A great article by Patrick Mattimore in yesterday’s Examiner.  He hits the nail on the head that most schools and language-learning systems do assume an average level of linguistic ability (and often an above-average amount of motivation).  The truth is, however, that some who, for various reasons, find themselves needing to study a foreign tongue, DO have less than average language learning ability.  What to do??

So here’s the advice. If you don’t want to play Ugly American, learn at least some  French, if you come here. Throw out all the nonsense you’ve been led to believe about French snobbery, particularly Parisian snobbery, when it comes to an American speaking their language. I’ve had nothing but great experiences largely because I subscribe to the nouveau Marcel Marceau school of communication- if the words ain’t working just go super enthusiastic and get the arms in motion. (This has some drawbacks in phone conversations, however).

When you are in France nod a lot, throw in a lot of ouis (which should be pronounced as ahhhhhh way) and always say merci a couple of times- if your correspondent gets a merci in first be sure to then say merci a vous. Comme vous voulez (as you wish) worked really well for Westley in the Princess Bride and it’s a great fall back line here too. Of course, sometimes you will have no idea what the other person has said, where you are going (if you asked for directions) or what you ordered for dejeuner (lunch), but remember you can pretty much always go hang out at the Tour Eiffel or a great museum (not the Louvre) and be impressed.
The French don’t like to pronounce all their letters. It’s not like English where we are occasionally embarrassed by a “gh” that should have been an “f” at the end of a word or the singular “e” which is always silent at the end of our words. For the French there is, in nearly every word, something distasteful that needs to be banished. What’s more, the French subsume the sounds in their nose so the key to speaking French is to simply pronounce the beginning part of a word loudly and lose the rest of it in your sinus cavity.

Sarcasm aside, it is quite possible to get by with a lot less than fluency.  As an educator, I’m well aware that not all (and dare I say, in low level classes, most ) students will achieve anything approaching fluency.  Part of my job is to impart the minimum amount of linguistic skills to function in the language medium, while still allowing continual opportunities for improvement for those who can (i.e., I can’t start pitching my teaching to the lowest common denominator in the classroom).  Oftentimes, this takes the role of consciously teaching skills of circumlocution and how to gracefully acknowledge a linguistic breakdown.

I know that a lot of teachers/learners will get there hackles up at the assertion that some people should simply be content with lower expectations.  To this I respond that, yes, in theory everyone is capable of every language, but in real life how does that pan out???  There simply are people who are more adept at language learning than others.  There are actual language learning handicaps (both physical and learning disorders) which can preclude certain types of learning.  We’ve all known people who had “bad ears” — i.e., had extreme difficulty distinguishing sounds.  Furthermore, there are personality variations which can make one more or less inclined toward adapting to both foreign ways and languages.  Finally, one’s impressions of individual languages and cultures can easily cause one to close off from input, making progress next to impossible.  I’ve known people who spoke certain languages with ease, but could not for the life of them even get a foothold in certain other languages.  For instance, in both Taiwan and Japan, I’ve known fellow expats who spoke multiple European languages but for either lack of volition or necessity, never got beyond pidgin-levels of Chinese and Japanese, respectively.

You have to sign up in order to listen, but if you want to be on the cutting edge of French pop, my friend, you will do so…

Click here for lyrics and translation Ta Tienne, her surprisingly sweet ode to the French prez…

 Exit Quote: Watch out because I am Italian
I am going to discourage the ladies
I will gag the beautiful sirens
I who always sought fire
I am burning for you like a pagan woman
I who made men dance
To you I give myself entirely…

Actually, the only song really worth listening to… I lived in the country for a year, and, sad to say, I found the native musical pickings disturbingly few… Most of the music there just grated on me (insert random accordion joke here), but the punk band Noir Desir was a refreshing change up from the awful norm… The only other French artist I’ll even mention is MC Solaar, who proves the completely counterintuitive fact that rap works in French…

So here’s the song. Note that, in addition to French study, this song throws in some gratuitous Spanish…

