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

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

#201

Post by Afton » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:21 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…

The thing to remember is that in Montreal, roughly 1/2 the population are native English speakers, and most of the other half has serious ESL skills. When I lived there, it basically a faux pas to mangle your french, since the person you were speaking to inevitably spoke English vastly better than you/I spoke french. French classes (there) inevitably teach you phrases to use to try and stop people from "helpfully" switching back to English.

OTOH, if you wandered out to Shawinigan or Trois-Rivières, or even just Laval/Anjou you'd find a lot more uni-lingual Quebecois speakers, who would be positively delighted to hear your(/my) mangled grammar and grotesque pronunciations.

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

#202

Post by foldr » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

davidy123 wrote: post #199

foldr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, you're misperceiving "rien" as having two syllables because you are (I'm guessing) a native English speaker. You can't just "hear" how many syllables something has as syllabification rules are language-specific. The nearest corresponding sequence of English phonemes would have to be split into two syllables - but English has different syllabification rules.

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

#203

Post by Tenoke » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #181

Key answer: "And though I live in France, I’m not immersed enough. I use French for work, but I speak lots of English too, including with my kids and husband. I don’t have an “école horizontale” — a romantic partner with whom I speak only French." I've lived abroad in multiple countries and have met a lot of people trying to learn the language. Without fail, you absolutely have to have either a full-time job in the l…

>I've lived abroad in multiple countries and have met a lot of people trying to learn the language. Without fail, you absolutely have to have either a full-time job in the language, or be romantically involved with someone in the language (without falling back to English) and spend a ton of time with them. That's simply the only way you'll get enough hours of exposure in.

I've met many people who have learnt to speak a language (most examples would be for English and German, latter without consuming that much German media) without having this, and am currently learning a language without anything resembling this. Your statement simply seems wrong to me no matter how I read it.

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

#204

Post by renox » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #149

atemerev wrote: post #85

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).

As a French, let me tell you that I find the behaviour of many Parisian waiters rude and unprofessional, perhaps that's because I'm not Parisian though..

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

#205

Post by adventured » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

intertextuality wrote: post #118

mr_overalls wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried the method of spaced repetition? It's astounding how efficient it can be as a tool for memorization. https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Anki may very well be one of the best applications ever made. I have been using it for about a year and a half for Korean, and now I'm memorizing kanji characters with it. My goal is to memorize 2,136 kanji within 4-5 months and I fully believe it's possible with Anki if I don't miss a day of reviews. However, anki is the most useless app ever if you miss reviews. 1-2 days is fine, but you're hurting yourself otherwi…

I had not previously heard of Anki. In briefly looking at the site it sounds very interesting.

Can you describe what your daily routine is like in using it?

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

#206

Post by antirez » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

Because exactly like English is a phonetically hard language perhaps?

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

#207

Post by edgarvaldes » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

blacksqr wrote: post #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 b…

>It should be possible, using relatively simple tools, for a person to immerse oneself virtually in language learning materials.

This is the key.

I would love to digitally immerse myself in a given language. Nowadays what I do is tune the korean news in Youtube while getting prep for work, listen to some podcast in the commute, attempt to read some korean newspaper in the afternoon. But my whole job as a programmer is in front of a computer, I'm sure the immersion could be more gradual, more fine tuned to be there but not enough to block my productivity, etc.

Any tips are welcome.

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

#208

Post by adrianN » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

blacksqr wrote: post #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 b…

Anki+Yomichan integration is awesome for Japanese. Adding a new word with the surrounding context to your deck as you encounter it is as simple as clicking a button.

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

#209

Post by foldr » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

bgilroy26 wrote: post #165

davidivadavid wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Two syllables is correct, as you can see by looking at the IPA transliteration, /də ʁjɛ̃/.

"j" is a semi-vowel so you're both right!

Could you expand on that? Semivowels don't usually give rise to any uncertainty regarding syllable boundaries. E.g. Spanish 'tieso' clearly has two syllables (though many English speakers would misperceive it as having three), and it also has a semivowel following the initial consonant:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tieso

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

#210

Post by intertextuality » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #180

intertextuality wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> Perhaps you should, how else would they learn?

I already know where my skill level is. I know that I make certain mistakes and definitely don't speak idiomatically.

Telling me this is not only useless but a stark reminder of where I'm at. If you're in a rut, or the accursed "intermediate plateau", it really sucks to hear things like this, even if they're 100% accurate.