It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#171

Post by theflyinghorse » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

hluska wrote: post #95

This is anecdotal and I am a sample of one, so do with this as you will. I have learned to speak French at two particular times. When I was very young, my Grandma Yvette often spoke French to me and I spent three years in French immersion. Now, I am an adult who barely speaks the language, but I have a daughter who I badly want to bless with the French language. So, I’m learning again... I have noticed two things. Th…

> Yet, I could walk into any French speaking country in the world and get a long term disability pension just by saying it. Last week, I even found a French couple to help me and I’ve been doing lots of drills, but when I record it and play it back, I sound quite soft in the head.

Pro tip from an immigrant who spent decade and a half trying to get good at English pronunciation - You need to practice in front of he mirror with a recorder and youtube nearby. Find a clip of french person saying a word or a sentence you're having trouble with and mimic them in front of the mirror. Again and again, try to see what muscle engaging on their face and do the same, think of what your tongue is doing. Remember you are building muscle memory and your tongue has literally never been in some of those shapes so you need to work it.

Pro tip two - find a pronunciation workshop or do a couple of sessions with a professional. Sounding like a native speaker is an incredible undertaking, but you'd probably be satisfied with being 75% there frankly.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#172

Post by _yawn » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

fatnoah wrote: post #169

hluska wrote: post #95

This is anecdotal and I am a sample of one, so do with this as you will. I have learned to speak French at two particular times. When I was very young, my Grandma Yvette often spoke French to me and I spent three years in French immersion. Now, I am an adult who barely speaks the language, but I have a daughter who I badly want to bless with the French language. So, I’m learning again... I have noticed two things. Th…

I grew up in NH where a fair number of people (half of my own family included) are fluent in Quebecois French and also took 4 years of French in high school. One summer between junior and senior years, I took a road trip to Montreal and tried out my French. I was thoroughly embarrassed and lived the OPs nightmare. The residents I spoke with seemed actively offended by my French and would smile condescendingly and spe…

People in Quebec are actively hostile to other languages in general, mostly for historical reasons. Probably not the best place to get started haha

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#173

Post by uryga » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

theflyinghorse wrote: post #171

hluska wrote: post #95

This is anecdotal and I am a sample of one, so do with this as you will. I have learned to speak French at two particular times. When I was very young, my Grandma Yvette often spoke French to me and I spent three years in French immersion. Now, I am an adult who barely speaks the language, but I have a daughter who I badly want to bless with the French language. So, I’m learning again... I have noticed two things. Th…

> Yet, I could walk into any French speaking country in the world and get a long term disability pension just by saying it. Last week, I even found a French couple to help me and I’ve been doing lots of drills, but when I record it and play it back, I sound quite soft in the head. Pro tip from an immigrant who spent decade and a half trying to get good at English pronunciation - You need to practice in front of he mi…

it's not just the tongue – when speaking French, your whole face has to do more work compared to English!

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#174

Post by davidivadavid » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #38

bambax wrote: post #11

> And I revel in small triumphs, like discovering that a woolen ball on a sweater is a “boulouche” It's not. It's "bouloche" -- https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bouloche > When my kids brought home notices telling me to check their hair for “poux” (pronounced “poo”), I correctly deduced that it meant lice. But later, in a first-aid course, I was perplexed when the instructor told us to immediately check an unconscious…

It's not hard to them to make this mistake: "le", "la", "les" is all "the" for english natives, while verbs and adjective don't change according to plural or gender. A lot of my mistakes in spanish comes from me trying to call masculine something that is not and vice versa. French is a difficult language to learn: - many letters are useless relics from the past, twisted, accentuated or silent. - conjugations, plural,…

> - similar sounds can be made by so many different combinations: au(x), eaux, ot(s), o(s), ô, oh... And we don't even agree on how to say it, rose is not said the same way in Paris, Toulouse or Nice.

That's true, but probably irrelevant for English speakers. English is possibly the only language that is worse than French in that respect. And there are English accents too.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#175

Post by 0815test » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

theflyinghorse wrote: post #171

hluska wrote: post #95

This is anecdotal and I am a sample of one, so do with this as you will. I have learned to speak French at two particular times. When I was very young, my Grandma Yvette often spoke French to me and I spent three years in French immersion. Now, I am an adult who barely speaks the language, but I have a daughter who I badly want to bless with the French language. So, I’m learning again... I have noticed two things. Th…

> Yet, I could walk into any French speaking country in the world and get a long term disability pension just by saying it. Last week, I even found a French couple to help me and I’ve been doing lots of drills, but when I record it and play it back, I sound quite soft in the head. Pro tip from an immigrant who spent decade and a half trying to get good at English pronunciation - You need to practice in front of he mi…

