Thinking about learning french

[dwightks]

Hi everyone, I was thinking about learning some french. Alizée has had a really big effect on me and I feel like learning french is a good idea. I just have a few questions.
1. Did anyone here have the urge to learn french because of Alizée and did you actually succeed.

2. What materials did you use and how long did it take you.

3. Is French a hard language to learn?

I already know a few languages. I'm fluent in English, I can understand Tamil and Telugu (indian languages), and I can read, write, and somewhat speak Japanese. I am also wondering if already knowing other languages will have an effect on learning French?

Thanks

[user472884]

I'm fluent in English, I can understand Tamil and Telugu (indian languages), and I can read, write, and somewhat speak Japanese.

Sorry, but those won't help you in the slightest.

French, like any other language used in Europe, is a Romance language. Although French is associated with love and stuff, "Romance" refers to the "Roman" language- i.e. Latin. Thus, knowing Latin, or any of it's descendants (Spanish being the most valuable) will greatly help you in learning.

Proper, thorough help doesn't come free. I've personally used Rosetta Stone. It isn't perfect, but it's the next best thing other than a formal class taught by a native speaker.

There are other, free sources available. The website I recommend the most is french.about.com

The author is a native English speaker, and she writes for native English speakers, so she understands the little things here and there that we English speakers will come across and not understand when learning French. Her website is awesome, and brimming with little tidbits here and there that you won't find anywhere else besides total immersion (figures of speech and cultural tendencies, for example)

I don't think it's necessary to classify a language as "easy" or "hard". The perceived difficulty stems from again, your previous familiarity with it and similar languages, but more importantly, your enthusiasm and motivation to actually learn it.

Good luck

[NaW]

1. Yes
2. Mostly internet
3. Yeas

..
Seriously: For first, Alizée was the reason why i wanted to learn French, but later time i became interested of the culture, people etc. so i wanted to learn more. I don't aim to be the most perfect foreigner French speaker with zero mistakes but i only want to be understandable as possible.
Internet serves the main basics to get stated with the language but for further it may be good to take lessons. Mainly use the language as much as possible to get trained. When you know English it can be easier with French, as you know there are only ''few'' differences :D

[Deepwaters]

Hi everyone, I was thinking about learning some french. Alizée has had a really big effect on me and I feel like learning french is a good idea. I just have a few questions.
1. Did anyone here have the urge to learn french because of Alizée and did you actually succeed.


Yes and yes. I'm still not great with understanding spoken French, but I can read it pretty well and speak and write it. I still make mistakes, though.


2. What materials did you use and how long did it take you.
I started with an on-line beginner's course. I used Rosetta Stone for a while, and Yabla. I read French on-line newspapers. I have several Facebook friends from France (including Alizée and her papa, plus another Corsican photographer and an amazingly talented artist, writer, and poet living in Paris) and I always read what they post which is usually in French.


3. Is French a hard language to learn?
I have not found it difficult, but it will depend to a large degree on what your background is.


I already know a few languages. I'm fluent in English, I can understand Tamil and Telugu (indian languages), and I can read, write, and somewhat speak Japanese.
Of those, English is the only one that will be of much help at all. English shares a lot of vocabulary with French because of the Norman conquest and the close interaction between England and France over centuries. Indian languages at least fall into the same overall language group as French (Indo-European), but they're not really very close. Japanese and French are completely unrelated.

[dwightks]

I checked out some of the websites from this thread, which are pretty good. The problem is that I don't know where to start learning. Should I start with vocabulary, grammar pronunciation, or something else?

[Chuck]

Hi, Dwightks! Pleased to meet you!

If you already know several languages, well, you obviously have a knack for learning languages. French may not be so difficult for you at all.

To your question #1: No. I'd learned French back as a kid in school. Then I forgot a lot of it from about 30 years of disuse. Until listening to Alizée, when I was inspired to brush up and relearn a lot of it. And since that time, we got new neighbors down the street - from France! They were quite pleasantly surprised that we were into French music, language, and culture, and now we're very good friends.

Vocabulary or pronunciation? Start with vocabulary! Words! You can't work on pronunciation until you have something to pronounce. :p

But seriously, my advice is start with the the most basic things: être and avoir ("to be" and "to have"). First learn "je suis" and "j'ai". You can say a lot with those. Je suis fatigué. J'ai chaud. Then work on the other present-tense forms (conjugations) of those two verbs. You are, he is, they are; you have, she has, and so forth. Tu es trop tard, Il a cinq euros. Most of the other verbs in French are a lot simpler to conjugate, but these are the two you'll be using most often.

