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It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

nytimes.com

191–200 of 339 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider the word “de rien”. It is so simple. Three syllables. Not that it changes your point, but "de rien" is two syllables!

It's pronounced in three syllables (de re-an) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/de_rien

That page lists it as a two syllable phrase (look at the categories at the bottom).

English speakers would be tempted to think it as a three syllable phrase because ʁjɛ̃ isn't a possible syllable in English, but in French "de rien" should be two syllables.

This is similar to, e.g., English speakers incorrectly pronouncing the Spanish word "luego" with three syllables.

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

#192
It seems to me that foreign language learning is an area where computer technology has clearly miserably fallen short of its potential.

Apps like Duolingo and Babel are nice, but they seem to me more oriented toward making the user feel good about making progress then about achieving mastery in any useful time frame.

Flashcard tools like Anki and Tinycards are nice, but they lack enough readily available content to be really useful. Anyone with the expertise and perspective to use these tools in a practical time frame to assemble a deck of the many thousands of words necessary to achieve mastery doesn't need the tools.

It should be possible, using relatively simple tools, for a person to immerse oneself virtually in language learning materials. It should be simple to choose a rate of exposure to material from trickle to firehose. It should be possible to see an estimate of time remaining to achieve functional fluency at the current rate of progress, no different from the progress bar you see when downloading files.

Instead, each individual is forced to cadge together learning materials, of varying quality, in dribs and drabs; and guess at ones progress.

There are plenty of full-time University foreign language teaching staff around the world, they should be able to collaborate in production of content for online learning tools.

Yet neither the sophistication nor the efficiency of foreign language learning seems to have improved much in my lifetime.

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

#193

The problem with French is that the French are very sensitive to mistakes. If I speak bad English (I am Russian), everybody is still happy, the worst thing can happen is I’ll get corrected, and in 99.9% of cases it’s not even that. If I speak bad French with a French person... may God have mercy upon my soul. Especially if I forgot to say bonjour/bonsoir first (abomination! burn the heretic!)

Because English is such a widely spoken language by people coming from very diverse first languages, I think English speakers are accustomed to not just bad English, but diversity of English.

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

#194
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your attitude is fine. I am OK when somebody corrects me. When they switch to English because they think English will be comfortable for both sides, this is also fine. It is rolling one's eyes and immediate passive aggressive remarks that I hate, and they are quite common...

It might be the passive aggressive attitude itself rather than a reaction to the language. A frequent example is Parisian waiters in bistros. It is an old tradition for the waiter to be slightly cavalier with the clients, and for the clients to respond in kind. But it’s a kind of a parisian joke. Though I get how it would put off foreigners. But many other trades have their ritual (like a souk in Marrocco).

To call it a game is being rather hand wavy. It's not a game if the hapless tourist isn't in on it.

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

#196
post #130
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…

> As an adult, I’m damned near petrified to speak the language. Have a drink or two. Really. I've noticed I'm much better in a foreign language when I'm mildly drunk (or at least I think I am, which helps get past the self-awareness block).

Me too. Two of my close friends are native Spanish speakers and when I’m a little drunk I can converse with them fairly fluently. When I’m not I can still do it but I’m very slow and make more mistakes.

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

#197
It's easier if you approach French after you've learned Spanish, Italian or Romanian. I'm fluent in Spanish, and despite not having learned French in a dedicated way, I can read and understand almost everything. Spanish -> Catalan -> French could even be a smoother route, move to Barcelona!

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

#198
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That someone missed potentially a typo in a foreign language?

That could have been checked easily in like 5 seconds of review? Yes.

God forbid you ever make a mistake. Editing standards at NYT are MUCH better than virtually any newspaper that you would care to point to.

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

#199
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pronounced in three syllables (de re-an) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/de_rien

That page lists it as a two syllable phrase (look at the categories at the bottom). English speakers would be tempted to think it as a three syllable phrase because ʁjɛ̃ isn't a possible syllable in English, but in French "de rien" should be two syllables. This is similar to, e.g., English speakers incorrectly pronouncing the Spanish word "luego" with three syllables.

I should have specifically called out the audible pronunciation, where it's clearly more than two syllables in pronunciation. As pointed out below, it has "two and a half" syllables, I guess the site has no category for that.

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

#200
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It also doesn't help that French and Quebecois French are different dialects to the point of almost being different languages. We "offended" our entire office in Montreal when we rolled their telephony system into our headquarter's PBX and added localization for IVRs, Voicemail and whatnot using prompts recorded by a Parisian. I could understand the French French, the Quebecois was..., well, honestly about as differe…

Definitely. Some of the idioms are different and the language sounds come from the back of the throat vs. Parisian French. I had the same experience in terms of understanding and being understood.
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