. Finished.

I thought that link explained things quite clearly, despite taking a lot of pages to do it. ?

[Chancer]

The first French book that I read was a simple book aimed at teenage French in school, the story written between 2 pen friends during WW1, I hadn't realised that it didnt use the passe simple.

 

The next proper French book was a real shock because I just could not recognise the verbs at all even when I had cottoned on what tense it was written in, perseverence paid though and by the end I as comfortable with the tense and would recognise all the base verbs.

 

I am not however competent to write in it and wont of course ever be speaking it unless I meet ALBF in which case I wont be able to help myself [:P]

[mint]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]That's the thing, mint. J'ai été malade makes it a finite thing that's over and done, no connection to anything. Finished.

I thought that link explained things quite clearly, despite taking a lot of pages to do it. ?[/quote]

I also liked the fact that for l'imparfait, you'd need a camcorder but for PC, still photographs would do[:D]

[alittlebitfrench]

Chancer said...

"I say this in the nicest possible way and not looking to put down or score points but I reckon ALBF hit his limit after a few years and his progress since then has been much slower, a greater vocabulary but not a greater command of the language"

Like I said earlier I gave up learning French and from then in my French improved. I am happy to acquire/learn slowly.

I would have said 'j'ai été '. I don't know why it is right or care to be fair.

I used to play pool in a pool team and at that time my French was terrible. I used to travel all over central France playing in pubs and clubs and other wierd and wonderful locations. There were people of all ages in the team and no one spoke English but we were all able to communicate. After joining the team we off course won the league.

Out of 11,000 pool players I got to number 54 in France. As you can see I am better at other things. Unfortunately I had give up when I damaged my shoulder but I would have become number 1 or at least in the top 5.

What I am saying is, lack of French does not limit you enjoying your life in France. Even with limited French you can get by as I proved. Knowing the ins and outs is not important to me.

[YCCMB]

I'm sure that heaps of people do enjoy life in France with only limited French. Why wouldn't they?

Looking at a lot of Francophone forums on the interweb, there are lots of native French speakers who enjoy their lives in France with only limited French, too! ?

[alittlebitfrench]

Equally, there are a lot of fluent or semi fluent speaking people in France saying complete nonsense on forums who quite clearly can't communicate.

[Chancer]

Thats a contracdiction in terms, clearly they have succeeded in communicating what to you is complete nonsense.

 

What can I do to reduce my fvery limited luency to better enjoy my life in France?

[alittlebitfrench]

French customer service.

If you read around the forums you would think that French Customer is non existant, the French working in shops are monsters with no social skills. Well, I beg to differ.

Now, I arrived in France with just clothes. So everything over the last zillion years had been bought in France. Imagine how much stuff a family has bought in that time. I have never had any real problems with customer service in France. Am I just lucky ?

What is it with the British attitude to French customer service. I tell you, communication

[idun]

[:D]

 

 [:D]

If I didn't buy my husband's clothes he would be more or less nekkid as he would just be wearing a tee shirt or two and a waterproof or two, but no shoes, socks, pants, nothing. So in our 27 years in France, I would hazard a guess that his opinion of customer service would be very very different to mine.

He has bought other things ofcourse, brico stuff, but there again, but there again, all too often, I was usually asked to get much of that too!

I can remember three times, just three times that I had what appeared to be exceptional service in France. The rest of the time, well, all too often it was mediocre, and sometimes really really bad, dire is a mild way to describe it. 8 years in England now and I have had good service regularly, mediocre from time to time and unfortunately had dealings with BT and that was horrible, in fact the worst companies, in my experience seem to be the utilities in all their forms...... if they are going to be bad, they are very very bad.

Is France worse, yes, my experiences say it is. But to each to how they find it too and I did not live where you live. And I have found a great deal of difference in how people behave in different parts of France.

[alittlebitfrench]

I'm not so sure Idun.

The point I am trying to make is that fluency in French is useless if you don't learn how to act/adjust your style 'culturally' in a given situation. That will in most cases prevent a problem from occurring in the first place or if does get whatever problem there is resolved satisfactory.

I find that complaining in France is very different to making a complaint in the UK. It is about body language as much as fluency. In the UK people who work in shops tend to be programmed to obey you. In France, regardless of the situation you are talking to an individual and you need their help.

