Alizée should teach French ...

[brad]

Recently I have been listening to 'learn french' audio books and podcasts. I couldn't help but think how great it would be to have Alizee teaching all of the lessons.

Think of all of the people that want to learn French only because of Alizee. I think there is a huge market there .. I know I would pay big bucks for something like that.

I will be waiting for 'Learn French with Alizée' to come out.

[DJ_Greg]

Oh man...I'd learn in a day!

[Urb4n]

I thought about that. She'd be an awesome instructor to have. I'd almost have trouble learning the French though. :), Unless they were just audio tapes or something.

[DJ_Greg]

Yeah...couldn't do video lessons.

[brad]

I have this one audiobook called 'Rapid French', I have been listening to it at night while I fall asleep. Anyway there is this girl on it that kind of 'sings' the lessons .. thats what gave me the idea.

btw, rapid french is pretty cool .. it is only for common expressions and stuff though.

[Bob]

hmm i sense a good idea.. although i think id be paying more attention to alizee than the learning part, even if it was an audiobook.. those podcasts seem to be working, if im alright at french by next summer i can go to france yay

[cane17]

Alizee is my French Teacher :D

[C-4]

Brad,
You are correct. I have wanted to learn French since hearing Alizée and have been thinking about which course to send for.
I also have been wanting to visit France, regardless of what the politicians here in America think.

[rwd716]

Did she actually keep taking lessons or just enough to sing a few songs?

[riva2model64]

Alizée did indeed take English lessons, she said so on some interview in this site, shew said that she wanted to understand the words that she would be singing in english

and if Alizée taught French i would sign up or buy or whatever asap
that is a really good idea

[General Patton]

yea that would be cool to have Alizee teach french.

[Matrix]

Alizee is teaching french to her child Anny-Lee right now, how fortunate she is to learn french from the one and only... Alizee

[orange2289]

I heard that if you listen to things while you sleep you get them into your memmory you don't know them automaticly but you get it into your head to help. I listen to music whe i sleep and I find myself knowing the songs by heart quick. I hope that could happen with french , do you think it would?I will try i also have audio cd's. My friend is fluent in french but I am afraide to ask her.

[brad]

I heard that if you listen to things while you sleep you get them into your memmory you don't know them automaticly but you get it into your head to help. I listen to music whe i sleep and I find myself knowing the songs by heart quick. I hope that could happen with french , do you think it would?I will try i also have audio cd's. My friend is fluent in french but I am afraide to ask her.

well when i made this thread a while back i was talking about a audio book called 'rapid french' .. now that i have listened almost everynight for a couple of months ... i remember it really well.

it is only basic stuff, like counting and simple phrase. They kind of sing the lessons so it makes it really nice to listen to at night. I think it is great for a beginner (like me) .. I pick up on a lot of French now, I don't 'understand it' very well .. but I hear a lot of words here and there.

one of the first things that is on the book is a whole bunch of things like .. 'i would like a coffee' .. 'i would like this' or 'i would like that' .. and etc. It is funny because I can really pick out when people are saying 'je voudrais' now.

check it out if you are a beginner .. 'rapid french' on itunes.

[aditya8617]

Alizee is already tecahing me french through her songs and interviews. Personal lessons will be the next step!

[neoteny]

you know back when i was taking french class, my french teacher pointed out that in order to speak french correctly is to first learn how to say the alphabet in french. learning how to input verbs into a sentence is an entirely different thing. i like the idea of alizee teaching french. she'd have my full attention. t'would be more of a pleasure than a learning experience. maybe both...

[NANAKI]

We would all be fluent alright that is all we would listen to if it were on tapes

[Ben]

We'd all have Alizée's Corsican accent too, which may not be the best thing for talking to most French people. :)

[aFrenchie]

We'd all have Alizée's Corsican accent too, which may not be the best thing for talking to most French people. :)
Corsicans have no accent :). Or maybe some intonations from the Midi (SE) here and there but nothing very noticeable. If you don't know her, you wouldn't guess that Alizée is from Corsica. I sure didn't guess it myself before she says it :p

[Ben]

Then how come I hear French people complain that she talks funny? I definitely know that her voice and way she talked was an issue with many people when she first started. Maybe it's just in Paris, because the people here certainly have a specific way of saying things.

