Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s Hard to Learn French in Middle Age

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 339 posts

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

#301

Post by bsder »

19690401 wrote: post #133
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…

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

Yeah, what the native language considers the break is not consistent between languages.

Japanese, for example, has "desu" (a form of "to be" so it's really common) which is nominally "two" syllables, but English speakers simply hear "dess" which they perceive as one syllable.

The issue is that Japanese relies more on time length to delineate syllables while English relies on vowel presence.

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

#302

Post by droussel »

_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

I am Québécois and am in no way hostile to other languages. What we are protective of is that the official language is French, for historical reasons yes. Meaning, if I encounter an English speaking person, there is a big probability that I'll switch to English just because I'm not an asshole and want to be nice. But, I also don't want my whole culture to disappear and be assimilated to at the same time I do care that I can be served in French when I go out to the restaurant, etc.

If people made fun of OP's accent then they were dicks and I don't think the majority of people would do that. We do however switch to English quickly when we determine the other person is anglophone just because most people in Montreal are bilingual and hey, let's make it easier for everyone. If the other person asks me to continue in French, I'll gladly do so.

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

#303

Post by [deleted] »

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #290
onli wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely true -- but read BD's instead. That will give you spoken language, context and fun in one package. Forget about Maupassant, La Peste, Tartarin de Tarascon, Seigneur de Brantome, Victor Hugo, Balzac or any of the other ancient French classics. Ancient language, weird sentences and -- not much good as a read either.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by droussel »

gerbilly wrote: post #272
cydonian_monk wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It also doesn't help that French and Quebecois French are different dialects to the point of almost being different languages. No, just no, they aren't and I can speak both. I don't know if you are a native speaker, but It's tiring to have your own language (or 'dialect') explained to you. For what it's worth, France has dozens of regional dialects as well.

I am a French speaking Québécois and do work with many French people (downtown Montreal). You can't deny that the French French and Québécois French uses a lot of different words. They are still the same language for sure, but we often have so much fun exchanging funny expressions.

A funny anecdote was when I was working with a guy name Jean-Nicolas and all the Québécois people called him Jean-Nic. That was very funny to the French guys hehe

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

#305

Post by bsder »

cm2187 wrote: post #137
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!)

It also depends on social circles. If you hang around with a bunch of eton/oxbridge old boys, even as a non native english speaker closing in on my 15th year in London, I struggle to understand many of the expressions. But I don’t when watching the BBC. Also as the article mentions there are many terms that are very infrequent, and even as a native French speaker, I had to look up a few cathedral terms in the diction…

If you want a challenge to your English, go to Glasgow.

Holy hell do they have a thick accent. I've only encountered an accent that thick in very rural US (think deep South or Appalachia).

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

#306

Post by bsder »

bpyne wrote: post #78
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!)

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…

> It's only two anecdotes. I may have simply run into rude people. But, they made me not care to ever speak French.

Oddly, my experience has been the opposite. Most of the places I have gone to in Paris spoke very little to no English but were trying to be very helpful anyway and I HAD to use my broken French.

However, I could tell that we didn't really hit the "standard" tourist shops (stayed just off École Militaire).

I will say that most English speakers tend to be VERY tolerant of mistakes. I think it's a combination of:

1) There is no single "native" English.

Think about how different people from different socioeconomic classes in the US, Canada, UK, India, etc. sound. And they are all native English speakers!

2) English is really agglomerative and absorbs neologisms readily.

Think about how quickly typhoon and tycoon entered the language, for example. Can you picture that kind of evolution for any other language?

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

#307

Post by vorg »

irq11 wrote: post #260
blacksqr wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you’ll find a lot of people who spend 95% of their time futzing with learning tools, and 5% (or less) actually studying Exactly my point. It shouldn't be necessary to spend all that time futzing with tools, the tools should be there, ready to use. >you need to listen and interact with people in the native language. Such people are not available in all areas. Online availability does not scale. These are precisely th…

”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…

> there are no obvious improvements to learning tools that will address the fundamental problem: you need to talk to actual humans

When learning to speak and listen, you need to already understand perhaps 80% of what actual humans are speaking in order to learn the other 20% you don't already understand. If you speak to someone and only understand say 30% of what they're speaking and they you, you won't pick up any of the 70% you don't understand, assuming the native speaker even wants to continue talking to you. Interactive software tools must deduce what vocab and grammar you can already understand and speak only that plus the 10% extra it wants you to practise and reinforce. And those tools don't exist. Good language teachers who can do the same are expensive.

Reading materials are far better in this regard, but even there, most of them use a specific learning sequence as defined by national language testing and don't cater for most learners who learnt haphazardly and thus whose current knowledge is scattered all over that continuum.

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

#308

Post by laurex »

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…

To learn conversational language, you really do need to converse. It is a much faster route to basic fluency. Apps like Marco Polo or even Zoom or Skype along with a native speaking contact are going to work more quickly than any gamified experience where you're only taking to an app.

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

#309

Post by svillar »

travisjungroth wrote: post #279
blacksqr wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building my own toolset and curriculum is exactly what I want to avoid.

I get what you’re saying. It is a really weird phenomenon that: 1) Everyone has basically the same problem (learning a language). 2) Many people are building their own tools. 3) Most people are dissatisfied with the tools available. I have a hard time believing that there is no more efficient way possible than conversing with native speakers as one commenter seemed to suggest. I also don’t believe the “procrastinatio…

In my personal experience, the easiest way to learn a second language is to immerse yourself in a particular country/culture and interact with the locals, get a job, etc. Live there for at least a year. It worked for me, I learned English and it worked for my wife, she learned French.

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

#310

Post by combatentropy »

kakwa_ wrote: post #276
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…

As a French living in France, here is my take on it. Your two anecdotes do seem rude, however I would personally have asked the same thing, but in a different way, like "We could continue in English if you want" with probably a slight incentive in my tone to actually switch to English (sorry if I also appear a bit rude). Or Maybe I will just reply to your every question in English. A native English speaker is blessed…

> in a French restaurant, he will take your order and leave you alone until you finish eating

Moving to France!

Post reply on HN