There is no real problem with French customer service.

[YCCMB]

Not at all...the fundamental difference is that French staff are programmed by years and years of an education system that is inflexible (wanna talk about teaching styles again? ) and starts from the premise that there's only ever one right answer and if you don't know it then tais-toi unless you want to be treated as an idiot.

Ask a slightly complex question of an English person, and, generally speaking they will ask you why you want to know, and probe for additional information so they can give you the most complete answer they're able to give. Ask a question of a French person, and they will answer the question you've asked (or not, if they don't know...in which case they'll bluff and bluster) without volunteering any additional information which might be useful. Result: you'll have to go back and ask a bunch of other questions, or you'll end up doing the wrong thing. But that's never their fault. Because due to conditioning, being wrong means being a fool and potentially being punished, so then the only recourse is to deny.

I've lived and worked with French people for all my adult life, and I'm pretty clued up on "cultural differences" and that's been my experience, anyway.

Sure, you'll stumble over the odd person who will go the extra mile, just like you'll get a jobsworth in the UK.

[alittlebitfrench]

I'm sorry I don't agree with that at all.

I don't know really know where to start. Maybe it is a generational thing. What you describe is not how life works at all in my world.

Given it is so difficult to get a job in France and especially on a CDI contract people really do (my generation) take their jobs regardless of level very seriously in France. They can't afford not to. People will help if you approach them nicely and treat them with respect. Remember Bastile. Yes you will have 'customer services incidents' but that happens in any country.

[idun]

I know that I can come across as a stroppy sow a lot of the time on here...... but in real life, I am softly spoken and am usually very pleasant. I always start off by being pleasant and soliciting help, and yet, my smile and mild manner are all too often met with suspicious looks, brusqueness and more than often someone being plain obtuse and completely inflexible.

I'll give you a good example of how inflexible and obtuse staff in a shop in a big city can be........ AND........ this is one of the best examples I ever had of good customer service to boot!!!!!!!

I had bought some Arche sandals, very expensive, but very comfy. About a year later was in the shop where I had bought them and was looking at some shoes when the assistant asked me if I needed anything. I tried some shoes on and mentioned that the nubuck on my sandals was damaged. They said immediately 'bring them back'. I was amazed. So I did. I got them back, all fixed, like new, about 3 months later.

Now about a year later, was in the same shop and with my accent the assistant asked if I was Mme Idun, I said yes, and they said, we have your sandals. I said, they couldn't have as I had already collected mine.

Ah NON! they were insistent, we have your sandals and they went and brought out a pair of what appeared to be brand new sandals of quite a different style to those I had bought, but the same colour and presented me with them.

Voila, your sandals they said, and I said they weren't, weren't the same style and mine were at home. But they are, I was told, in the tone that said, that they were right and I was wrong....... body language et al!

I looked at them and pointed out that they were not my size, too small, and tried to get one one and couldn't, and they told me that my foot must have grown.

You could not make this up. They put the sandals back in the box and presented them to me........ would not let me leave without them........ all 120 odd €'s worth of sandal that was not mine and didn't fit.

Ended up giving them to a friend, who, GRRRRRR gardened in them..........beige top quality ARCHE nubuck sandals!

Still got mine incidentally although they are looking the worse for wear now.

So the inflexibility and and obtuseness worked in my favour on that occasion, but there are hundreds of times when it has not.

As I said, in some ways it depends on the region of France where one lives. People were in general OK where I lived, I accepted their grumpiness etc, and the haughty body language always amuses me. I have been to regions of France where the people have been more pleasant, and others where they  are downright rude and very hostile instantly.

Maybe you live in a pleasanter region.

Remember, I was there an awfully long time. And I cannot help but wonder if your life is rather different because you are married to a french lady,

[alittlebitfrench]

Idun....that is a one off. It could have happened in London or anywhere in the world. I would never have paid by the way. LOL. I would have jumped out the window and legged it.

BTW, lived in Lyon for two years. I am not sure where you live but I know Grenoble very well. It is a tough place to be fair. Oh was at school there for a while. The family have a flat in the Alps so we spend our summers and winters there. Never had any real probs to mention.

Yes of course my OH being French helps. Nevertheless, there have been situations where I prefer to take the lead because my calmness and patience helps. I can read people better by not being able to speak the language so well.