Re: French (was Re: Re: Optimum number of symbols)

> I think you just pointed out at the main problem of the American system of
> education for languages. Even English is taught so sloppily, how can you
expect
> anything with other languages?
Exactly, exactly, exactly. A lot of people hate people who are obnoxious
about grammar (like I am,)  but how can one be expected to make any sense
without knowing the rules of one's first language?
I was never even taught what a preposition IS, where to use who and whom,
was vs were, and so on. I've actually learned a lot more about English by
learning French than anything else, which is sad considering it's first
year. I doubt many kids who haven't taken a language course know what
conjugation is.
So of course that leads to the belief that it's too hard to learn another
language, so everyone should just learn English.

> > In our class, my teacher has taught is to write it (pardon me for
> > simplifying the sentence ;)
> > 'Marie ne l'a pas donné,' or 'Marie ne les a pas donné,' and not to
> > worry
> > about gender agreement.
>
> What?!!! Please tell your teacher as soon as possible that he taught you
> something completely wrong, while this kind of agreement is considered
basic in
> French! And tell him that it's a French man who says that, and that I know
what
> I'm talking about! I just hope those poor students will never have to
write a
> letter in French to get a job or something. This kind of mistake is enough
to
> throw you away!
To be fair, we only just learned it a few days ago, so hem ight not have
gotten to it yet. However, he has said that we only need to worrt abouy it
with etre, so...

> Oh dear... I knew French was not well considered as a subject in American
> schools, but this is ridiculous!
The only 'real' classes here are english, math, science, history. Everything
else is considered a hassle and things you have to take to get out of the
way.
Where I live (it may be different closer to Canada) it's considered useless
to take anything other than Spanish, and even then, almost everyone who
speaks Spanish speaks English. It's infuriating.

> Well, let me warn you before. I had 8 years of Spanish classes, and I
still
> have the biggest difficulties with the verbs "ser" and "estar" (Spanish
has two
> verbs "to be" :)) ). Also, Spanish irregular verbs are more numerous than
in
> French and even more irregular. If you're taught Spanish the same way
you're
> taught French now, I expect the worst...
Yes, but like I said, a lot of people speak Spanish here, so I can get help
with it. I don't know anyone locally who speaks French. All my friends are
taking German (which I will also take next year. Hey, I ahave the free
classes, why not? :))

> The problem with those things is that it never works. You can control on a
> certain extent vocabulary and spelling, but grammar is outside the reach
of any
> power, and those things like gender distinctions or pronouns are too
> grammatical to be changed by law...
Yeah, I know. I have the same problem in English, I don't like using he/she
for people unfamiliar to whomever I am speaking, but it's usual and normal
to do so anyway. It's just something that bothers me anyway, and it's more
pronounced in french.
Grammatical gender for inanimate objects is osmething else entirely to me,
for some reason--it's just the people thing that gets me. :)

> Well, I must say I don't like much this teacher. I'm the kind of person
who
> considers that if you want to do something, do it good or don't do it at
all
> (which makes me very angry towards other French people sometimes. It's not
for
> nothing that the Dutch have the expression "de Franse slag": "the French
way"
> to refer to things that are not done correctly or only half-done :))) ).
[snip]
> Probably this teacher is not fluent in French at all. Did they have
trouble
> finding French teachers that they had to take incompetents (sorry for the
word,
> but this teacher may be very good at other languages, but the image you
give of
> him tell me that he should stop teaching French) to fill posts?
Haha, yes, though I am sure Americans are jsut as bad, or possibly worse,
given the lack of grammar.
He's very picky about spelling, and accents, and getting things perfectly
correct, speaking of syntax.
As to the how and why, though, he doesn't bother usually, and I think that's
probably partially due to the fact that the people in that class just don't
care. As far as French goes... There's only one first year French class in
the whole school. I think they only offer it because they can teach it,
because the only people who want to take french are people who can already
speak Spanish, or don't want to take Spanish b/c everyone else does it.
Thenthere are the people who take German, who afaik are mostly complete
idiots. I hear the German class is worse than French, so I am glad  I have
friends who speak it :P
I'm not really sure why my school offers French and not Latin, considering
my teacher knows Latin too. I guess 'spoken' languages are more standard
than dead languages, though I know all my friends on the east coast have
latin classes at their schools.

[and, sorry to correct if you don't like being corrected, but I think it's
'do it [well] or don't do it at all' :)]

> <sigh> You're the perfect example of how the American system of education
> manages to break the will of people who were happy to learn something
> different, like a language. This is so depressing...
Yeah, I think it's like that for a lot of people. The mexicans seem to laugh
at or otherwise distrust any of the white kids who take Spanish, the German
class is just hopeless, and almost nobody takes French. I think a lot of
people would have dropped out of French if it werent' such a fun class. We
all know we sound like idiots, so we can;t really be mean to eachother. :)
It is pretty depressing though. The vast majority of people who are taking
languages just don't care, and the only difference in choices is that
Spanish is 'useful', French is second choice, and German is 'cool' and
'punk.' Absolotely ridiculous. They don't even offer Latin, which I think
sucks. Americans should be required to learn a second language from a
younger age, because imho, the world's responsibility of catering to English
speakers view that Americans adopt is incredibly stupid and selfish.


-Kendra
http://www.refrigeratedcake.com
http://www.refrigeratedcake.com/other/theatre -- Vade Mecum (comic)