Lyrics: Tostaky

Nous survolons des villes
(des) autoroutes en friche
diagonales perdues
et des droites au hasard
des femmes sans visage
à l’atterissage
soyons désinvoltes
n’ayons l’air de rien

para la queja mexica
este sueno de america
celebremos la aluna
de siempre, ahorita

et les branleurs trainent
dans la rue
et ils envoient ca aux étoiles
perdues
encore combien à attendre
combien à attendre
combien à attendre
encore combien à attendre
encore combien à attendre

tostaky

le fond du continent
l’or du nouveau monde
pyramides jetables
hommes d’affaires impeccables
quand la pluie de sagesse
pourrit sur les trottoirs
notre mère la terre
étonne moi

para la queja mexica
este sueno de america
celebremos la aluna
de siempre, ahorita

pendre les fantomes
cortez
et pourrir à l’ombre
cortez
de l’Amérique vendue
à des girophares crus
pour des nouveaux faisceaux
pour des nouveaux soleils
pour des nouveaux rayons
pour des nouveaux soleils

aqui para nosotros
aqui para nosotros
aqui para nosotros
aqui para nosotros etc.

tostaky

bien recu
tous les messages
ils disent qu’ils ont compris
qu’il n’y a plus le choix
que l’esprit qui souffle
guidera leurs pas
qu’arrivent les derniers temps ou
nous pourrons parler
alors soyons désinvoltes
n’ayons l’air de rien
soyons désinvoltes
n’ayons l’air de rien
soyons désinvoltes
n’ayons l’air de rien
soyons désinvoltes
n’ayons l’air de rien

As one of the cuter by-products of the Beijing Olympics, some of the powers-that-be in China have determined to harness the power of the web to teach Chinese, English, and French to Olympics participants and attendees.  While the focus is mostly on teaching English and French to Chinese people, English and Chinese speakers could just as well use the site for Chinese study.

In the site’s own words: The “Learn Foreign Languages with Fuwa” channel will provide tools for users of the official website to acquire basic conversation skills in Putonghua, English, and French. The latter two versions of “Learn Foreign Languages with Fuwa” will offer non-Chinese speakers the resources to learn a new Chinese phrase each day. Likewise, Chinese website users will be able to learn simple, useful phrases that might come in handy next summer with visitors from around the world.

The intent is great, but one really has to wonder about how they decided what sentences to teach:

“I often go out for walks with my little dog.”

Some links for further practice (any language): Xlingo  and iLoveLanguages.

The posting last Thursday on why French is still relevant drew some comments and emails, so I think I’ll expound upon that…

I want to comment on two points in particular: 1) the usefulness of French; and 2) economic viability/relevance of the language in the world.

The usefulness of any language is completely dependent on the person who is studying it.  I’ve had (high school) English students in Taiwan whom I knew would never use English a single time after they graduated.  English is wide-spread — don’t get me wrong — and it’s pervasive throughout slang and cultural catch-phrases, even in Taiwan, but beyond basic TV comments like “cool” it is still entirely possible to live a life devoid of opportunity and necessity to use foreign language skills.  These students, in particular, aspired to be farmers, and probably now live out in the countryside where their chances of ever coming across English are negligible.  With a language like French, which is admittedly declining in relative importance on the world-stage, it is doubly true that many students of the language will never actually make use of it.  Many American students of foreign languages (even Spanish), in fact, take the languages just to get course credit and to graduate — i.e., they have no particular goals towards the language itself.  Nonetheless, my point about French is that its importance and usefulness in the world, while declining significantly from its heyday in the 18th-19th centuries, are nevertheless significant.  The Parisian focus of most French language curriculum has left the unfortunate impression that French is fairly isolated.  In fact, French is the only language other than English that has a legal (i.e., national-language) basis on every inhabited continent.  It is widely spoken throughout Africa, the Caribbean, etc., and French teachers (myself included) should always keep this world focus in mind.  French also has one of the largest corpora of literature and publishing (next to English, of course) in the world, so it is still quite relevant to information-gathering/research activities.  While this requirement seems to be slipping these days, a background in either French or German was required for advanced degrees in most of the humanities — mainly to insure that students would be able to access source documents in subjects such as philosophy.  While a background in French is certainly not relevant to someone planning on moving to China (i.e., language of study should be chosen to suit career goals), there are still quite a few places other than France to put your French skills to work.

As for economic relevance, France is still a leader in the EU, and is a world economic powerhouse.  It’s simply not a US or a Japan at the moment, and lacks the momentum of China (who, for the record, I think are not going to be as big a leviathan as most analysts seem to think — I suspect that China, like all developing countries, will eventually discover institutions such as labor unions and environmentalism, which will have the same drain on the rate of economic development as they do elsewhere).  By native speakers alone, French is #19 in the list of most-commonly spoken languages on Earth, but when one measures “potential speakers” (people who speak it as a second language and/or have enough knowledge of it “to get by”), it jumps to either #9 or even #3 (depends on how loosely you define proficiency).  Strangely enough, French has helped me out in such odd places as Japan and Thailand….

