Stressed Out

It occurred to me today, while watching 'Inspecteur Barnaby' (The Midsomer Murders) in dubbed French, that it's not just vocabulary and pronunciation of words that deter me from understanding all the dialogue in these programs.  A whole lot of it has to do with stress--and I don't mean the kind you have to take a tranquilizer for.  Every now and then I can isolate a word or phrase that I didn't grasp at first because, even though often the words are cognates of English, such as the 'tion' words, the stress on a syllable was not what I'd expect.

As you know, French syllables are for the most part stressed evenly, with a slight emphasis on the last syllable, at least most of the time.  This peculiarity often involves a word that, if I were to see in writing, I'd recognize immediately, but because of the rhythm the stress creates, the word or phrase seems 'foreign.'

Now, what to do about this problem?  It seems that, as with so many things in learning a new language, the only remedy is to listen, listen, and the listen again.  I suppose that finally recognizing and acknowledging this issue is a major breakthrough.  As seems to be so often the case, French instructors often fail to point out this difference in spoken French and instead focus more on reproducing French vowel sounds and other phonetic matters.  Understanding how French is accented is crucial in learning to comprehend spoken French, because the rhythm that the stress creates in a sentence affects the way individual words are heard by English speakers.  Often the stress at the end of one word will merge with the beginning of the next word, so that both words sound completely different than they are written. 

So, I've got a lot of tuning up to do on my ears.  Back to the drawing board; or rather, back to the Inspecteur.

A la prochaine...

Suddenly It Stays

I'm convinced more and more that the key to speaking a language you're learning is selective repetition.  Notice I've used the word 'selective' there.  I'm on lesson 27 in the Pimsleur all-audio course for French.  One of the methods of that learning program is to present common words and phrases to the learner and repeat them not only in the lesson in which they are introduced, but to re-introduce them in subsequent lessons.  I've found that after dozens of these repetitions, some phrases just come naturally and I no longer have to retrieve the grammar rules and vocabulary, which is painstakingly slow and unnatural sounding, but the words and grammar just seem to arise in my mind before I even have time to think.  The narrator on the program will often ask for a specific response to a question posed in French and expects an immediate reaction from the listener, also in French.  When I first began to learn the phrases, I had to pause the recording and rack my brain for the proper grammar sequence and vocabulary. 

This is why it seems to me that the only way to improve one's French speaking skills is to get at least a medium-sized cache of the most used words and phrases of the language.  These items should be drilled until they just come right to the tip of the tongue; that's what happens when we speak in our own language.  I suppose for someone with a photographic memory and instant retrieval could get by creating thoughts and expressions as she goes, but for most of us it's a matter of drilling it into our brains. 

Of course this is not as important if you're only interested in reading, writing, or listening to the language.  In those situations, you usually have time to get your thoughts together.  When you're having a conversation, long pauses are usually very uncomfortable and make for very unsatisfying results. 

It is very gratifying to me when I'm able to answer the Pimsleur narrator's questions and respond to his scenarios without having to pause to plan what I want to say.  I can only imagine what it's like when this ability becomes so dominant that you almost feel that you've found he holy grail of language learning: fluency. 

A la prochaine...

The Message is the Medium

I've been watching the American TV hit 'The Mentalist' dubbed in French with French subtitles.  I've decided that watching with French subtitles first is definitely the way to go.  I watched the show first with the subtitles on (only French subs--no English), trying to simultaneously pay attention to the spoken French.  This is not an easy task, because sometimes (a lot of the time, actually) the subtitles don't quite match the French dialogue.  I presume that this is because the dubbed audio has to be adjusted so that it matches the movement of the actors' mouths.

Still, I found that when I viewed the video a second time, with the subtitles turned off, I was able to grasp much, much more of the spoken French.

Another thing I learned was that one reason it's so difficult to comprehend the spoken French of these shows is that there are quite a few words and idiomatic expressions being used that I simply don't know.  Even seeing the dialogue in subtitles won't fix this problem.  Obviously, this barrier can only be overcome by religiously pausing the video and looking up the words/phrases in a dictionary.  My French pen-pal, Denis, actually sent me a very good link for understanding French idioms and slang expressions.  It's not easy to use because it's from the French version of the Internet and everything, phrases and their definitions, is all in French.  But I find that I know enough vocabulary that this does not pose a major problem.

I enjoyed the two episodes of 'The Mentalist' I watched.  Though the series is aired on network and cable TV in the U.S., NetFlix US does not offer the series, opting instead for the heart-throb Simon Baker's earlier hit show, The Guardian--not nearly as interesting, I'd say.  It's just interesting enough to make one want to watch it all the way through, but not so interesting that you can't concentrate on the language while you're watching. 

