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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5270 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 193 of 217 09 July 2015 at 5:05am | IP Logged | |||||
I was just thinking... and wanted to make another comment. YOu know I've found it tricky to write in French too. I've been writing on and off in French for years and yet I am still rather hesitant. Every time I post/email people in French (well write in some form or another) I am often seeking the use of a dictionary to clarify I am using the language correctly. French just seems a hell of a lot trickier than say Spanish or Dutch (in my experience with other languages). When I am studying Spanish and Dutch actively, the writing seems to be easier (or I don't care as much). I do believe the estimates often given for the time it takes to learn French are 'unfair' for want of a better word. I know these estimates by FSI and so on are given for ppl who don't necessarily care about accent or aren't afraid to make mistakes on a regular basis, but French I feel requires much more time to learn to be 'authentic' in the language not just because of it's tricky nasal vowels, system of rhythmic stress and syllable division with vowels sounds ending many more syllables than other indo- European languages but also because it's just a mine-field of idomatic usage particularly with regards to prepostions. AND a history of language purity, makes imo makes one hesitant to write the language. Mind you i've had much more verbal practise with Dutch and Spanish so that could be a factor as well. Kaamelott sounds good too, will have to get into it some time (i have it on my laptop ready to go some day). PM 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5001 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 194 of 217 09 July 2015 at 10:25am | IP Logged | |||||
I've had a similar experience with French. While my writing is mostly correct, it just feels "clunky" and inauthentic. Same with speaking really: even on a good day when I can express what I want to say fluently, it never seems fully natural, I feel a bit like a bad actor. That's partly because French has always been more of an "academic" language for me, as opposed to one I hear and use socially like Italian or Spanish, but I'd say also because the usage and pronunciation is so particular and tough to get right. I'm a bit perfectionist in general, it's an issue I'm aware of and working on, but French really seems to bring this trait out. When writing or speaking with a Francophone, I feel that it has to be at a very high level and I have the associated anxiety and shyness. Meanwhile, my Spanish is basic and not at all fluent, yet I'm not very hesitant about giving it a try and I don't feel that need to be speaking well. With Italian I do sometimes feel it but it tends to be social pressure or wanting to have something to show for all the time and effort: problems with me rather than with the language :). Spanish and Italian's generally more accommodating native speakers, larger number of regional variations, less strict and more flexible usage, and less history of purity are probably part of it. Edited by garyb on 09 July 2015 at 10:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5270 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 195 of 217 09 July 2015 at 11:01am | IP Logged | |||||
This resonates almost exactly with me. Aside from Italian which you can replace for Dutch in my place, and anxiety with French is largely absent in my case, the rest is very close to my experience with French. This is why if I designed my own categories of language difficulty, French would not be in the same category as Spanish, Dutch, and Italian. It would at the very least be on a par with German if not a little above that. I experience the same in perfecting my French. It takes a lot less practise and energy to sound authentic in Spanish, German or Dutch. I want to sound authentic and this is the price I pay. This is in part also why I'm delaying introducing more languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 196 of 217 09 July 2015 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I lived without fb for two years at university and it was horrible. I didn't get a lot of study materials and tips, I didn't get even official information, I wasn't told when my study group was going to a pub... Unfortunately, these days being without fb is like trying to use pigeon mail. And once you are there, it is soooo tempting to just check several times a day, to read so many posts, look at all the stuff your fbfriends are posting, perhaps even write a commentary... I might be weak-willed.