I think the key is that, if you study any language rigorously, you will find ways to use it.  It’s all in how much you care….

I couldn’t resist this…  The French language has been under siege, so-to-speak, since the post-WWII reconstruction drove a stake through the heart of French Imperialistic ambitions.  Francophones have never really recovered their pride from French losing its status as the diplomatic language of the world.  French’s status as THE foreign language to study if one wants to get ahead in life has been steadily slipping.  In the US, in particular, the increased importance of Spanish — combined with the rise of previously un-studied languages like Chinese and Arabic — has displaced French from a lot of foreign language departments at the secondary level.  Many university-level French departments have defacto defenses of why one should bother to learn the language posted on their website.  The arguments for learning it are sound — note that French is still a major language, widely spoken throughout the world (and is still the lingua franca of large swathes of Africa, for instance)– but the public perception is that you don’t need it unless you’re going to France.  As someone with a degree in French, I just have to post articles like this…

Like Spanish, French has a number of irregular verbs.  Unlike Spanish, they are difficult to divide into neat categories.  Some subdivide the irregulars based upon the endings (-er, -ir, and -re), but the stems themselves keep changing.  It’s probably best to simply start memorizing.  Fortunately, most of the irregulars are high-use words, so they’re actually easy to remember once you get them.  Here’s a basic list…

Important one to learn early: Aller (to go) ==>

je vais
tu vas
il/elle/on va
nous allons
vous allez
ils/elles vont

Like in Spanish, the infinitive has little seeming relation to many of the basic forms in the present indicative mood.  Don’t mess it up…

Just like Spanish, there are three major verb patterns.  Last time, we saw the -er verbs.  The other two categories are -ir and -re.

infinitive: -ir

I: -is                            we: -issons

you (sing.): -is          you(plural): -issez

he/she/it: -it             they:-issent

For example: choisir (to choose)

je choisis               nous choisissons

tu choisis              vous choissez

il/elle choisit        ils/elles choissent

Here’s your test….

-re verbs

I: -s                            we: -ons

you (sing.): -s          you(plural): -ez

he/she/it: (nothing)      they:-ent

For example, “attendre” (to wait):

je attends            nous attendonstu attends              vous attendez

Similar to Spanish, French has three basic verb patterns: -er, -ir, and -re.  Here’s the -er verbs. 

infinitive: -er

I: -e                            we: -ons

you (sing.): -es          you(plural): -ez

he/she/it: -e             they:-ent

To make an example, the verb “parler” (to speak) would be conjugated in the following manner:

je       parle
tu       parles
il/elle  parle
nous     parlons
vous     parlez
ils/elles parlent

or “écouter” (to listen)

Last example: marcher(to walk)

Présent
je        marche
tu        marches
il; elle   marche
ns        marchons
vs        marchez
ils; elles marchent

Now you try:

1) aimer(to like)….  then go here to check your answer….

2) travailler(to work)….  answer here 

French negation is a little bit more complex than the Spanish equivalent, but is nonetheless formulaic:

Je suis intelligent.  (I am intelligent)

Tu es français. (You’re French)

Les élèves sont à l’école . (The students are at school)

In formal French, one must put a negation word both before and after the verb.  The negation words are “ne” and “pas,” respectively, thus:

Je ne suis pas intelligent.  (I am not intelligent)

Tu n’es pas français. (You’re not French) (note: before a vowel, “ne” is contracted to “n’ “)

Les élèves ne sont pas à l’école . (The students are not at school)

This is the standard for written French, however, this is only half the story.  This is the French that one learns in school, but the truth is, if one goes to Paris (or anywhere else in the French-speaking world, for that matter), one quickly realizes that this is not how people normally speak.  In normal conversation, the “ne” is dropped, leaving “pas” by itself, as in:

Je suis pas intelligent.

Tu es pas français.

Les élèves sont pas à l’école .

Additionally, though somewhat rarely, one might here the “ne” employed by itself:

Je ne suis intelligent…

Such use would have an emphatic effect, and might be considered sarcastic.