Comments on: French language difficulties

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:42:36 +0000

Hi Elaine, that’s not a bad idea – something on the wii etc. I sense a business opportunity for someone with the right techie skills…

By: Elaine

Elaine — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:39:07 +0000

I may try the wii ‘french coach’ programme for my grandson. I often feel the Michel Thomas, Paul Noble, Rosetta Stone computer of CD type courses help spark the interest of we older learners but less so for children.

Something on the wii or playstation may help do the same for our little ones, I would hope.

By: lorca

lorca — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:39:13 +0000

i have been using ‘my french coach’ (ubisoft) which is available on nintendo’s wii and dsi. i have found it to be excellent but it is formal and doesn’t seem to cover slang etc but a good starting point i use it on a dsixl which has a dictionary mode on there great when your out ther as if your stuck for a word it will tell you.
great blog btw very useful

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:06:11 +0000

Our daughter is doing a literary BAC (she’s top in her class in French but not in English!) and says a test for English is to translate the following three phrases: (1) She is pretty young (2) she is young and pretty (3) she is a young and pretty girl.

By: Elaine Proctor

Elaine Proctor — Thu, 27 May 2010 09:30:03 +0000

It’s funny but we all seem to have such similar difficulties with languages. Some people here have tried different courses – Paul Noble, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, Alliance Francaise – some with great success, some less so. And yet still, like Edaoin, some of us seem to end up making endless funny mistakes or getting tobgue tied.

I wonder, should we consider the errors we make in French a type of success? Having spent so many years unable to communicate much at all, I now consider even my great blunders to be victories in communication. It must mean that we are at least able to create complex enough sentences to carry some sort of meaning, I suppose!

By: Eadaoin

Eadaoin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:05:13 +0000

There are so many stories about people putting their foot in it when trying to speak French, but it’s nice when it’s the other way around sometimes too! A French-speaking friend of mine was having difficulty not long ago explaining to me in English about some twins he had seen on telly.
– ‘you know, the twins, they um, they must be together all the time, you know? It’s terrible for them!’
I was utterly mystified as to what exactly he was trying to explain, until he burst out with
– Ah, I know how to call them! The semi-detached twins!
He meant conjoined twins…

But of course, I’m always making a haymes of what I say as well. I couldn’t understand, for example, why an elderly friend of my (French) partner snorted with laughter when I told him that – ‘Oui, bien sûr, j’aimerais bien vous visiter à Noel’, thinking that I had said that I would love to visit him at Christmas. What I had actually said was that I would love to shag him at Christmas… I should, apparently, have said that I would ‘rendre visite’. I still don’t understand how ‘visiter’ in slang can mean to shag, but hey ho…

And lastly, my favourite story is that of a family friend on her first stint abroad, as a young au-pair in Paris. Her first time buying bread in the local boulangerie, she asked for ‘préservatif à la fraise’ to go with the bread… She thought she was asking for strawberry preserve, but of course, what she actually asked for was a strawberry flavoured condom.

By: Christine

Christine — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:40:44 +0000

You’re very welcome for the tip, Gary. It really was a wonderful course and I’m sure you’ll get along as well as we did. They seemed very well organised, so I imagine the quality of teaching will be consistent with what we experienced. Let us all know how you get on. It would be nice to know I’d helped someone else out.

Hi, Blanche. Well, I’m not sure what more to say about it than what I have already. It was very interactive, and a lot of fun. We learnt a lot of words and, most importantly for me at least, we learnt how to build French sentences properly. This was the most important thing from my perpective. I think it worked for me partly because they didn’t give very wordy grammatical explanations but explained things in terms that I could understand and relate to and that I could remember.

I’m not sure what else to say but maybe Gary will be able to offer another perspective once he’s done it. I can only say that all of us who went on it really enjoyed it and have more or less had French life opened up to us on a differnt level now.

Wishing you all luck with your French and lives,

Chrissie x

By: Blanche

Blanche — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:49:32 +0000

Hi there Christine,
I have just read a comment from Gary regarding a ‘Paul Noble French Course, having just switched onto your site, I too would be very interested to know more about this. My family & I are looking to move to France & would prefer to be seen to be making every effort to learn the ‘French Way’ so to speak. Also I wonder if you could clarify for me Is it true that the French government have insisted upon any person moving into France having to take 400 hours free french tuition?, personally I think it’s a great idea, but unsure where I have read this. Many thank regards Blanche

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:36:38 +0000

Hi Christine

After reading your post I’ve just signed-up for the next Paul Noble French course! It sounds great! After “studying”( and I use the word lightly) French on and off for 25 years I haven’t really advanced as I always seem to keep covering the same ground.

Now that I am relocating to Avignon with my French partner I am getting panicky and really need a new approach to the language, so I’m hoping this will be it. So many thanks for the tip Christine!

Amities
Gary

By: Boris

Boris — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:04:37 +0000

Hi Christine, I think that a course that works quickly and efficiently in teaching French will be very interesting to lot of people.
Thanks very much for suggesting it.