Un Village français

I'd been wanting to see it for some time.  Luckily, I know about Hola, which is an add-on that allows one to 'unblock' foreign websites.  The idea is to 'fool' the system into thinking the user is accessing the Internet in a country of your choice.  If you can achieve this little trick,  you can access that service in the country you're unblocking, if you have a NetFlix account, and watch the movies and TV shows that are offered by NetFlix specifically for that audience. 

Thus, I was able to access the entire first several seasons of Un village français, an intense and very well directed and acted dramatic series from France.  And I was pleasantly surprised.  It's a good old-fashioned epic of war-torn France--set in the fictional village of Villeneuve.  I had planned to just watch for a few seconds to see if it's something worth coming back to, but I ended up sitting at my laptop for almost an hour, totally mesmerized.  It's fast moving and very emotional and intense. 

Because of copyright protections, the series is not available on YouTube, but there are some trailers and samples there.  Here's one:

Hey, You Talkin' ta ME?

Though I really like the Pimsleur all-audio method for learning a language, I frankly don't see how it can work with less phonetic oriented languages like German and French.  I listened to a sample lesson of Pimsleur German and discovered that I could very easily pick up incorrect pronunciation if I relied solely on the listen/repeat style of the program.  There were many words and phrases that I strongly sensed I was way off in my pronunciation.  In my forays into French, Italian, and Spanish, I never began listening and speaking before I had at least a brief peak into the written form of the language.  And there are many French words that I don't see how I could even begin to pronounce correctly if I didn't know what they looked like spelled out.

Now, except for this one flaw, I feel that I have tremendously benefited from Pimsleur for all three languages that I am studying right now.  It's great to hear the phrases repeated multiple times and to try to mimic the pronunciations of the natives who are speaking on the recordings.  Also the program requires you to speak, so that you don't get lazy and just listen.  Another very valuable feature is that I am asked to respond to questions and comments made by the native speakers, so that I get the feel of a real conversation.  It is also very helpful that previously learned material is re-presented frequently in subsequent lessons.  It's easy to forget what one has learned if you only hear it once and you never run into it again.

I wish that I had understood back when I first began to study French, many years ago, how important it is not to get too comfortable with merely reading and writing it.  Language is meant to be spoken and you can never learn the rhythms and tones of the language unless you listen and attempt to speak frequently and determinedly.  It's very frustrating when I think of all the time and money I spent studying French at a university, only to end up unable to carry on even a simple conversation or to understand the French in the easiest children's TV cartoon.  Now, hopefully, I can make up for lost time.

 A plutard...

French Is Alive and Well (and living in Africa)

Ah, mon petit blog mon pauvre petit blog français!  Comme je t'ai négligé! 

I see from my stats that this blog gets more views than either of my other two--though not a single one is coming from France.  Hmmm.  My negligence, I suppose, is the result of over-extending my blogging resources and trying to maintain and update three separate blogs regularly.  I shall see what I can do to make amends.

As I've mentioned before, French is the language I'm most confident with, though sadly I have lost some of the enthusiasm I had when I was a college student majoring in it.  Blame that on Italian.  Still, if there is one language (other than English, of course) with which I might consider carrying on a conversation with a native speaker, it would most definitely be French.  I know more vocabulary; I know the grammar reasonably well (even the simpler subjunctive mood tenses); and I'm more adept at the most difficult aspect of speaking in a foreign language: putting the words in the right order to form sentences that won't sound weird to a native.  

Too bad about French, isn't it?  There is considerable evidence that, though it is still a formidable player in the language game, according to this article, Top Ten Most Used Languages it no longer places in the top ten most used tongues of the world.  This is distressing news since, though the musical tones and nuances of Italian and the practicality of Spanish has distracted me lately, it is a lovely language with a long and distinguished history.  

Indeed, my French pen-pal says that almost all contemporary pop singers in France sing in English and struggle to get concert gigs in the United States.  Quel dommage!  French sounds very musical and one only needs to listen to Edith Piaf or Jacques Brel to appreciate its beauty and power.  

So, let's hope French can hold its own as Chinese, English, and Spanish all have their day in international dominance.  There are still plenty of people who insist that it's the most beautiful tongue in the world and it seems unlikely that it will decline precipitously.  Ce serait impensable.

