Moira in MA ~ I was wondering how French is going for your daughter.

[Kareni]

I was thinking of this thread today ~ What to use for French prior to college in Montreal ~ and was wondering how her French summer studies are working out for your daughter. Do tell!

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Moira in MA]

Thanks for asking.

 

So far it's going very well. She's thoroughly enjoying French in Action even though it is rather dated -- she's currently in lesson 8.

 

~Moira

[Kareni]

I'm glad to hear that it's going well, Moira.

 

I have to admit that I read about a book, The Philosopher's Demise: Learning to Speak French by Richard Watson that reminded me of your daughter and her desire to speak French. I have no personal knowledge of the book, but it certainly sounds intriguing.

 

From the Amazon page linked above: "Already an accomplished reader of French, Watson found himself forced to learn to speak the language when he was invited to present a paper in Paris in French. A private crash course and lessons at the Alliance Française only served to point out how difficult it can be to learn any foreign language, especially later in life. As he confronts his own national prejudices, Watson weaves in digressions on the contrasts between France and America, on the mysteries of French engineering, and on eccentric French cavers. This wry, witty book is not just for anyone who has ever tried to learn another language, but for anyone who has yearned desperately to learn something and worked to the limit to achieve it."

 

A book I did read and enjoy that also pertains in part to the subject of learning French is Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. (Note: This book contains adult language and situations.)

 

From the Amazon page linked above: "...Sedaris also writes here about the time he spent in France and the difficulty of learning another language. After several extended stays in a little Norman village and in Paris, Sedaris had progressed, he observes, "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window.""

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Moira in MA]

I think that one of the reasons that it seems so hard to attain fluency as an adult is that your level of discussion is so much higher.

 

I have some familiarity with French, (also German and Welsh to a lesser degree). I couldn't discuss philosophy in any of them :D

 

But I can certainly read signs and websites, order meals, read a novel, albeit more slowly than in English, watch shoot 'em up movies and disney /etc without subtitles and listen to podcasts in French -- I'd limit myself to the first two in that list in German and Welsh. I don't consider myself fluent by any means but I can function.

 

I still remember my unseen translation in French A level. It was a description of all the flowers in a garden -- I had no idea what they were in English let alone French :lol: In the end it comes down to vocabulary. You come to the end of the grammar eventually but never to end of the vocabulary.

 

In an English saturated world we have I think it is really hard. I've heard European teachers of English talk about how their students can sing English pop songs with perfect accents almost as soon as the songs are released -- you just don't hear that many non-English pop songs in the US or Britain where I grew up.

 

We had a Dutch exchange student when the girls were little. She spoke and read English very well but producing essays for English class at the high school was a long, difficult slog for her. Her teacher told her straight out that he was marking for ideas not mechanics (although he did correct errors) if he had marked her as for other students she'd have had F's for every paper.

 

Most of us do not have access to the kind of inputs that can produce even that level of fluency. I think we should stop beating ourselves about the head and celebrate the progress we do make. After our Dutch daughter returned to the Netherlands she matriculated at the University of Utrecht for a masters degree in French. On a visit during that time, she showed me her lists of vocabulary -- I had to laugh the list of flowers was there.

 

jmho

~Moira

[Joan in GE]

I think that one of the reasons that it seems so hard to attain fluency as an adult is that your level of discussion is so much higher.

 

I hope you don't mind if I jump in?

 

It is just that this statement hits home so much, being constantly faced with wanting to say complex statements which seem to come out in a funny way in French.

 

I could say that I have the fluency of a child...but I'm not a child, therefore I'm not really "fluent" at one of those C levels - if it includes the vocab Cleo says it does.

 

The other thing that I notice is that if you ask a child in their native tongue a question that they have trouble answering, you just think they have trouble answering. But if you ask the same question to a child who is learning the language, people automatically assume that it is because they don't know how to speak the language that they have trouble answering. There is a possible bias in perception. For the native speaker they might give them more time to answer. For the foreign speaker, they might jump in with English or say something about their lack of ability......in other words - they're more impatient with the foreigner...(my experience - though in certain countries, like Italy and Spain, they seem much more helpful with adding the needed vocabulary).

[Kareni]

Moira and Joan,

 

I enjoyed reading your thoughts.

 

Thinking of those flowers, Moira, I'm reminded of a foreign language contest I participated in while in high school. We were read a passage once. Then we needed to translate orally as the passage was a read a second time. The passage concerned people dining in a fine restaurant. It was definitely to my advantage that I was raised in the hotel business. Had those people been visiting a florist shop, I'd have done horrifically!

 

You raise a good point, Joan, with the idea that listeners assume a slowness to answer on the part of a non-native speaker is due to lack of knowledge while they might assume that a native speaker is simply ordering his or her thoughts or pondering. This is something I hadn't considered.

 

Best wishes to you both.

Regards,

Kareni