Has anyone here learned to speak French?

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Well... Now I'm crazy, probably, but I have come to a situation in which I would like to learn French and only because of Alizée! It would be great if you ever met her and could speak to her in French.

However, I understand that I don’t usually have an interest in learning languages, and sometimes in some cases I strive for perfection, so I’m probably not even daring to talk to anyone if I only had a weak French.

In other words, language learning should perhaps have broader motives, although, of course, it would always be useful regardless of the motive.

Clearly, many others have already considered the same here.

The question, then, is whether anyone has really learned French from the beginning and preferably on the principle of "hobby".

If ... So how do you learn what you did, how long did you try, etc! If anyone is, it would be nice to have tips!

[Elise]

Hei! So for me it was the other way around: my French led me to discovering Alizée instead of Alizée inspiring me to learn French. I’ve been learning on and off for a long while, though my French is nowhere near as good as your English. I agree with all you said, language learning is cool whatever the motive.

In terms of tips, there are loads of (free and paid) courses online to start with. Duolingo is popular for beginners. Once you start it is important to stay on the path and that learning remains enjoyable. So consume French media - for example listen to the news in French and watch YouTube in French. Do everything you would normally do but in French. Eat croissants and coffee for breakfast. Use the 24-hour clock. I’m on this journey myself and it’s pretty rewarding to be able to understand more and more. Just imagine understanding what Alizée says in her interviews!

Hope that helps a tiny bit. If I think of something helpful I will add it.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by Elise

Hei! So for me it was the other way around: my French led me to discovering Alizée instead of Alizée inspiring me to learn French. I’ve been learning on and off for a long while, though my French is nowhere near as good as your English. I agree with all you said, language learning is cool whatever the motive.

In terms of tips, there are loads of (free and paid) courses online to start with. Duolingo is popular for beginners. Once you start it is important to stay on the path and that learning remains enjoyable. So consume French media - for example listen to the news in French and watch YouTube in French. Do everything you would normally do but in French. Eat croissants and coffee for breakfast. Use the 24-hour clock. I’m on this journey myself and it’s pretty rewarding to be able to understand more and more. Just imagine understanding what Alizée says in her interviews!

Hope that helps a tiny bit. If I think of something helpful I will add it.

Good tips! Thanks! And great when you are studying French - and you have learned French! Which I am also a little jealous of! LOL.

It would be great if you could know in advance that you will meet Alizée someday, it would bring motivation to study even more!

[Alex Rien]

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

It would be great if you could know in advance that you will meet Alizée someday, it would bring motivation to study even more!

learn Corsican.

Corsicans are small but proud nation and they are proud of their language.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by Alex Rien

learn Corsican.

Corsicans are small but proud nation and they are proud of their language.

Good idea!

I didn’t even think or understand the whole thing that it could be better!

Plus is that it’s a bit like Italian.

Although I like to listen to French, I like Italian even more! (Corsican can therefore be a real jackpot!?)

[Elise]

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Good tips! Thanks! And great when you are studying French - and you have learned French! Which I am also a little jealous of! LOL.

Ha, it's nothing to be jealous of, anyone can do it! I still consider myself monolingual for now, as my French is still improving. And I thought of another tip then: I recommend "Study with Alizée". You listen to a new Alizée song - I like to start with just an audio version, in order to concentrate on listening to the words. Then you look up the lyrics and learn them to practise next time you play the song. Eventually you can sing it yourself and pretend you are Alizée singing to a crowd.

learn Corsican.

Corsicans are small but proud nation and they are proud of their language.

I hadn't thought of that but yes, why not. Although I thought there would not be as many resources out there for the regional languages such as Corsican. And I'm not sure how widely it's spoken, often these minority languages are only spoken by the older generation. I will do some research on that.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Elise

I hadn't thought of that but yes, why not. Although I thought there would not be as many resources out there for the regional languages such as Corsican. And I'm not sure how widely it's spoken, often these minority languages are only spoken by the older generation. I will do some research on that.