Yet, there may be hope on the horizon. Check out this USA Today article about the future of French and how Africa plays a significant role in its promise for the future: The Future of French

The cats on the pew purr, plus meow

J'ai un peu de peur des rues françaises .  If I didn't complete botch it up, that means 'I'm a little afraid of French streets.  French has so many 'unEnglish' sounds.  I've already mentioned the travails of trying to pronounce the French word for 'street,' rue, which is double-trouble.  First, you have to deal with the throaty 'r' sound and then with one of the many possible pronunciations of  'u.'  So, a neophyte has to avoid the tendency to anglicize the word and pronounce it 'roo,' which is wrong on two counts.  Then there's the problem of the 'u' sound in a word like peu (a little or a little bit).  If you were to pronounce it like the English word 'pew,' you'd be close enough that you just might be understood by a Frenchwoman, if she takes the word in the context of the rest of your sentence.  But that's not quite right.  To me it sounds as though you're starting to say 'pew' but sort of chop it off at the end.  It always sounds like it has an almost imperceptible 'r' sound in there somewhere, sort of like the British often tack on a faint 'r' sound to some words ending in 'a' (though they would rigorously deny that they are doing such a thing).  But if you put too much of an 'r' sound on the word peu, it would sound dangerously like peur, the French word for 'fear.'  Damned if you do; damned if you don't.  And then there's also the word plus to deal with.  What it takes to get this right is listening and repeating the correct sounds ad infinitum. Here's a little video that deals with some of these problems: 

Well let's switch gears for a moment.  All this talk of the subtleties of French pronunciation is giving me un peu de peur.  Fortunately my local library carries copies of the CD's for Pimsleur's French.  I believe they have levels from beginner to advanced.  The problem is that it appears that there is no way to change the format of the CD materials to mp3's that I could save them on the device I use to listen to French when I do my daily exercise.  Presumably, that's technically illegal anyhow.  So, I do have a portable CD player, but the issue is that it seems to require a huge amount of battery energy, and I'm forced to replace the batteries so often that it gets to be rather expensive.  I suppose I need to start buying rechargeable batteries, since I think I do have a charger somewhere.  Anyway, the Pimslear CD's are very good, I think.  native speakers introduce a series of conversational type dialogues, so that you learn the right pronunciation in small, manageable chunks.  I also like the way it makes you participate in the dialogue.  Nothing but listen-and-repeat can be counterproductive.  One needs to be ready with a quick, unforced response to typical conversational questions.  I can't afford to buy the CDs, though I do think they are worth the price for serious language learners.

A la prochaine...

Call Me Mr. Samsa

Bonne journée, mes copains.  Finalment, il est mars--le printemps arrivera bientôt.  

Call me Monsieur Gregor Samsa, aujourd'hui.  No, I didn't wake up as a cockroach, but as a yo-yo.  Yesterday I was italiano, but today I'm distinctly français .  At first I tried to control these spontaneous metamorphoses, but I've decided that it's useless to resist.  My affection for French, Spanish, and Italian are equal--with a slight bias towards the latter.  But I don't think I can completely abandon any of them.



The disadvantages of this infidelity are two-fold:  1) the hours I'm putting in for one language take away those I could be immersing myself in another and 2) since all three tongues are Latin-based and therefore somewhat similar, there's a danger of getting them confused.  I've already experienced that with Italian and Spanish, languages in which many words only slightly differ.  

I think what rolled me over to my French personality recently is that I'm finally beginning to feel a little better at comprehending more oral French.  Watching Inspecteur Barnaby (the French dubbed version of 'Midsomer Murders,' one of my favorite British detective shows) recently, I was delighted to find that I was capturing more and more of the dialogue, instead of hearing only a word or two here and there.  Since one of my main objectives for studying language has been to be capable of watching foreign films and TV shows in the original language without subtitles, this is a major breakthrough.  

So, how did this step-up in fluency transpire?  One thing that has contributed, I think, is that I've placed more emphasis on speaking.  Ironically, speaking French somehow helps in recognizing the sounds of spoken French.  And since I don't have access to any natives, my primary venue for speaking has been my library copy of Pimsleur's French instruction CD, which put a great deal of emphasis on speaking.  That, coupled with reading French aloud, has made some inroads.  This progress is very important, because if I have less difficulty with comprehension, this new-found skill will most definitely make me more confident to approach the next stage:  speaking face-to-face with a native speaker on Sykpe or some equivalent audio-video platform.

So today I have on my chapeau.  Tomorrow don't be surprised if I show up in a sombrero.  I'm a man of many hats.

A la prochaine...

Rude Awakening

Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs.  Comment allez-vous, cette matin? 

Today's ramblings (divagations, according to Google Translate) are on the controversial question 'Are Parisians unfriendly and rude?  I've heard resounding oui's on this topic and just as many vehement non's.  