I think the French problem is purely psychological. From the point of view of grammar, spelling and so on, I'd say English and many other languages are harder. And I don't have the problem when speaking anymore as well, I just speak (and when someone refuses to speak to me in French, I am angry at them as the fault is proven to not be on my side). It is not such a problem to speak/write in an authentic manner (and by authentic, I don't mean getting a perfect accent traceable to a particular village you had chosen) The problem is just writing for me. I make stupid mistakes when I don't take time to read after myself. I am slow, even compared to writing in Spanish. I am like paralyzed by the idea of looking like an idiot. I think I see where it comes from, psychologically: -French took me far too long. Due to stupid eductional system, some really bad teachers, I had not been progressing for years, I am too used to being bad at it. I am too used to being a beginner and intermediate, to being treated as a beginner, to not being expected to do well. And it has sticked with me. -French suffers from a lot of "this is hard" bullshit that is being expressed by teachers or courses. Really, at least in the Czech Republic, the overall approach of most teachers and courses tends to be like this: English: Just do it, it is easy (they tell you this even though it is not true) German: Yeah, it's hard, suck it up and study. (and they are usually not afraid to give bad grades) French: It is such a hard language, you are not actually expected to learn much. (and they move the responsibility for their in general bad teaching to the language being hard) Really. Any professional teacher that repeats their students things like "this is so hard" "oh, the grammar we are tackling next is sooo complicated" and other such things too much on should get fired and his diploma should be ceremonialy burnt. Any responsible publisher should make the author rewrite an introductory chapter that is full of things like "it is really hard but you should try to get at least not extremely bad pronunciation so that you won't torture the godlike natives too much, the grammar is really complicated, everything is hard". Really, does French suffer from all such bullshit myths in other countries as well? -I don't get enough practice. heh, I had easier time finding a Spanish forum I'd be interested in than a French one. I should try harder. But I'd be shy anyways. -A specific kind of discouragement. I hate most language compliments as some of you may have noticed. I am one of those who take it as no compliment=the best compliment as it usually means you are treated equally thanks to your skills. But on italki (and many times before elsewhere), I was given a correction with a lot of supposedly supportive comments like "these are just minor mistakes, you are really good", which my brain translated as "you write like a good beginner, have a cookie so that your incompetence doesn't hurt so much". -I am too hard on myself in some ways. I expect my French to be near perfect. And the writing is sometimes not. Obviously, since I got such a low score. So I just make it much worse by making myself really nervous. Logic, right? My 15 minutes are up. See you tommorrow. Thanks for all the experience and encouragement shared, it is good to know I am not the only one nervous in the particular language. :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4084 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 197 of 217 09 July 2015 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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About Facebook, I have a mixed experience. Before when I had mostly all Anglophone
friends, I read some extremely stupid shitposts like, "I went to a nightclub. And I had too much whiskey and vomited, hurray!". Now I have gone to a lot of nightclubs too, but I never do that. And even if for some reason I took too much tequila or whatever and vomited, I am not going to post it on my wall or worse, take a selfie. Now my Facebook is in Spanish (you can toggle the operator language), and I would say 75% of my friends are Hispanophones. The rest are a big mix and Anglophones have declined to probably 5%. The other 20% are a mix of Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, Danish, Greeks, French, Portuguese, Italians, Lebanese, Brazilians, and so forth. I think that having the language option is what kind of makes Facebook more interesting. I write to friends in Spanish and Dutch often, and now recently in Norwegian with an old friend whom I met 6 years ago. It kind of keeps up my languages in a way, although the stupid posts are just ridiculous at times (like one time where an Argentinian friend did a selfie with his car showing about 50 drops of pigeon shit on the windscreen). Edited by 1e4e6 on 09 July 2015 at 9:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5001 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 198 of 217 10 July 2015 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've had problems with using Facebook too much. I recently deactivated my account for a couple of weeks and that made me realise how much I didn't need most of it, how frequently I got the compulsion to check it, and how much more productive I was without it (in evenings and weekends at least; if I want to waste time at work there are plenty other ways...). These days I'm back on it, after all it's a useful tool for messages and events, but I mostly keep my usage under control. I've dealt with most of the idiots, the political activist types (but I repeat myself), and the excessive posters with the unfollow and unfriend options so there's a bit more signal to noise on the news feed, including plenty target-language posters and pages.
I agree that most of the French factors are psychological. I do struggle with pronunciation and usage and sounding natural, but these difficulties would be far more surmountable if the deck weren't so stacked against learners. I've had plenty difficulties with Italian too, but I have the opportunities and support to overcome them, for example speaking with native speakers at least once per week, and corrections and advice from a few extremely helpful members on here. In purely linguistic terms I'd say that French is of a similar difficulty level to Spanish and Italian. We could do comparisons all day about how French has more difficult pronunciation while Spanish has more difficult verbs etcetera etcetera but at the end of the day I reckon it all balances out. The real difficulties are the social and cultural factors and attitudes. As I'm sure you know from my log, I've now largely abandoned my goal of speaking French well, in favour of focusing on languages that are more accessible and more useful to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 199 of 217 10 July 2015 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
How did you meet these Hispanophones? I'd love to have some Lusophone friends on Facebook, but I wouldn't know where to begin. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3650 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 200 of 217 11 July 2015 at 4:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello, Cavesa! Time for me to invade your log...
I'm gonna chime in with the chorus and tell you how hard it is for me to write anything in French, too. It's REALLY HARD. I'm trying to tackle this with translating things that I like reading, just to give me a confidence boost. I also have no natives with whom to speak French. It is not simply a case of all my native French friends being proficient in English (although they are). It is also that, with one exception, they none of them ever want to speak French. And I don't speak to the exception that often :( Anyway, I hope you work your way past this! You 'poor' writing score is still judged by way higher standards than my French can even hope for, so well done to you. And good luck with the exam! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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