Actually the library had a good book we got last month: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning French Yourself". I highly recommend it! The internet's great, but so is a nice linear path like you get from a book. (If your library doesn't have this book, Amazon does, starting around six bucks.) Your local library may also have language CD's - even if they're not Rosetta, they'll still help a little with the pronunciation. :D

[Scruffydog777]

Hi everyone, I was thinking about learning some french. Alizée has had a really big effect on me and I feel like learning french is a good idea. I just have a few questions.
1. Did anyone here have the urge to learn french because of Alizée and did you actually succeed.

2. What materials did you use and how long did it take you.

3. Is French a hard language to learn?

I already know a few languages. I'm fluent in English, I can understand Tamil and Telugu (indian languages), and I can read, write, and somewhat speak Japanese. I am also wondering if already knowing other languages will have an effect on learning French?

Thanks

I think the main question here is how much will you get to use the French language outside of listening to Alizée? Do you live in an area where there is a good size French speaking population? Do you plan on possibly moving to France or maybe some place like Quebec or New Orleans some day where French might possibly come in handy. If not, I wouldn't do it just for the sake of understanding her songs.

I have a niece who's father for some strange reason talked her into taking German in high school. What a huge mistake. She never gets to use it. We have a large Spanish population in Boston. She would have been much better off taking Spanish.

Who knows? Alizee might decide to have another baby soon and quit her music career. What good will your French do you then?

I would suggest you do what I did. Just learn her songs. I've taken the time to learn 12 of her songs. I started of with Moi Lolita which is very easy to learn. You just have to realize some of the lyrics are controversial, so some sites try and clean up the lyrics, but once you know what they're trying to say, it's a very easy song to understand and learn.

L'Alize I think is one of her best songs to sing along with, once you've learned it. Took me a while but it was well worth it.

I took 2 years of French way back in junour high school. Never really had any use for it until now. Even though it's been so many years, I still remembered the basics. It's just like riding a bicycle.

I think the most difficult part of learning French is realizing their sentences are structured differently than ours, but if you know a couple of other languages, then I'm sure you've run into that problem before so it won't be a problem for you.

[Marquis<3Alizée]

I gotta say French is pretty frustarting, but then it's worth it in the end. I just stared learning French two weeks ago I know some of the basics. I'm not just taking French just to understand her songs, In the future I'm planing on moving to France. If not France then Montreal, If I get any luck I'll move to Corse.

Your going to have to practice your ass off, well I'm guessing you know that already since you knoow seven different languages.

[Ronald]

I've had french for 4 years at school, but that's almost 20 years ago, so I've forgotten most of it:eek:

Last year I decided to re-learn it, so I ordered myself a study called french for beginners. Now I'm finished with this and I actually can read some french, but it's very hard to make a conversation, because those french guys speak way too fast......:confused:

Spend my last vacation there (wanted to write holiday, but since that's british I won't use it here)
You have to know some french in order to communicate there, they all refuse to speak english or whatever kind of language.....

Anyway, if you want to learn a language you have to take lessons and not just learn it from the internet, that doesn't make any progress in my opinion.
I took a self-study thing, which is not that expensive as taking lessons with teachers (which will probably be a lot better, but that's up to you)

And visit a country where you can practise it, the local people love that, even when you're full of mistakes...

This must be one of my longest posts:D

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

Ooh!
I want to say a few things. First, give you a bit of my French background. Well, first, I originally discovered French at the age of 8, when reading Harry Potter. In 6th grade, at like 11-12 years old, I took formal French classes in school. Then, for a while, I never spoke French (it's useless in Virginia, as well as very rare) but I'd always stop to read anything in french, usually warning and safety labels on thing. But ever was there enough to really practice. And then, in 2008, a good friend of my sister gave me an old French-English English-French dictionary he had:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TAX6QE4FL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
That was published in 1991. Then, I started flipping through it a few times a week looking at random words. But I still didn't really learn. In late 2008, I started taking formal Latin classes in High School. These were simple for me, having the french background I did. So those two languages advanced each other. But I still didn't know anything of French modern culture. Until this year when I discovered Alizee. And then, I picked a lot of idioms, turns of phrase, and the like. So she helped me a bit too. And about two weeks ago, I met a guy named Riki Sanon from haiti. And he has ever increased my french skill.