I've heard that they are rude to you in Paris only if you make no effort at all to speak their language.  Some say that if you bonjour them a little, they are like putty in your hands.  There is probably at least a partial truth in that.  English speakers, especially Americans, are notorious for thinking everybody is born speaking English, so I can see why such an attitude might come across as arrogant and disrespectful.  And yet, I was surprised to see a short film clip in which the interviewer was going about the city asking various people (permanent residents as well as passing tourists) what they thought of the city.  A few said it was merveilleux, others sort of noncommittally noted the culture and lovely sights, but quite a few said Parisians were bitter, angry, and impolite people.  Here's a very funny CNN video about what Paris is trying to do to be more 'user friendly:

 

Here's a video about what Paris is trying to do to improve its public relations

I'd say, to be fair, that it's all about the hustle and bustle and diversity of living in a big city.  I lived in New York for decades and know that it was not always easy to make an effort to be polite to the tourists, who were there on vacation, while I was still in the day-to-day rat-race.   And perhaps there are some people who provoke rudeness.  And when you're trying to squeeze into a subway car packed like sardines, it's quite easy to accidentally poke one's elbow into someone's face.  And if you went around all day begging their pardon, you'd be apologizing all day.  

But still, we need to be civilized to each other.  Tourists are spending euros and dollars, so they need to know that they can be safe and comfortable, whether in Paris, Rome, or Boise, Idaho.  

À plus tard...

French Lit

Parlons de literature au'jourd'hui, d'accord?  I wish I liked French poetry more.  Perhaps I just haven't been introduced to the right author.  Yes, Baudelaire can be good, and Rimbaud and his side-kick, Verlaine (actually I like V. better), but I've just never found specific poets that I admire enough to learn to read well in French.  I have plenty of favorite Spanish and Italian poets, but French poetry sometimes leaves me cold.  That's in no way saying that I'm denying its importance or it popularity with other people.  I just haven't found a poet who keeps me coming back.

I do a little better with prose fiction.  I've enjoyed reading Flaubert and Zola in their original tongue and have almost navigated the whole of Proust's gargantuan series of novels.  There is certainly a wider selection of novels and short stories available in French, the list of famous novelists is striking:  Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo, Camus, Gide....  To be truthful, though I do like Gide quite a bit, I find that it is the fluffier stuff that I return to, e.g., Jules Verne. 

Just as when I'm practicing reading Spanish or Italian fiction, in French I often find myself reading French translations of English novels--most because the stories are already familiar and the French seems a bit easier and less idiomatic.  Naturally, this is really just cheating.  One eventually needs to read French unfiltered and get used to the unique 'flavor' of the prose.

One nice thing about having an i-Pad or Kindle, or some other type of hand-held, is that there are a lot of absolutely free public domain works in every major language.  There are many sites that offer not only ebooks, but also audio-book renditions of many classic French novels and stories and poems.  Just Google 'free ebooks' or 'free audiobooks.'  Happy reading.

A la prochaine...

Le rêve impossible

 I've decided to add a second post today, because I've come to some tentative conclusions about my language learning and wanted to roll it around in my mind for awhile.  The best way to do that, I find, is to write about it.

   

The last several months of juggling French and Italian have forced me to make certain assumptions about learning either of these languages with at least a moderate fluency.

French, Italian, or none of the above?

I've concluded that it is impossible (and I'm not exaggerating) to learn to comprehend spoken French without living in France or at least living with a native speaker for many years.  Speaking French is not the issue here.  My pronunciation is passable, if not good, and I can form most of the basic structures one needs to carry on a simple conversation. It's understanding a native Frenchperson speaking it that is so discouraging.

When I watch an Italian TV show, even if it's original Italian and not dubbed English, I find that even though my Italian vocabulary is much more limited than my French one, I can understand so many more of the words and sentences I'm hearing than I can when watching a similar show in French.   Conversational French, when spoken at a typical pace, is just almost a whole different language than written or very formal French.  For example, when I hear 'Qu'est-ce que se passe?' it sounds like 'Skuh-spahce?'  Of course, English speakers do exactly the same thing:  'Wasappnin? for What's happening?'.  But I don't think I'd ever get the hang of it, without being exposed to it every day and having someone around to do a little patient translating and explaining.  The other day I heard it's common in France to call a week-end le wee.

In some ways, I guess this may be a good thing, because I can continue to improve my French reading and speaking skills, but zero in on Italian vocabulary and comprehension.  Not to offend any French readers out there--I do appreciate French, but Italian has always been more attractive to me.  I think I'd be able to get to a level where I can understand spoken Italian even without too much face-to-face interaction.

But experience has shown that I may feel exactly the opposite tomorrow or the next day.  I guess I'm easily distracted.  :)

Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Pourquoi?

I found the 'My 7 Top...' picture on Google Images and decided I'd try to build today's post around it.  I approach this endeavor cautiously, because I'm not sure I can come up with 7; on the other hand, who knows, once I get warmed up maybe 7 won't be enough.

