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It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

nytimes.com

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

#291

Post by jperras »

xena wrote: post #287
jperras wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 as we started to ask about a table, she stopped us and said, "No no no no. This will be in English." Native Québecois here. That's most definitely very odd. The typical scenario is someone not fluent in French attempts to speak it, and the other person switches…

It's gonna be interesting for me. I'm about to move to Montreal (flight is in 2 days). I want to learn French very well to idle-mine immigration points. I'm gonna make mistakes. That's just how it is. The surest path to success is failure.

It's sometimes difficult in Montreal due to how easy it is to get around in English; people will by default switch to English to help you out, and almost everyone is bilingual to some degree.

Just stick to your guns of speaking in French and let people know you want to practice, and you'll do great!

And congratulations on the move! It's a wonderful city. So wonderful that I'm moving back there in a month after being in the Toronto region for almost 10 years.

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

#292

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

tutfbhuf wrote: post #24

Why It’s So Hard to Learn French in Middle Ages would also be an interesting article

This is what I read at first - it may be difficult, but you pretty much have to, because of the Normans.

As for French in middle age, learning languages after the critical period window is generally tricky, it's not specific to middle age.

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

#293

Post by jbscpa »

panglott wrote: post #220
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…

The problem is that the tools you need are "listening to and interacting with people in the target language". Human language is a problem of interpreting the creative social signals of other human beings, and there's no way to automate that. With the Web, YouTube and internet radio, the actual amount of target-language material that a person can expose themselves to is hugely, hugely more available than it was 20-30…

My overly simplified but not entirely irrational way of saying this: To master another language I must learn to speak another...culture.

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

#294

Post by iagooar »

renox wrote: post #77
atemerev wrote: post #49

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!)

> The problem with French is that the French are very sensitive to mistakes. Define sensitive? When my wife (who is Czech) or my colleague (who is Venezuelan) make French errors, I correct them the same way I correct my children: not because it is annoying me (I don't speak Czech and my Spanish is terrible!) but because I want to help them. And yes, if someone speaks bad French, I'll switch to English but that's not…

> And yes, if someone speaks bad French, I'll switch to English but that's not out of disrespect, it's because it's more efficient/easy, if you prefer that the discussion stays in French to practice your French, just say so..

It might be efficient, but it will definitely hurt the self-esteem of the other person. Been there. I speak 5 languages fluently and tried to learn Italian. Went to Florence and every time I tried to speak Italian, people would answer in English. I know they're doing it because they're used to tourism and it's more efficient - yet at the same time it made me doubt so much about my language learning skills that I probably won't try it again for a while.

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

#295

Post by iagooar »

dehrmann wrote: post #193
atemerev wrote: post #49

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.

I think this is not true, it's just an often told cliché. French is spoken in so many countries around the world and yet still French have this thing with foreigners trying to speak it. I think it's just more cultural and educational, nothing else.

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

#296

Post by inferiorhuman »

foldr wrote: post #189
inferiorhuman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Telling someone who speaks a language at an intermediate level that they don't always speak idiomatically is pointless - they already know that.

Telling someone who speaks a language at an intermediate level that they don't always speak idiomatically is pointless - they already know that.

Sure, but do they know when they're saying something awkward? Recently I struggled in both England and Barcelona to get carbonated water. In San Francisco I'd be saying "soda water". In New York, "seltzer water". In England, apparently, sparkling water is the trick. I'm a native English speaker so it was fairly easy for me to pick up on that.

Meanwhile my Spanish is not great, but enough to sound like I speak Spanish fluently and make casual conversation and order things at a bar. In Havana I learned "agua sin gas" and "agua gaseosa". I tried that a few times in Barcelona (a city you can navigate entirely in English) recently and eventually got a weird look. Next time I asked and was told "agua con gas". Were it not for the weird looks I'd've stuck with awkward phrasing.

I generally tiptoe pretty gently with non-native English speakers, but have one friend who is insistent upon having their mistakes and awkward phrasing corrected. They're also the one friend who seems most like a native English speaker with written communication (the accent is a whole other story).

If you don't know when you're doing something awkwardly you won't ever improve.

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

#297

Post by Outpox »

jperras wrote: post #252
jacobolus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

Informal vs. formal and the gradient between them is always going to be an issue in any language, especially when comparing languages. French also has more built-in structures for formal address/politeness, though many of them are being left by the wayside just as we left feudal lordships with a peasant class. For what it's worth, I'd say that the more "stuffy" version of "de rien" in French would be "il n'y a pas de…

I would add the one I usually use "Je t'en prie".

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

#298

Post by droussel »

blacksqr wrote: post #266
irq11 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”Exactly my point. It shouldn't be necessary to spend all that time futzing with tools, the tools should be there, ready to use.” It isn’t necessary. The tools are fine, and/or improving them won’t solve the fundamental problem. People are just procrastinating. ”Online availability does not scale. These are precisely the issues that digital tools should be good at addressing, but have failed to do so.” Short of makin…

If that is true, then not only digital tools, but all books, classes, tests and every other technique aside from what you recommend for language learning are fraudulent wastes of time.

I have an uncle who speaks 6 different languages; he really likes picking up new ones. I once had a discussion about how he could pick them up so quickly and he basically said what the parent was saying: use it, practice it, read newspapers in it, speak to people that speak it too. Immerse yourself, accept that you'll be uncomfortable for a while, and before long, you'll be able to hold a simple conversation.

He also said you know you are fluent the day you can casually joke in real time with people and make them laugh (at the joke!)

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

#299

Post by droussel »

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…

Hey, don't worry to much about your accent. I am Québécois and French is my first language. I can speak English very well apart from that terrible accent... I used to work at a place where we had daily calls with the office in California and most of the engineers there where Indian people speaking English. It probably took me 2-3 months before I could understand a single sentence on the conf. call. Their accents were just that bad (to me).

All that to say, don't be shy of your accent. Personally, I am simply happy when people make an effort to learn my language. I'll listen patiently if they stumble on words, I'll help where I can, etc. As long as they are also patient with my own horrible accent :)

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

julienchastang wrote: post #224
arkh wrote: post #21

> If required, I can read French books. Not reading books will limit your vocabulary. If you read when required, you don't read.

I agree. Ms Druckerman needs to read a lot more books. She should make a point of reading the classics of French literature starting with something simple like "Le Petit Prince", then Maupassant and slowly work her way up to "Les Miserables" which will take years, but she has the rest of her life to do this. Even if she does not absorb everything, she should press on. She should do this reading plan on a e-reader. I'…

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