Now, why does any of this matter to you? I can't really say, but I tend to rant. But anyways...
First, make sure French is what you want to learn. If it is, I highly recomend you sing along with Alizee WITHOUT looking up lyrics to her songs, french, or translated. That's what I did, I just memorised the sound patterns, and that is a much greater help to your pronunciation. It gets your mouth used to making the sounds. When I first decided to learn Korean, I just sang with the songs a lot. And it made my throat hurt a lot. But now, it's no problem. I can sing for days on end with SNSD, Kara, whoever, without any pain in my vocal cords. Then, of corse I had to learn the alphabet, which was easy since I knew how to make the sounds. You won't have to re-learn an alphabet, which the Korean alphabet is 1000000x easier than the two Japanese alphabets, but whatever. This means going against what Chuck said, I advise you learn the pronunciation first. Reading it in your head and not knowing how to pronounce it will just confuse and unnecesarily worry you. Then, work on the simplest vocab, like pronouns, a few simple verbs (I agree 'avoir' and 'etre' are good places to start), hello, goodbye, thanks, basic stuff. Then learn the grammar. Then, take the rest of your time to learn the vocab. there's a whole lot more vocab to learn than grammar. And as long as you know how to make sentences, then any new word you learn you will already know how to use.
But that's just my way, and it may not work for you. If it doesn't don't give up. And yes, scruffy, French may not be the most useful language there is. And no, I think it's a bad idea to focus on french just to learn her songs. But I have a true passion for French anyways. Before I learned of Alizee. So, dwightks, if you feel french is the language for you, learn it. More people should be interested in learning languages, it's sad they aren't; I commend you!

[dwightks]

I think the main question here is how much will you get to use the French language outside of listening to Alizée? Do you live in an area where there is a good size French speaking population? Do you plan on possibly moving to France or maybe some place like Quebec or New Orleans some day where French might possibly come in handy. If not, I wouldn't do it just for the sake of understanding her songs.

I have a niece who's father for some strange reason talked her into taking German in high school. What a huge mistake. She never gets to use it. We have a large Spanish population in Boston. She would have been much better off taking Spanish.

Who knows? Alizee might decide to have another baby soon and quit her music career. What good will your French do you then?

I would suggest you do what I did. Just learn her songs. I've taken the time to learn 12 of her songs. I started of with Moi Lolita which is very easy to learn. You just have to realize some of the lyrics are controversial, so some sites try and clean up the lyrics, but once you know what they're trying to say, it's a very easy song to understand and learn.

L'Alize I think is one of her best songs to sing along with, once you've learned it. Took me a while but it was well worth it.

I took 2 years of French way back in junour high school. Never really had any use for it until now. Even though it's been so many years, I still remembered the basics. It's just like riding a bicycle.

I think the most difficult part of learning French is realizing their sentences are structured differently than ours, but if you know a couple of other languages, then I'm sure you've run into that problem before so it won't be a problem for you.

I'm not learning French just to understand Alizée. I think that is will be useful in the future and I am also interested in French culture. Alizée started my desire to learn French, but she is definitely not the sole reason.

[Scruffydog777]

I'm not learning French just to understand Alizée. I think that is will be useful in the future and I am also interested in French culture. Alizée started my desire to learn French, but she is definitely not the sole reason.

Then by all means learn French. It is with out doubt, the most beautiful language. You will have no regrets.

[wasabi622]

Honestly just listening to French music, watching French movies and the like really do help. I took French last year for a semester, and though it was my first French class, for I had studied Spanish in high school, the professor was very surprised by my fluency. I don't mean that I was fluent in French, but how I could carry a conversation, which I really attribute to the various interviews and movies I've seen in French.

But just to be clear, I'm saying that all the above is great supplementary material.

[alizeefan]

Hi everyone, I was thinking about learning some french. Alizée has had a really big effect on me and I feel like learning french is a good idea. I just have a few questions.
1. Did anyone here have the urge to learn french because of Alizée and did you actually succeed.

2. What materials did you use and how long did it take you.

3. Is French a hard language to learn?

I already know a few languages. I'm fluent in English, I can understand Tamil and Telugu (indian languages), and I can read, write, and somewhat speak Japanese. I am also wondering if already knowing other languages will have an effect on learning French?

Thanks

First to say i agree as Scruffy and Ronald stated above if you do not use it you may lose it , which may be differing depending on the individuals memory skills . Definitely something to take into heavy consideration when considering learning . Also to add there when reading about people learning languages it is VERY very helpful to use it with a native or learned speaker/s that way you become accustomed to the nuances . The best way to learn is to be using it on a daily basis . Now from researching i have found that everyone recommends the Rosetta Stone tools but it is expensive .

