Re: OT: Teaching French

En réponse à Chris Bates :

>Given that
>I've only got four weeks, and that they (and I) have all the touristy
>phrases memorised, which areas of grammar should I focus on? I'd be
>grateful to hear from native French speakers or anyone who teaches
>French. :)
One thing that is pervasive in French is noun genders. You and your parents 
should really learn them right (don't try to make sense out of them, nobody 
can ;) ). Just memorize them along with the nouns (by *always* learning the 
noun with an article). Since noun genders command adjective agreement and 
choice of third person and demonstrative pronouns, this should be learnt 
right :) . Between grammar and pronunciations are the liaisons. They are 
also important as they sometimes give the only grammatical cues as to the 
meaning of a sentence.

One important thing is: don't get annoyed if everyone keeps correcting you 
at each of your sentences. They mean well. As Philippe said, just repeat as 
you're told and everyone will be happy (this behaviour annoys my boyfriend 
endlessly, and completely blocks him in his attempts at speaking French. 
It's true that the Dutch are the opposite: they never correct you unless 
you ask three times, and if you really struggle, they switch to English 
rather than help you with your Dutch. I often have to ask every half hour 
to correct me when I make mistakes, and *never* to switch to English. How I 
am supposed to learn the language if I don't get my mistakes corrected? 
This behaviour annoys me quite often :) ).
_____________________________________________________________________
En réponse à Chris Bates :

>They know quite a few words, but they don't pronounce them quite right.
>Mind you, neither do I... according to my dictionary, crois as in Je
>crois que... is kRwa (I think.. unless I'm confused)...
You're not :) .

>  as hard as I
>try, I find it difficult to follow a French R with a w.
Try following it with a [u] at first, pronouncing [kRu.a], and slowly train 
yourself to pronounce the [u] quicker and quicker. It helps. If you have a 
problem with [H], you can do the same, but beginning with [y] :) .

>  But mum and
>dad... they pronounce tu and tout the same (ie, they can't tell the
>difference between u and y),
Try to point out how [y] is really more like [i]. There's a chance they'll 
start saying [ju], which is a better start (because that's what French 
people expect :) ).

>  2 and 9 become @ (just looking at the
>X-SAMPA chart for the right numbers and symbols),
As long as they manage to stress it when needed, that's not so bad (people 
of Saint-Etienne don't make the distinction between [2] and [9], and 
they're still understood :) ). However, if they must master only one of the 
two, direct them into mastering [2]. Hearing [p2R] is less confusing for us 
than hearing [f9] :) .

>  Dad turns e~ into an
>and a~ into on usually...
That must be funny to hear :) .

>  well, the vowels are well and truly shuffled
>anyway. They're not so bad on the consonants. :)
To be expected :) . After all, English dialects seem to vary mostly by the 
way the vowels are pronounced while the consonants stay more or less 
identical across dialects. I guess you're just sloppy with vowels :) .

A last important thing: get the stress right, never centralise unstressed 
vowels, and give all syllables the same length weight. By enforcing those 
simple rules, you will force them to pay more attention to the vowels, and 
they will slowly learn to get them right :) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.