gavroche
Getting old but not past it
- Location
- North Wales
Get French books for children from your local library, you can learn a lot from that.
French
- Thread starter sazzaa
- Start date
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gavroche
Getting old but not past it
- Location
- North Wales
If you think French is too fast, listen to people speaking Welsh, now that's fast.!!
Have already done this! My reading and writing is coming along fine, but my conversational skills are terrible!
lanternerouge
Veteran
- Location
- Leafy Cheshire
The thing is the French would probably say you speak too fast! English is so full of slang , French people can often be a bit lost by this strange new language when they first come to these shores.
gavroche
Getting old but not past it
- Location
- North Wales
Do you really mean " baise leurs prix" or " baisse leurs prix" ? I think the latter is what you meant as the first one is rather rude.
lanternerouge
Veteran
- Location
- Leafy Cheshire
I agree sazzaa, it is partly embarrassment. And also partly the island mentality. We really can be unbelievably crass when it comes to our attitude to foreign languages.... don't get me started!
Go on, you've got to tell us the difference now?
gavroche
Getting old but not past it
- Location
- North Wales
If you really want to know, " baiser" means " to kiss" ( proper version) but also to f*** ( slang version).Go on, you've got to tell us the difference now?
I agree sazzaa, it is partly embarrassment. And also partly the island mentality. We really can be unbelievably crass when it comes to our attitude to foreign languages.... don't get me started!
I always felt bad going abroad and speaking English everywhere, that's why I decided to do something about it... Think the final push was being at a festival in Belgium and meeting people who could speak four or five languages, I was in awe...
Archie_tect
De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
- Location
- Northumberland
oo-la-la....
Son did a French degree and had a year in Dijon... not the friendliest place to be as all the local students went home leaving the university deserted at night and over the week-end. He made some lasting international friends though and loved the Spanish, Finnish and Sudanese people he knows as a result.
Son did a French degree and had a year in Dijon... not the friendliest place to be as all the local students went home leaving the university deserted at night and over the week-end. He made some lasting international friends though and loved the Spanish, Finnish and Sudanese people he knows as a result.
deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
I know a French song:
Elle a un tout petit menton
Geneviève, Geneviève,
Elle a des touts petits tetons
Que je tatais à tatons.
Elle a un tout petit menton
Geneviève, Geneviève,
Elle a des touts petits tetons
Que je tatais à tatons.
Donger
Convoi Exceptionnel
- Location
- Quedgeley, Glos.
Many years ago, I remember we used to have a fantastic french teacher at school who was married to a french woman and spent every holiday over there. Every time he came back, he arrived with armfulls of newspapers, magazines and comic books for us to read. Sometimes the double french lessons just involved us picking up anything we wanted and reading for 2 hours, asking him to explain anything we didn''t get. I usually chose L'Equipe, the daily sports paper, and avidly read all about french football, rugby and cycling, picking up new words, phrases and grammar along the way.
Occasionally I would read an Asterix comic .... I can still remember reading a very amusing one called "Asterix chez les Bretons" (Asterix in Britain), which poked fun gently at the romans, and at us brits.The fact that, nearly 40 years later, I can still remember phrases from it, such as "sauve qui peut!" (every man for himself); "la cervoise tiede" (lukewarm ale); and the fact that asterix's food-mad dog was called "Idefix" (a play on words for idee fixe - meaning one track mind), plays testament to this innovative yet laid back approach to teaching. Because everyone read about what they were interested in and enthusiastic about, everyone just soaked up new vocabulary and grammar at a fantastic rate. As a result the school did brilliantly in french exams. I got a grade A at O level, and was planning to do french at uni. Only the fact that I came to hate french literature, and only read about half the books we were supposed to, (as well as being a bit of a slacker) made me slip to a D at A level and a change of direction.
I still love the french language to this day, and like spending my lunch breaks reading the "International" section of Le Monde online to see the french perspective of the big news stories, as there isn't enough editorial variety in our own papers. If only some of my other teachers had been able to inspire me the same way as my french teacher.
Occasionally I would read an Asterix comic .... I can still remember reading a very amusing one called "Asterix chez les Bretons" (Asterix in Britain), which poked fun gently at the romans, and at us brits.The fact that, nearly 40 years later, I can still remember phrases from it, such as "sauve qui peut!" (every man for himself); "la cervoise tiede" (lukewarm ale); and the fact that asterix's food-mad dog was called "Idefix" (a play on words for idee fixe - meaning one track mind), plays testament to this innovative yet laid back approach to teaching. Because everyone read about what they were interested in and enthusiastic about, everyone just soaked up new vocabulary and grammar at a fantastic rate. As a result the school did brilliantly in french exams. I got a grade A at O level, and was planning to do french at uni. Only the fact that I came to hate french literature, and only read about half the books we were supposed to, (as well as being a bit of a slacker) made me slip to a D at A level and a change of direction.
I still love the french language to this day, and like spending my lunch breaks reading the "International" section of Le Monde online to see the french perspective of the big news stories, as there isn't enough editorial variety in our own papers. If only some of my other teachers had been able to inspire me the same way as my french teacher.
I don't think it's just a British thing. I think people of all nationalities share the same fears. English speakers just have the advantage of speaking a language that is, for whatever reasons, considered the defacto standard in many circumstances.