I suppose I have what has been traditionally described as a love/hate relationship to French.  There are some things I like about it, many of which I'll mention in my list, but other things which I'm either tepid toward or just plain don't care for.  A lot of those puckered up 'pew' sounds sort of grate on my ears at times, as do so many guttural or throaty sounds that sound like one is clearing her throat or has something lodged under his adam's apple and is trying to eject it.  But this is supposed to be about the things I like about it and why I choose to try to learn, if not master, French.  So, here goes:

********************************************************************************

1. For the most part, in spite of the negatives about its distinct audio peculiarities mentioned above, it's a pretty tongue.  French differs from most of the other Romance languages in its paucity of words ending with vowels.  This is somewhat deceptive, though, in the fact that so many final letters are not pronounced that often words end with vowel-like sounds, especially those nasal and guttural sounds.  There are also some very pleasant sounding words--papillon (butterfly) comes to mind.
2. In spite of its habitual use of the subjunctive mood and its unpredictable use of prepositions, I think French is a fairly easy language for English speakers to pick up.  Since modern English owes a great deal of its development to Normal French, there are thousands of English words that either look exactly like French words or a bear an easily recognized resemblance.  Practically all of the words ending in 'tion,' for example, derive from French.  Also the sentence structure, though bearing some significant differences, follows English pretty closely. 
3. French was the first foreign language I was introduced to.  I grew up in a small, rural Mississippi town and it happened to be the only language class offered.  Had I had a choice, I might just as easily have chosen Spanish (at that time not as proliferate in the U.S. as it is now), German, or Italian.  Because the idea of being able to speak in a second language always seemed glamorous and special for me, I transported my enthusiasm to college and majored in French, even getting a B.A. in it.  Thus, I have the advantage of experience (I've studied French off and on informally for decades since then) and trying to master something other than French at this point would be starting back at square one.  In other words, I guess my third reason for learning French is convenience.
4. Wow, I've already made it to four.  Definitely on a roll (en français: dans une bonne passe).  Though not as practical (at least in America) as learning Spanish, French is still widely spoken in various parts of the world.  Quebec is to our north; Haiti's not that far away; and there's French Guyana in South America.  And a dialect 'Cajun' French is spoken in a city I've loved and lived in for several years, New Orleans (Nouvelle-Orléans) and other parts of the state of Louisiana.  I'd find it much easier to locate a French speaker without going to Europe (expensive) than I would be able to conjure up an Italian speaker.
5. Because of its universal popularity as a second language, there is a bounty of learning materials for French.  When I was dabbling in Italian, one problem was that in the U. S. the pickings are slim for books, CDs, online sites, etc., for that language.  And novels and other fiction in Italian?  For get about it; most of them have to be directly imported from Italy, so the shipping costs are astronomical. 
6. French makes you popular.  I'm not completely sure why, but most English speakers swoon over someone of the opposite sex (and sometimes the same sex) chatting away in French.  I suppose it has something to do with English being so akin to French, from the Norman invasion and all.  And it does have some very beautiful rhythms and tones.
7. And finally, there's literature and culture.  French literature has a long and distinguished history.  Some of what are considered the greatest novelists of all time, Proust comes to mind, are French.  And there's philosophy, music, and those zany impressionists painters :).  

Voilà.  Now that wasn't so hard after all.  I'm reasonably confident that I could come up with more, but that will do for now.  French is thriving with no signs of letting up.  What are your reasons for learning French?

A la prochaine...

Fast-Talking Dudes from Provence

Bien.  Today I feel much more French than yesterday, when Italian was rolling around in my head.

I sometimes worry about dialects.  When I read about how, for example, people in Provence speak French so fast and with so many non-standard variations that it's practically indecipherable for someone trained to speak textbook French, I get nervous.  I find that a bit discouraging.  I think one of the best things a language learner can do is avoid such thinking.  I'm not on my way to Provence (and could very well never be), so why fret over something that may never happen?

Lavender Field of Provence, France

I wonder if it works the other way around; if  Provençals understand people who are using standard French.  As for the fast talking, that seems to be a problem no matter what language you're learning.  One must always learn the phrases 'Répétez, s'il vous plaît' and 'Parlez plus lentement' right off the bat.  

One thing that, I think, helps is to practice speaking faster.  That seems to get you used to conditions in which you have to think quickly and to get the main gist of the conversation without concentrating on individual words.  Also, it goes the other way.  Though it's comforting to listen to French spoken at a pace slower than normal conversation, it's not going to help much when you run into a Frenchwoman speaking a mile-a-minute.  

A prochaine...

OK. Remind Me Again, What Language Do I Speak?

 

Eh bien, it's Wednesday, so I must be French today.  Je suis un homme français aujourd'hui.  I know because I rushed to update this blog first as opposed to my Italian one, http://dailyitalian123.blogspot.com/.  As all my thousands of followers (dream-on, Guillaume :)) know, I have a severe case of multiple language personalities and I could wake up on any give day a vieux chevalier, vaquero, o un cavaliere disinvolto.  Pour maintenant, j'suis un gentilhomme français.  No, I'm not a lunatic; I'm only exaggerating (a little).