With that in mind and after some researching for free tools i found byki -

http://www.byki.com/

They also have the upgraded pay version but the free one seems great.
Now i can not say if the lessons work as time has not permitted me to get highly involved to learn but they seem very well writ also having a native speaker say the words so you can learn by hearing as well reading .
More importantly as elated above about using the language to learn , one of the tools is they hook you up with people who speak the language you want to learn to be sorta pen/chat pals . That way you can teach them languages you know and they want to learn and vice versa by not only writing but talking too . Add to that it is pretty cool to become friends with people around the world or in the country you are interested in .

One more tool i found helpful is to create my own desktop wallpaper background with words and alphabet translations .
That way it is right there for you to see and study constantly or easily refer back to without having to open things .

1. - Yes i have the urge but yet to get into it due to time restraints.

2. - Again i would like to get the Rosetta Stone but expensive so trying Byki .

3. - Depends on how much time you have as well effort put into learning .
Also each individual will be different in learning/memory skills.

Another thing to keep in mind which i think many overlook is -
As with any language there are varying dialects depending on location one is in of the respective country . From what i understand and evidence all over this forum about her pronunciations , Alizee being from the Corsica island has a variation on the dialects with both French and English . For instance on dialects , talk to someone from New York , LA or Texas and not only is the accent different but the wording and phrases will vary greatly too .

[dwightks]

First to say i agree as Scruffy and Ronald stated above if you do not use it you may lose it , which may be differing depending on the individuals memory skills . Definitely something to take into heavy consideration when considering learning . Also to add there when reading about people learning languages it is VERY very helpful to use it with a native or learned speaker/s that way you become accustomed to the nuances . The best way to learn is to be using it on a daily basis . Now from researching i have found that everyone recommends the Rosetta Stone tools but it is expensive .

With that in mind and after some researching for free tools i found byki -

http://www.byki.com/

They also have the upgraded pay version but the free one seems great.
Now i can not say if the lessons work as time has not permitted me to get highly involved to learn but they seem very well writ also having a native speaker say the words so you can learn by hearing as well reading .
More importantly as elated above about using the language to learn , one of the tools is they hook you up with people who speak the language you want to learn to be sorta pen/chat pals . That way you can teach them languages you know and they want to learn and vice versa by not only writing but talking too . Add to that it is pretty cool to become friends with people around the world or in the country you are interested in .

One more tool i found helpful is to create my own desktop wallpaper background with words and alphabet translations .
That way it is right there for you to see and study constantly or easily refer back to without having to open things .

1. - Yes i have the urge but yet to get into it due to time restraints.

2. - Again i would like to get the Rosetta Stone but expensive so trying Byki .

3. - Depends on how much time you have as well effort put into learning .
Also each individual will be different in learning/memory skills.

Another thing to keep in mind which i think many overlook is -
As with any language there are varying dialects depending on location one is in of the respective country . From what i understand and evidence all over this forum about her pronunciations , Alizee being from the Corsica island has a variation on the dialects with both French and English . For instance on dialects , talk to someone from New York , LA or Texas and not only is the accent different but the wording and phrases will vary greatly too .

Thanks I'll try out Byki. I've thought about Rosetta Stone but it's too expensive. I'm also thinking about taking a French course at a community college close by, which will also be good for my transcript to get into college. These courses are very cheap for High School students.

[Dark Engine]

Thanks I'll try out Byki. I've thought about Rosetta Stone but it's too expensive. I'm also thinking about taking a French course at a community college close by, which will also be good for my transcript to get into college. These courses are very cheap for High School students.

There is actually another program out there that is a lot cheaper than Rosetta Stone and reviews claim that it's almost as effective. Look for a program called "Instant Immersion". But regardless of the cost of a program, learning a new one is hard. The pronunciation of French from reading seems to be really hard. To me, It seemed really different when compared to Spanish. The reviews seem to vary from good to bad, but for the price, it's hard to argue.

http://www.amazon.com/TOPICS-Entertainment-81020-Instant-Immersion/dp/B0026PEPT4/ref=pd_sim_sw_4

There is another program out there called Fluenz that is about as expensive as Rosetta but uses a different learning style. Rosetta uses total immersion which can be difficult for a lot of ppl. Fluenz teaches you a language by explaining it in English for beginners. Similar to how high school students learn from the beginning. Just hunt around and see which interests you the best. I know I've tried the total immersion for Spanish and I lost interest pretty fast. And that's with 3 years of studying it in school.

http://www.amazon.com/Fluenz-Version-F2-software-Navigator/dp/B003O56UYS/ref=sr_1_5?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1284294694&sr=1-5

[Nubcake]

Lol, I'm not the only one, I'm know the basics, magent/eatting, boit/drinking, garcon/boy, but i'm having a hard time how the words roll together and you don't pronouce the R or S's or even hear them. Reading it seems easier than speaking currently.

