Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben.Daly
[I]Would like to hear if there are any native English speakers here who went on to learn French, or anyone really, is it worth it? Would the commute into town and time lost be worth the endeavour? Any thoughts or feedback is appreciated  |
Hey, Ben…
It would really depend upon what your future “aims” in life are…
From a “global” life context, “French”, as a language, is not really in “widespread” use, apart from in France, or a few of its “ex-possessions”, so, unless you plan on “working”, or “living” in these areas, it is of very limited “practical” use to you…
From a more “personal” point of view, learning it in order to better understand “Alizée, and her works”, I wish it was really that… “simple”…
Let me use my own "experience" as an example…
I was informed by my “Boss” that we had a big “combined op” with one of our “European allies”, coming up, I was going to be the “liaison officer” for this “gig”, and, “by the way, I had a just under a month to get myself to the point where I was beyond “technically fluent” in the French language”…
Well, his very “wish” was “my command”, so within the month, between using “online courses”, having a truly “excellent tutor”, and, from my “previous experience” with the French I had taken at “secondary school", I was deemed to be “beyond technically fluent”, if not “excellent”, with regard to both “written”, and “spoken” French…
Well, that “delightful notion”, didn’t “survive contact” with the first native French speaker that I encountered…
<Hmmph
>
She informed me that I had a wonderful “Scot’s accent, with a cute French “burr” to it”, which sounded really “sweet”, she could quite happily “listen to it all day”, but despite all of my efforts, I had just mastered “French Baby talk, 101”...
She was right, the stuff we “learn overseas” really doesn’t “hack it”. You really need to be actively “conversing” with, and “learning” from, a wide range of "actual" “native” French linguists /language sources, continually, for every region in France has its own “dialects”, “usages”, and colloquialisms, none of which bear any similarity to the “Vanilla French” that is taught “overseas”…
So, if you truly want to “understand” Alizée, then take your courses at school, (plus a wee bit of “Italian”, or even “Coriscan”, would be helpful), and then get “online” and do a lot of “conversing” with “actual” French people…
Now, will that help you understand any of Alizée’s works, any better!?
Well, the French are absolutely “in love” with the “notion”, and “art”, of the “double entendre”, often to the point of when even they, themselves, forget about what in the “name of god” they were actually “talking about”, and “referring to”, in the first place…
A “case in point” being a lot of Alizée’s “works”. Very skillfully "written", with an immense amount of “double entendre” “wordplay”, in them. But, often, this “skilled wordplay”, “obscures” the actual “message” and “content” that they are trying to “convey”, and the whole thing ends up being so “ambiguous”, that it appears to make “very little sense”, and ends up just looking like “nonsense”…
Especially to “non native” French language users…
"Bottom line"…
My advice to you would be this. If this is part of a “bigger” life goal, then “go for it”, most especially when you are young, and it’s easier to pick up languages…
However, if this is just a “passing fancy”, aimed at “understanding” Alizée, et al, then this is going to require a lot of really “diligent” study, and very hard, continual work, to get you to where you would “want to be”…
Only you will know if this is “worth it”, to you…
<And at the “end of the day”, we do have “Google Translate”, for the “small” things>