I think I'm vulnerable to this disorder (dis-ORDER)  

1. because I'm not a very orderly person, and
2. because I'm eager to get to the point where I can carry on a reasonably complex conversation and understand responses in that conversation in at least one language besides English.  

For some reason, it's hard to pinpoint, I'm finding Italian slow-going and that getting even a tiny bit fluent in it would take much, much longer than French or Spanish.  Besides, I'm way ahead of the game in French, because I had four years of formal in-class training in it and have at least partially maintained my skills with it over the years.  As for Spanish, its pronunciation and its compact grammar just seem to make it easier for English speakers to absorb.  When I carry on made-up conversations with myself (Watch it, now!  Je ne suis pas un lunatique) in French, I don't have to struggle to get something out, even if it's not perfect.  When I attempt to do that in Italian, it seems much harder.  Some of that has to do with Italian's quirky rhythm and tones, the very thing that makes it so beautiful.  Syllables in specific Italian words can be stressed just about anywhere, and if you learn the incorrect stress, then it's hard to undo that habit.  French, for the most part has very consistent stress on every syllabe equally, though with a slight emphasis on the last syllable.  I could, I suppose, just learn to read Italian and set French as my 'working' language.  

But I know that though I feel this way today, tomorrow is Thursday and I may wake up Italian, or Spanish, or maybe even German.  Guten Tag!

A la prochaine...

May I Have a Word with You, Please?

I'm in search of a good vocabulary-learning book.  Both for French and Italian.  I have purchased a few, but it seems to me that nobody has quite got the knack of how to teach vocabulary.  Yes, there's the old-fashion method of memorizing long lists.  And there are software programs, such as Anki, that are designed for vocabulary drill and measured repetition of learned words and phrases.  But the only way I truly implant new words in my feeble (and getting feebler by the day) brain is by using them in context.  It's unlikely I'll recall the French word for 'lazy,' paresseux, unless I see it used in a sentence.  M. Stewart est très paresseux.  Also most of these vocabulary books present an overwhelming amount of material.  Yes, they try to break it down into categories, but it still amounts to so many words and expressions that it's impossible to sufficiently drill on them long enough to make them stick.  I'm beginning to think that the best way to acquire new vocabulary is to read, which is the way we beefed up our vocabulary when we were children.  

Still, I'd like to build up a cache of the most commonly used and most helpful, say, 5,000 words in the target language.  If anyone reading this (come out, come out, wherever you are :)) has a favorite vocabulary book or software package or CD, let me know.  

A la prochaine...

Paris Is in France; but Is It France?

Not really up to writing all this in my tentative French today.  We'll have to settle for plain ol' English for awhile.

I suppose that 'French' for most Americans always conjures up Paris, much the way New York City comes to mind when Europeans think of the United States.  But just as NYC is only a small component of les Étas-Unis, Paris is merely the largest and most renown part of La France.  

I think that if I ever get the opportunity to visit France, I'd skip Paris (assuming it's the only trip I'll ever make to that country) and give other less glamorous towns and cities a prominent place on my itinerary.  And I would make sure that I sample all the many regions of the country; I'm sure Bretagne has an entirely different flavor than Nice or Cannes.  

And having lived in New York for many years, I think Paris might get tiresome.  I've seen plenty of museums, plays, and trendy bars.  I'd like to see the French alps or the lavender fields of Provence.  

If a Frenchwoman visits the U.S. and only sees New York City, she will go away thinking all Americans look and think like New Yorkers.  Believe me, this is the farthest thing from the truth.  New Yorkers (even the transported ones) are a breed of their own.  You'd need to stop by Houston, Miami, San Francisco, and even Chicago to get a sense of what such a large country as USA is all about.  I'd think the same would apply to Paris.   

A la prochaine.  Bonne  journée.

Guillaume tente d'écrire en français

J'ai décidé d'essayer d'écrire ce blog entièrement en français pour cette post.  S'il y a des lecteurs qui lisent français couramment, peut-être qu'ils me excuserez de nombreuses erreurs. C'est seulement quand on commence à exprimer des idées quotidiennes en français parlé ou écrit que le progrès commence. 
Même le simple fait d'écrire ces quelques mots est extrêmement plus difficile que de faire un exercice d'un manuel.  

Néanmoins, je vais continuer d'essayer. Je me concentre davantage sur l'italien ces jours, mais c'est idiot de oublier tout mon français. Je ai travaillé trop dur et je ai passé trop d'argent pour simplement oublier tout cela.

Jusqu'à la prochaine,
Guillaume

Trop Vieux?