Also I had rosetta stone for years, just never touched it, I got it years ago when I went on a trip to Spain and than Norway so I lost the language cds, but you can find them on a torrent tracker, so I'm sure you can also find the whole client.

[DrSmith]

I tried installing Rosetta Stone yesterday but the language CD torrents don't come with bloody activation codes. I can't find them shits anywhere.

[Nubcake]

I tried installing Rosetta Stone yesterday but the language CD torrents don't come with bloody activation codes. I can't find them shits anywhere.

Don't activate it, you can learn up to lesson 3 or something, other than that, you'll have to find a crack for rosetta stone itself not the language cd.

[Aayush]

Yups, Rosetta Stone is the very best in the business. M totally satisfied with its use and will recommend the same to the newbies in learning french.

[Mon Maquis]

You might want to also check out Yabla.com (http://www.yabla.com) its a website where you can watch videos and learn the French language by immersion through online videos.

Here is a sample of how it works:
http://french.yabla.com/player_s3.php?id=1287&tlang_id=en

There is even games you can play with the video where you have to type in what they are saying and try to figure out the correct words.

You might like it.

[travisv10]

I would recommend learning French but to not approach it through grammar and vocab.

Try learning through programs like Assimil and French in Action. Those will help you internalize what you learn and help you from forgetting it.

[mzracing76]

for me, it is just fun to learn french just to sing to Lilly's songs and her voice. to better understand her songs, the lyrics, and language. I do not speak fluent french, but I have come to know what she is saying during the songs.

I also am trying to learn the lyrics and words to her Rival 'Priscilla Prissou' who is another of my favorite french pop stars.

if it werent for Lilly and Prissie, I would have no use for french. But I think French is a very beautiful language, and wish i took it back in school.

[Jake04]

and what you need esle :)

Alizee's the only reason why I'm trying to learn French. I want to be able to understand what she's saying in those interviews! I think French is a very beautiful language especially when it comes from the most beautiful woman in the world! :wub:

BTW, welcome to AAM, IceOcean!

[WhiteFeather]

BTW, welcome to AAM, IceOcean!

*coughhesabotcough*

[Jake04]

*coughhesabotcough*
Is he? Oh, I didn't know that! Too bad. I thought we have another Lilly fan here!

[mzracing76]

French is fun to learn and say. Before I heard of Lilly, I didnt even know french, but now it is like it comes natural, and I dont even speak fluent french. But wierd how I can sing right along with her. I love singing with during ACC, MOI LOLITA! L ALIZE, AMELIE, YOUPIDOU, HEY AMIGO, and a few others.

She is the best.

[Chuck]

Hey, I like that Yabla thing MonMaquis was recommending! (But warning - it ain`t super easy)...

Actually, there are so many way to learn other languages these days - and you don't even have to get out of your easy chair, or spend any money or anything! It's all sooooo easy these days! Just a few years ago, everything was still the old-fashioned way. You'd have to find and go to a class, buy books, spend six months, and then wind up saying "Bonjour, je m'appelle Rick" very poorly. Just try to imagine!

But nowadays there's the internet. And MOVIES, too! And multilingual packaging! It's hard not to pick up at least a few words in some other language these days. Here's a few tips from someone who'd learned French the old-fashioned way, back in grade school. Then forgot.


MOVIES - ANY movie you might watch at home may also be able to help you with your French. If it's an English-speaking film, often you can switch the language track to French. Or, if not, you can at least put on French subtitles and try to follow along. Or watch French movies! There are quite a few, and so easily available here in the XXIme siècle.

MUSIC - (Obviously.) Lately, I've been yootubing all different French singers and musicians from the past decades, and noticed that nearly everybody has a few "subtitled" vids posted. Check out Jacques Brel! Amel Bent! Avoid Axelle Red!

ONLINE - Language courses abound! Some people swear by Rosetta, but to just pick up a few phrases, try some freebies, first. This has been discussed here before, so I'm not going to start listing them all.