EDIT: Maybe it's just less noticeable to native speakers, but I have encountered regional French accents... I notice them because sometimes when I travel somewhere else suddenly people are not speaking the way I learned. It can be very confusing! Especially since our instructors are so careful that we get the Metropolitan pronunciation just right. Anyway, I've read that the Corsican accent is similar to the Marseille one.

Where are you from, aFrenchie?

EDIT2: My friend Mark, who teaches college French, had this to say on the matter (from an old forum post):

She does speak French with a Corsican accent (more specifically, the Ajaccio accent, since you probably know that there are regional differences even on a relatively small island).

The most obvious difference between her accent and that of a standard French speaker--one not containing any regional inflections (Breton, Alsacian, Toulouse, etc)--is the 'r'. In standard French the 'r' is a uvular sound. In her case it is actually a uvular trill (a sound that I have only been able to duplicate on rare occasions. Spanish speakers may have an easier time with it, though). Other than this, her speech isn't nearly as accented as speakers from other regions of France.

Some French people say that she doesn't articulate herself very well in interviews, which is true, but she's not alone in that regard (after watching interviews of kids and reality TV contestants who can barely string a coherent sentence together without using voilà quoi). People may think it's easy, but it's got to be difficult, considering some of the questions she has to answer. However, from all her video interviews, I haven't come across any phrases that would make her seem different from a typical Parisian, for example. When she's on TV, she's speaking standard French, the French she learned in school, due in no small part to the long-running effort of the French government to marginalize regional languages. When she's with her family and friends in Ajaccio, I imagine she uses colloquialisms which include bits of Corsican ("toc de mac" being an obvious one).

[aFrenchie]

However, from all her video interviews, I haven't come across any phrases that would make her seem different from a typical Parisian, for example. When she's on TV, she's speaking standard FrenchThat's what fooled me then :). For me she just speaks standard French indeed. But that's also true for Jenifer or other Corsican artists (or politics, or anything else). I can't hear an accent in their interviews either!


I don't really agree with this though:
Some French people say that she doesn't articulate herself very well in interviews, which is true, but she's not alone in that regardWell, maybe some exceptions. I remember having noticed in some interview transcriptions that I made here that I also wrote down all her stammers/mutterings (in the French part only). But I remember having failed on what she was saying only once, here (http://moi-alizee.us/forums/showthread.php?p=1983#post1983) (I still doubt she's saying "very énorme").

Where are you from, aFrenchie?
Nantes (dépt. 44).

[Ben]

That's what fooled me then :). For me she just speaks standard French indeed. But that's also true for Jenifer or other Corsican artists (or politics, or anything else). I can't hear an accent in their interviews either!
I think he meant more phrases there (like "toc de mac"), rather than the accent itself... I don't think Mark has heard much that we haven't (though he did meet her backstage once ;) ). And Jenifer grew up in Nice, if that makes any difference.

But I remember having failed on what she was saying only once, here (http://moi-alizee.us/forums/showthread.php?p=1983#post1983) (I still doubt she's saying "very énorme").
Well, "doesn't articulate well" doesn't have to mean she fails to say anything... can just mean she doesn't pronounce pefectly all the time. Doesn't enunciate enough. In other words, wouldn't make the best French instructor. :)

Though I wouldn't complain!!!

[aFrenchie]

I think he meant more phrases there (like "toc de mac"), rather than the accent itself...
Oops you're right. But as for her accent that Mark is talking about, either he's studying that sort of thing or he's very interested in this subject to notice it? I'm asking a friend right now and she's telling me that maybe she has a slight accent, but so slight that it's not worth mentioning it... She and I also disagree about what he says regarding the R sound.
Well I'm sure there is an accent in Corsica, especially by the oldest people and depending on the areas, but all those I heard hardly have one. Or like I told you, maybe some intonations from the Midi (around Marseille indeed).

Doesn't enunciate enough. In other words, wouldn't make the best French instructor.
Well, I'm sure she'd make all the effort needed to teach somebody. On TV, she still speaks naturally and doesn't care much ;).

[garçoncanadien]

if you all want a standard french accent have a look at www.tv5.org and listen to the 9am news or the 5pm news; It's pretty clean stuff.