 Gary Fico, Il est le meme que moi.  I've posted this before, but it's so cute, I couldn't resist reposting.

We've all heard a lot about how difficult, if not impossible, it is for someone older than their teens to learn a new language.  William Alexander in his charming book Flirting with French discusses this humorously and thoroughly and concludes, for the most part, that he's not convinced.  Neither am I.  Even if it is true that a certain part of our brain loses its capacity to recognize new tones and nuances (how they can claim that's true without scanning everybody's brains is beyond me), I feel that older learners bring things to the table that an acne-plagued 16-year-old may not possess.  By adulthood we've finished college, and if we took French or some other second language, we've got most of the grammar and basic vocabulary already snug under our ever-expanding belts.  Also if we take up or resume language study as a late adult, we're probably doing it with conviction (or at least as a serious hobby).  I know when I was studying French in college, I was constantly playing hooky from language lab sessions and did not apply myself nearly as much as I would if I enrolled today.  In addition, more and more self-study materials are being produced all the time these days, and there are programs that will drill us in pronunciation that is closer to a native speaker's.  And so we have an accent.  I know dozens of people who absolutely swoon when they hear someone who is French speaking English with a strong French accent.  And Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau's fake accent in the Pink Panther movies is funny, but endearing.

Seems to me that all those pundits and linguists who publish findings about how we older language learners are doomed to failure would do better to keep that little tidbit to themselves.  It's frightens and discourages perfectly sincere and hard-working people away from the magnificent pursuit of learning a second (or more) language. 

Pimsleur: bon, mauvais ou médiocre?

I've tried to avoid using this site in any way to promote products.  Still, there is one language learning resource that I feel compelled to comment on:  Pimsleur's audio recordings.

I haven't tried Rosetta Stone or Rocket French or any of the other online French instruction programs out there (with the exception of Duolingo, which is free and not bad at all), mostly because I can't afford their steep prices.  Luckily, my local library carries the Pimsleur series of CDs for learning French, so I check those out multiple times.

What I like most about Pimsleur's instruction method is that it introduces very  small chunks of material at a time.  Then the user is allowed to echo and drill on a word, phrase or sentence several times.  And even better, the same material is re-introduced frequently as the lessons proceed.  I find this system very efficacious and I've been pleased with my progress.  For me newly learned material just does not stick in my brain until I've heard it and mimicked it several times.  I also like the content of the programs.  Most of the phrases and sentences are items that one would normally use on a day-to-day basis.  So many French materials are geared toward young high school or college kids and use the familiar 'tu' too much.  Pimsleur seems a little more geared to adults and autodidacts.

I find myself at one point feeling much more comfortable reproducing the sentences and dialogues with confident pronunciation and intonation.  I also really like the fact that the narrator forces the listener to interact and become involved in the material.  He/She will ask questions and leave a pause for the listener to respond to questions that might come up in a typical French conversation on the street.

And finally, another big plus for me is that it's all audio.  This means that I can put the CD into my portable CD player and listen while I'm doing my daily exercise--walking--thus killing two birds with one stone,  though I don't recommend ever killing birds, even one :) 

In Remembrance of Things Past

Marcel Proust (Image from Google Images, Public Domain)

I'm embarrassed to admit that I still have a little trouble determining when to use passé composé or imparfait.  Especially since I have an MA in English, so grammar should come easier in any language.  Most of the time I get it right, but I have to apply a sort of artificial logic.  In English it just seems intuitive.  What helps is the typical textbook recommendation to use 'was' or 'were' as signposts for imparfait and 'has' or 'had' for passé composé.  Every now and then, though, I get it wrong.  I still haven't developed that intuitive assurance in French yet--which is discouraging considering how many years I've put into mastering it. 

I think part of the problem is that in English, both tenses are often expressed by the same word.  'Everyday I played in the park, and I played in the park yesterday.'  The first 'played' is imperfect and means that 'I used to play in the park all the time (ongoing); the second use of the verb implies that I played in the past, but stopped playing when yesterday was finished.  I know this is a very clumsy example, but it's all I can think of for the moment.  The point is that in this case the simple past and the imperfect are the same word.  It's not necessary to say 'Everyday I used to play (or was playing) in the park, and yesterday I have played in the park.'  The tenses are just implied by the 'time words.'  
  
I'm confident that eventually, if I keep my nose to the grind, I will become more confident and spontaneous about distinguishing between the two very essential tenses.  This is probably why trying to learn a language strictly from a textbook and grammar rules is not a good idea.  You just have to learn the distinct rhythm and feel of a language; then often the grammar will just fall into place.  I've mentioned before that when French speakers ask me to explain a component of English grammar, I often find it very difficult to do so, because the structure or phrase has just become so natural after so many years of speaking English.  I often have to pull out old English grammar books in order to find an explanation that will make sense to them.  