ALSO ONLINE - French newspapers, magazines, stories, games... It's like they've got everything over there, but in French! When I was learning French in the seventies, we didn't have access to stuff like this. At all. To really get some world news, don't just listen to American sources - try lemonde.fr or liberation.fr (or at least the BBC!)

AND GOOGLE TRANSLATOR - Can be very helpful. It's gotten a lot better in the last few years, although it still makes a LOT of mistakes. So when you use it to translate something, try comparing the 'output' with your 'input' and see if you can spot any!

FRENCH WIKIPEDIA - The recent blackout had me discovering this: all the different-language wikipedias really are completely different! Each base is built individually, by its own contributors, there is no "mechanism" automatically translating anything added to the other wikis. So if you want ten completely different reports on a subject, you could go to Wikipedia and select English, French, German, Russian, Italian, etc... That also means that the ENFOIRÉS entry in French wikipedia is ten times as long as the English entry! Huge charts and everything! Exhaustive! Check it out!


But remember - it still isn't instantaneous. You can learn any language so much faster and easier these days, it's just beautiful. Just perfect. But it will still take some time, so don't get frustrated! :2_thumbs:

[Merci Alizée]

If you enjoy reading then you can try this also

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/French.pdf

Print version http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/French/Print_version

[ptjmwa]

I've always wanted to learn french. I know a lot. But, it's just random stuff. I can't really carry a conversation. So, this year i took french at my university. I think that speaking spanish has helped me with my french.

[Merci Alizée]

I have always wondered whether we can have some sort of online learning sessions on this site.

We already have many French learning lessons, but it's not easy to learn the language on your own.

Here is the idea : Start AAm French learning classes. Those who want to learn can give their name. They have to regular and can't skip anything. A task will be assigned to all those users every week. Those who are willing to teach, can answers the questions. After each session, there will be assessment on Sundays or some other convenient day. Once in a while we can have audio/video or just audio conversation about all this. :/

[texasguy]

I've been learning French with Rosetta stone over the past 8 months...don't know how many native French speakers we have on here but it would be really cool to video/audio chat with them.

[ImRawdg]

I've been using Pimsleur for the past few weeks to learn Swedish, and I love it. They have samples on their website of the first lesson for each language. It is audio-only, so it's only really recommended if you are interested in speaking and listening (which most people learning a language need, but maybe not the people here).

In the experience of most people who actually learn languages, taking classes is apparently one of the worst ways.

[Finnishguy]

I've been using Pimsleur for the past few weeks to learn Swedish, and I love it. They have samples on their website of the first lesson for each language. It is audio-only, so it's only really recommended if you are interested in speaking and listening (which most people learning a language need, but maybe not the people here).

In the experience of most people who actually learn languages, taking classes is apparently one of the worst ways.

Swedish and English are actually very similar languages. Try Finnish..?


MA's idea sounds good, I think there may be some really interested and active people within.

[Chuck]

MA's idea is a good one indeed. If he or someone else wants to do that, I'd wholeheartedly applaud! But sorry, please accept that I'm not volunteering for such a task. Earlier, I was mostly talking about various other ways to work on one's language skills, ways that hardly seem like studying at all. This is more like work! (both are good, of Corse...)

Oh yes - the wikipedia language primer that MA mentioned is also quite commendable! (And also still has some gaps, like parts of the first test that aren't there. But they're still working on it.) That might be a good way to start?

My main caution to someone starting a language course here would only be "why build a boat from scratch if you just want to sail?" There are plenty of fine boats already out there. ;)

_________________________________
ps - sorry if that all sounded like rain on the parade. (Or overegotistical and/or douchey.) I guess I mean like "go for it", it's just going to be pretty time-consuming, and I personally can't commit.... :o

[Merci Alizée]

MA's idea is a good one indeed. If he or someone else wants to do that, I'd wholeheartedly applaud! But sorry, please accept that I'm not volunteering for such a task. Earlier, I was mostly talking about various other ways to work on one's language skills, ways that hardly seem like studying at all. This is more like work! (both are good, of Corse...)

Oh yes - the wikipedia language primer that MA mentioned is also quite commendable! (And also still has some gaps, like parts of the first test that aren't there. But they're still working on it.) That might be a good way to start?

My main caution to someone starting a language course here would only be "why build a boat from scratch if you just want to sail?" There are plenty of fine boats already out there. ;)

_________________________________
ps - sorry if that all sounded like rain on the parade. (Or overegotistical and/or douchey.) I guess I mean like "go for it", it's just going to be pretty time-consuming, and I personally can't commit.... :o

This idea came to mind a year ago, but I never posted about this because I know the difficulties associated with introducing a full-fledged online teaching session type of thing.