You can also look up the individual IPA phonemes on Wiki, you'll find surprisingly extensive descriptions of how to physically sound them, and sometimes comparisons to close phonemes in other languages. This removes the "guessing" factor entirely, so the video is only there to perfect your speech and as a sanity check.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#176

Post by learc83 » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #136

bpyne wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An anecdote from a trip to Paris, I walked into a store to look for a gift for someone back home. After making the greeting in French, I started to explain what I was looking for. The woman stopped me. With a dramatic eye roll she said, "Speak English, pleeeease." An anecdote from a trip to Quebec city. My wife and I walked up to a hostess to inquire about getting a table for dinner. We greeted her in French. As soon…

> I may have simply run into rude people. Why did you think those people were rude, instead of, say, trying to be helpful? French is difficult to understand when spoken badly, even for natives (maybe esp. for natives). We don't understand what people are trying to say -- really. We don't try to be condescending: we truly do. not. understand. I get that foreigners / tourists may not believe it, but it is true.

It's not what they said that was rude. It's the way they said it.

Also I doubt that French is objectively harder to understand when spoken poorly than most languages. Especially when you consider tonal languages like Vietnamese and Mandarin.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#177

Post by onli » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

arkh wrote: post #167

onli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like it's actually possible to comfortably read french books when you learn the language, with their specific grammatical tenses only used in literature. I speak French fluently and at home but I'd be incapable to read a complicated book in that language (while I'm absolutely able to read English books and do that all the time, and speak English way less often).

English is not my native language. I've been reading English books mostly for pleasure for years: when books main language is English that's what I get (thanks Amazon). At first it was hard, it is still hard when trying a book in a domain I've not encountered a lot. And I'm still reading faster in my language but there are not a lot of modern English books I'd consider impossible to read. And I'm far from fluent.

That's kind of my point. Your advice to read books to learn more words is right, in languages like English and German. It does not work well for French because the written French is too complicated and different.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#178

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

jperras wrote: post #125

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your translation is word-for-word correct, but I've never heard somebody say "from nothing" in English in a situation where you might say "no worries", "no problem", or "you're welcome". I have heard "It's nothing" though, so I think his translation is fine. Perhaps people don't use it that way in the dialects of English you know?

The more idiomatic translation of "de rien" would be "think nothing of it". Source: lifelong bilingual in French & English.

“Think nothing of it” is a rare and very stuffy sounding expression in (at least my California dialect of) English. “It’s nothing” is better but still not too common.

As cced already said, common ways of expressing this in American English include “don’t worry about it”, “no worries”, “no big deal”, “no problem”, “you’re welcome”, “my pleasure”, etc.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#179

Post by evgen » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

_yawn wrote: post #172

fatnoah wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in NH where a fair number of people (half of my own family included) are fluent in Quebecois French and also took 4 years of French in high school. One summer between junior and senior years, I took a road trip to Montreal and tried out my French. I was thoroughly embarrassed and lived the OPs nightmare. The residents I spoke with seemed actively offended by my French and would smile condescendingly and spe…

People in Quebec are actively hostile to other languages in general, mostly for historical reasons. Probably not the best place to get started haha

Many Quebecois are also of a 'more French than the French' mindset when it comes to language purity, if only out of a feeling of self-preservation.

Re: It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

#180

Post by inferiorhuman » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

intertextuality wrote: post #135

stephenhuey wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one thing I remember from my linguistics courses in college, it's that one of the biggest hurdles for adults is that they may have a fear of embarrassment that babies do not. The willingness to practice a ton while making errors is a huge advantage to children (or any adult who just goes for it). In many English-speaking countries, most people hear foreigners trying to speak English, so we're accustomed to…

Sometimes non-English speakers, when someone tries to learn their language past a basic degree, can be a bit rude even unintentionally. I have had a good native Korean friend quite innocently (although randomly) point out that although I rarely make syntax errors I don't speak idiomatically at all and make weird constructs sometimes. Which makes sense, given my almost 2 years of study, but I would never think of sayi…

I have had a good native Korean friend quite innocently (although randomly) point out that although I rarely make syntax errors I don't speak idiomatically at all and make weird constructs sometimes.

Sure, I find myself doing the same thing with the Spanish language — especially in a country with very different slang than the US. Even in English. Even in America. Think about how many ways there are to say soda. They'll almost all be understood but some will stick out more than others depending on the context.

I would never think of saying something that to any ESL learner.

Perhaps you should, how else would they learn?