But then this is what makes learning French fun.  It's an ongoing process and you learn something new every time you use it.  

 À la prochaine

Comment Dites-On...

One reason I'm so reticent about speaking French, even when a less intimidating opportunity arises, is that I know that you  usually can't just produce a word-by-word rendition of how you'd say it in English.  When I watch French movies or TV programs, or read a French novel, I'm always struck dumb (pardon the pun) by how different certain thoughts and concepts are expressed in French.  First, there's always the preposition problem (Do I use à or de, or some other word?).  Then there are constructions that are completely unlike any in English.  The perfect is example is the verb manquer--roughly meaning 'to miss' or 'to lack something,' but often employed in a completely different way in French.  Fortunately, in some cases the verb behaves in the same way as its English counterpart, e.g., J'ai manqué l'autobus.  (I missed the bus.)  So you're moving right along, plenty satisfied, if not smug, with the way things are going parfaitement and all of a sudden you run into something like this: Véronique me manque. (I miss Veronica).  My first interpretation of this sentence would that Veronica is missing me.  Nice to know someone is :).  But this is not the case.  I am missing Veronica.  Veronica, where are you?!  For me, the only way to get a handle on this is to make it a sort of passive structure:  Veronica is being missed by me.   

I have several native-speaking French pen-pals and all of them say: Your French is pretty good, but that's just not quite the way we'd say that.   These correspondents are also seeking my help with their English, so luckily, for a little while I'm not the one who feels incompetent.  The most frequent mistakes they make when writing me in English are very subtle ones that involve things like word order or prepositions--the very same thing that plagues us learners of French.  Time after time they've written something that it alright grammatically, but would just sound peculiar to a native English speaker.  And boy are these things hard to explain, since I've grown up using these constructions and they just come naturally.  

I guess the lesson to be learned from this is that it takes years (decades, lifetimes?) of daily practice to become truly fluent.  It's impossible to learn every oddity from a textbook or tutor, so you end up just learning a lot of these things by regularly hearing French spoken conversationally and correctly.  Though I've had years of formal training and quite a bit of self-study, when I watch La quatrième dimension on YouTube, I realize how far I have to go.  Which brings me to another road-block:  Why is it that so many English and American movies and TV shows' titles completely change when dubbed or subtitled into French?  Again, that's just not quite the way they'd say it.  

À la prochaine.

On a Slow Boat to Paris

Joyeux mardi.  The general consensus has always been that in order to learn a foreign language, it is necessary to live for an extended period of time somewhere that the language is spoken every day.  Just having a Francophone partner, so say the nay-sayers, is not enough, because the learner will simply not be thrown into enough realistic situations.  Going into a patisserie in Lyon is a different experience from chatting with your partner about what she did today.  Who am I to argue with the language big-shots?

Well, I'm Guillaume, that's who, and I question everything.  Oh, alright, I know I'm getting my feathers ruffled again and need to have another cup of coffee, but I take take issue with a learning philosophy that is not available to Francophiles who don't have the financial resources to to travel to France, Quebec, or Africa-- either when they were students or now.  I most definitely fall into that category.  Yes, I won't argue that immersing oneself in French culture, society, and politics, as well as everyday spontaneous conversation with French-speakers is surely one of the fastest and most efficacious ways to learn French, but the question is still:  Are there valid alternatives?

Before the arrival of the Internet, I'd probably would have said no--or at least not likely.  Before the World Wide Web made its triumphant entry into our lives, the only way to expose oneself to regular foreign language conversation was by listening to recorded dialogue.  Though this method did help you learn correct pronunciation and through daily listening and repetition eventually assisted in acquiring a working vocabulary and confidence in speaking the language, there was very little opportunity to interact.  Now, you can get on the 'Net and find French dialogues with audio and video capabilities that give the feel of actually being engaged in a conversation.  Some have speech recognition through which you can check your pronunciation.  There are also interactive DVDs that also provide many of these features.  We've come a long way since language lab tapes.

And there are other venues also:  French 'chat rooms,' pen-pals, private tutors, etc.  The latter is a choice that again requires beaucoup d'argent, but I'm saving my monnaie to hire one down the line.  [by the way, if anyone finds mistakes in the French I use on this blog, don't be shy about correcting me (but, on the other hand, don't be méchant. I'm sensitive.  :)]

Looking back (ah, if I only had a euro for every time I've said that), it's clear that when I was a young French major at the University of Mississippi, I should have been more resourceful and dedicated.  I should have spent more time in the language lab than with my head in books, and I should have sought a private tutor--there were French exchange students who would have probably offered this service either for free or for practically nothing.  Yet, there are always second chances, or third ones.  My new motto is 'Paris or bust.'  À la prochaine.