I was in hurry, so I didn't post my idea in detail that time. First of all let me make it clear that I don't want members to spend extra time or effort for anything like this. Rather I have been thinking about finding a way so that we all those who are interested in learning can co-ordinate their efforts and do this together without doing anything extra. For ex - many of us spend at least an hour here and read more than 10 posts. Instead of adding learning as completely separate task, if we can just include it as normal forum activity then it might be easier for everyone. Moreover we can just post questions in this forum and hope someone to answer in a week or so just like you guys have been doing so far.

No need to build a boat. Just take an existing one, get together and use that only. ;)

[Scruffydog777]

I think the key to learning French or any other language for that matter to the point where you can usefuly use it if you went to France is to learn conversational French. You have to be able to carry on a conversation with someone who is fluent in it. Is there a way to do that in the forum? Is there a way forum members can with audio, actually carry on a conversation with each other?

[texasguy]

This isn't related to the forum, but through some other website called conversation exchange I messaged a girl from Paris who is trying to learn English, and she gave me her Skype username. I've only had 8 months of French, don't know how productive this will be! :nervous:

[Finpecia]

how do you do sir?

[PurpleMistyRain]

Shouldn't we all? Lol, well not me, 'cause I'm part French anyway, hahaha Merci, je sais, se sent bien

I make gifs of her, check 'em out

[Scruffydog777]

how do you do sir?

Shouldn't we all? Lol, well not me, 'cause I'm part French anyway, hahaha Merci, je sais, se sent bien

I make gifs of her, check 'em out

how do you do?

Well welcome aboard to what "looks" to be new members.

PurpleMistyRain! Did you mean to post a link to your gifs?

[alizeefan]

for me, it is just fun to learn french just to sing to Lilly's songs and her voice. to better understand her songs, the lyrics, and language. I do not speak fluent french, but I have come to know what she is saying during the songs.

I also am trying to learn the lyrics and words to her Rival 'Priscilla Prissou' who is another of my favorite french pop stars.

if it werent for Lilly and Prissie, I would have no use for french. But I think French is a very beautiful language, and wish i took it back in school.

One thing i've found helps me alot if i am having any difficulty pronouncing the word or hearing them is to slow the song down to half speed which you can do with many different players .

[Merci Alizée]

I'm wondering how many of you had formal education of French language.

[Rev]

Yes. Third grade through 7th grade. I have long since forgotten it all. :)

[Scruffydog777]

I had 2 years of it way back in juniour high school. Most of it forgotten, but I took the time to learn at least 12 of Alizee's French songs and the schooling I did have was a tremendous help in understanding how a lot of their sentances are structured and a lot of the major verbs and prepositons and articles they use, quickly came back to me.

[Rictor]

If I could go back in time, I would have taken French instead of Spanish back in Junior High. Back then I always felt that French sounded "snobby" but ever since Lilly, I've found it to be a beautiful language. Sigh...so many things I would have done differently if I could do it over again.

[user472884]

If I could go back in time, I would have taken French instead of Spanish back in Junior High. Back then I always felt that French sounded "snobby" but ever since Lilly, I've found it to be a beautiful language. Sigh...so many things I would have done differently if I could do it over again.

I actually think it's more beneficial to have an understanding of Spanish before tackling any other language.


It does a great job at introducing us Walmart-shopping Mare'cans to the concept of language actually having simple, logical rules.

Spanish: Words pronounced exactly how they're spelled, gender, sentence structure (Me llamo vs I am..), and you can get away with a horrible accent.

[Merci Alizée]

Yesterday I went to Alliance Française (http://bengale.afindia.org/) here in Kolkata. I asked them if I could enroll myself in intermediate course. When I told that whatever I learned till now was through online sources mostly, they suggested me to enroll in beginner course only.

One problem is that they don't allow you to join same course in some other city in case you move to different place. Next batch starts soon and I don't think I'll stay here for long time. What to do? :hmm:

[Scruffydog777]

I took 2 years of French way back in junior high school. I also took a year of Russian. I think the most valuable experience you can get in trying to learn a new language is to try and get into a converation with someone who speaks the language well.