A few years ago when we at AAm wanted to send a gift to Alizee and Greg for the birth of Maggie, we got in contact (by email) with the owner of a store in Ajaccio that sold baby clothes. Luckily, she spoke English. And even more lucky, she was good friends with Alizee. We had a message we wanted on the card, and they designed a card for us. We wrote the message in regular French, but the owner gave us the option to translate it to Corsican French, which we agreed to do. They did the translation and sent us a picture of the card. There are some subtle differences and a few not so subtle differences. It's a local dialect and you are probably right that it will eventually die off, but for now, Alizee does speak it and being that she has spent most of her life in Corsica, probably prefers it over the French that the people on the mainland use.

If I ever had the choice, I would choose to learn regular French instead. Alizee understands it and knowing the language would be useful traveling around France or any other French speaking country.

[Scruffydog777]

I had taken a couple of years in French in high school, but that just teaches you the basics and not really enough to learn conversational French and the thing I felt I needed to learn it well that I never had was someone you could speak to on a regular basis who knew the language well. Today I imagine some of the programs that are available today are better equipped to do a better job of teaching it than was available back in my day.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by Elise

Ha, it's nothing to be jealous of, anyone can do it! I still consider myself monolingual for now, as my French is still improving. And I thought of another tip then: I recommend "Study with Alizée". You listen to a new Alizée song - I like to start with just an audio version, in order to concentrate on listening to the words. Then you look up the lyrics and learn them to practise next time you play the song. Eventually you can sing it yourself and pretend you are Alizée singing to a crowd.



I hadn't thought of that but yes, why not. Although I thought there would not be as many resources out there for the regional languages such as Corsican. And I'm not sure how widely it's spoken, often these minority languages are only spoken by the older generation. I will do some research on that.

Okay. Good tip again.

It could work, even if it seemed difficult at first. The French language is somehow so special when you compare what you hear and what the words are.

But gradually I could try that, calmly...

By the way, how long did it take to learn, ie, that you began to understand more?

[Elise]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

A few years ago when we at AAm wanted to send a gift to Alizee and Greg for the birth of Maggie, we got in contact (by email) with the owner of a store in Ajaccio that sold baby clothes. Luckily, she spoke English. And even more lucky, she was good friends with Alizee. We had a message we wanted on the card, and they designed a card for us. We wrote the message in regular French, but the owner gave us the option to translate it to Corsican French, which we agreed to do. They did the translation and sent us a picture of the card. There are some subtle differences and a few not so subtle differences. It's a local dialect and you are probably right that it will eventually die off, but for now, Alizee does speak it and being that she has spent most of her life in Corsica, probably prefers it over the French that the people on the mainland use.

If I ever had the choice, I would choose to learn regular French instead. Alizee understands it and knowing the language would be useful traveling around France or any other French speaking country.

Oh, perhaps we are talking about different things here. I took the first comment that advised learning Corsican to mean the Corsican language, which is a separate language in itself. It is not mutually intelligible with French and is much closer to Italian (native Italian speakers would understand it). As for the version of French spoken in Corsica, I thought it is just an accent. Like if you think about differences between the English spoken by a Londoner or a Scot, the words are the same but pronounced with different accents. So if words are different in Corsican French that is news to me.

The topic of minority languages in general is quite interesting to me. Languages die out every year. There are often debates about how to preserve them as most people agree it is important heritage. Maybe this is too off-topic now, I just think it's cool.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I had taken a couple of years in French in high school, but that just teaches you the basics and not really enough to learn conversational French and the thing I felt I needed to learn it well that I never had was someone you could speak to on a regular basis who knew the language well. Today I imagine some of the programs that are available today are better equipped to do a better job of teaching it than was available back in my day.

Yes, it is hard when you don't have someone to speak with but there are more resources than ever thanks to internet!

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Okay. Good tip again.

It could work, even if it seemed difficult at first. The French language is somehow so special when you compare what you hear and what the words are.

But gradually I could try that, calmly...

By the way, how long did it take to learn, ie, that you began to understand more?

Music lyrics are the harder things for listening practice and even in English music I remember never being able to work out which words they were saying...

It's difficult to say exactly how long this took and I'm still learning. I started in my young childhood and picked it up again a couple of years ago in a more enthusiastic and proactive way, trying to absorb words and watch street interviews. How much I understand of something really depends on how slow/fast they speak.