When I was in juniour high, it was required that we take a language course. I thought it was stupid that it was required and I put no effort into it. We had 5 terms in a school year back then. if you flunked 3 terms in any subject you had to repeat the year. I had never been close to flunking out in a course before. That year I flunked the first 2 terms. At the end of the 3rd term, all I needed was a 35% to pass the term on the last test. I didn't study and I got a 30. I was devestated. Afterwards, my French teacher took me aside and told me if I applied myself, he would give me a passing grade. I couldn't believe it. Well in those last 2 terms I busted my behind and did very well. I was even pissed because the last test of the year was cancelled and I lost the chance to bring my grade up to an A. The following year, I did very well.

In my many years on this earth, I had little chance to use it. I probably would have been much better off learnig Spanish because I was much more exposed to people who spoke that language, but then Alizee came along and I wished I had learned the language much better, but still, I tried to learn several of her songs and I found that what I had learned way back then, was of a tremendous help in learning her songs.

Still I find when I listen to an interview of hers, I can hardly understand a word, mainly because she talks so fast compared to when she sings. A song like Moi Lolita is sung at a slow deliberate pace. It's relatively easy to pick out the words. That's no so when she's having a conversation. So like I said, speaking conversational French with someone who speaks it well, is the best way of learning it.

If you've been studying hard at the language so far, I say skip that basic course that they suggest you take. I'm sure it's just will be a rehash of what you already know well. Take the next course and if necessary, if you run into a stumbling block, be prepared to do some research. Come here and I'm sure our Frech speaking members will do their best to help you out.

I've also heard there are some excellent computer programs for learning the language. I will do some more research on that and get back to you.

[cotedazur]

Have anyone of you any experience of Aix-en-Provence? I am thinking of study french over there this fall. How is the town?

[ALS]

I had found this French organization here in town and noticed that you can take lessons from them for a nominal fee. When I decide to get serious and I can get the time, it is a extremely valuable asset. You may want to check to see if you have one of these French groups near you.

Meet up/French Lessons (http://www.meetup.com/FrenchLessons/)

[cotedazur]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am interested in going abroad and not study french in my hometown. Moreover, the school in Aix-en-Provence is included in the Swedish school system so there is no fee - I just have to pay for the accomodation.

So, if anyone have been to Aix, please tell me.

[lapinschous]

I've been to Aix at least two dozen times... it's a beautiful city , but if you're not a middle aged religious person fond of ancient architecture you quickly get bored ...

I say if you wanna have fun while learning I strongly advise big cities of the French riviera , like Marseille or Nice , it might turn out to be quite expensive though, so that's where my town comes in: Bordeaux :P You'll never get bored there and if you ever feel lonely there's people from all over the world there !

and obviously there's paris...

[Fall]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am interested in going abroad and not study french in my hometown. Moreover, the school in Aix-en-Provence is included in the Swedish school system so there is no fee - I just have to pay for the accomodation.

So, if anyone have been to Aix, please tell me.
Only a certain number of AAm members have been to France, but Texasbro (http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/member.php?u=5224) is there now, I'd ask him if he went there, and if so, what it was like :)

[cotedazur]

I've been to Aix at least two dozen times... it's a beautiful city , but if you're not a middle aged religious person fond of ancient architecture you quickly get bored ...

I say if you wanna have fun while learning I strongly advise big cities of the French riviera , like Marseille or Nice , it might turn out to be quite expensive though, so that's where my town comes in: Bordeaux :P You'll never get bored there and if you ever feel lonely there's people from all over the world there !

and obviously there's paris...

That's strange about Aix, because I've read a lot about it as a town full of students from many countries...?

I have been to Nice every summer since I was 12 and I really love it there, but in Nice the school is not free for me as it is in Aix. Like you say, I have heard only positive things about Bordeaux but I think it will be Aix or nothing for me due to the high costs.

[Scruffydog777]

Back in junior high school, I had taken 2 years of French and I have told the story of what happened back then. I never really had much of a need to speak French except for a couple of trips to Montreal and my honeymoon which included time in Paris.

Then at a late stage in my life Alizee came along. I wish I had known French better at that point, but I still didn't regret not learning it well , because I thought at some point soon this Alizee phenomenon would wear off. I did try and learn several of her songs though. But year after year has gone by, and the phenomenon is still there.

I never imagined her music would have such an impact on my life. One of the prime things I regret is not being able to figure out what I think is one of her most beautiful songs, but also one of her saddest songs, Coeur deja pris. I've seen a few interpretations and there are still a few lines I want to fully understand, but to this date can not.

So I urge anyone who wants to understand her music, to learn French to the best of their ability, until they hit that proverbial wall. I don't think it will be time wasted.