French

[chrix]

I've noticed that here's no French social group, despite there being groups for German, Japanese, Russian and Arabic. Surely here are some people who have studied French, or who are even native speakers of French (gasp!). Where else would they be, or is there a great www.forum-chinois.fr that we don't know anything about?

So who has studied French here? Let's share our experiences!

Let me go first: I've studied it briefly in high school, and afterwards have been working through grammar books and newspapers, I usually read Le Monde. I don't speak that well, and want to work harder on my spoken French (both production and recognition)..

EDIT: But I did study Latin for seven years, which has been quite helpful with a lot of Romance languages. One of the passions of my high school years was to find out how Latin evolved into French...

Edited November 27, 2009 at 05:55 PM by chrix

[Scoobyqueen]

Good idea alhough my written French is not that good but I can speak it.

Used to work in paris for several years before coming to Germany.

Le Figaro is my preferred choice for news.

[chrix]

From your one post I'm surprised it's not La Libération Since I don't have many francophone friends here, any advice on how to get more practice? I've been thinking about signing up with Frenchpod, the francophone arm of Chinesepod...

[Scoobyqueen]

I work in media relations and la liberation was never really important as an opinion leader for business stories but in terms of values at a personal level absolutely. In my opinion the French are more anarchist than socialist though :-)

In terms of oral practice I would go for italki.com where you can find language partners. Otherwise there is always one week immersion courses: Ceran Lingua which I thought was good. I dont know whether Frenchpod is any good. Iearnt French at school then immersion course and then Berlitz in France.

[chrix]

When I was on italki, it was full of Chinese people, but I hard a hard time finding French people on there. I'll try again though

Thanks, yeah I was looking at intensive language courses, like the Alliance française (you heard of them?)... I'll definitely check out Ceran Lingua, thanks for telling me about them!

[Scoobyqueen]

I have heard of the Alliance française and it should be good. In terms of Ceran I went on an immersion course there for one week and liked it as it gave me a good head-start for the job. This was a recommendation from a colleague responsible for French customers. He had been on a couple of courses with them and came back speaking fluently.

I havent used Italki for French. Listening to the radio obviously helps. I love radio FG (French clubbing music).

[chrix]

Yeah I've got a ton of French language podcasts on my iPod, there's also news in français facile, and I've got the news and the French version of the Auslandsjournal as videocasts.. now I just need to take out more time to listen to it

And it's mildly frustrating to see how a little effort in French seems to pay off so much more than a lot of effort in Mandarin, eh?

EDIT: the reason why all these Germans are here is because there is no active German-language forum about China and the Chinese language, but the relative absence of French speakers can be explained by the existence of forum like this one here:

http://www.chine-nouvelle.com/forum.html

[renzhe]

And it's mildly frustrating to see how a little effort in French seems to pay off so much more than a lot of effort in Mandarin, eh?

A few years ago, I watched a Taiwanese horror movie and a French horror movie on consecutive days.

Although I had dabbled with Chinese for at least half a decade and had never ever learned a word of French, I could understand the French movie better than the Chinese one.

That was very depressing.

[Scoobyqueen]

Chrix - How about signing up for the official French language test. I forget what it is called but it is the equivalent of HSK or the one from Goethe Institut.

I am myself thinking about doing the same for German as this is one of the ways I may be able to improve. I may sign up for it some six months in advance as this will give me some time to prepare and hopefully improve my German along the way. The problem is I live in Germany but my languages at work are mostly not German and at home I speak English and have a satellite that receives most programmes from the UK, and my German with friends doesnt need to be perfect anyway. But I think the longer I am here the more is expected in terms of level.

and had never ever learned a word of French, I could understand the French movie better than the Chinese one.

That was very depressing.

However, doesnt that give you great encouragement should you ever consider learning another language in the "easy" category.

[Lu]

Scoobyqueen: DELF and DALF, I forgot which one is the highest level, that one is quite difficult.

Another way of keeping up French is going to France for a few weeks every year. It wouldn't be enough to keep up Chinese, but it should work for French.

And yeah, romance languages become so easy after learning Chinese. I started on Spanish at one point, it was a strange experience to pick up a dictionary and find a word straight away, I was so used to counting strokes, finding radicals etc that it felt funny to be able to just go straight to the right page.

[chrix]

Yeah, that's a good goal actually to sign up for a language test. But right now my priority would definitely to improve my conversation skills, but for that it would be important to go to France.

Well, I have some friends in France, but I don't know if they would put up with me every year for several weeks, hehe...

(RE dictionaries, that's the reason why I prefer having pinyin-ordered dictionaries over radical-ordered ones... usually you know the pronunciation of the first character, and save a lot of time by not having to go through an index)

[Meng Lelan]

I read the RFI website news in French most days, in high school I went through all the French versions of Tintin comics. I even had a penpal in Ile de la Reunion who wrote me fun letters all in French for four years. So you can add me to your new French group though my free time is 99% on Chinese stuff. Though sometimes I wish I had a penpal who would write to me in French and I write back in Chinese, that would be fun, but not possible to find anyway.

[semantic nuance]

I don't speak that well, and want to work harder on my spoken French

Same here! However, I want to focus more on reading. I hope that someday I can read books in French written by Roland Barthes, Jean-Paul Sartre, etc. Still got a long long way to go.

there's also news in français facile, and I've got the news and the French version of the Auslandsjournal as videocasts.. now I just need to take out more time to listen to it

Same here!! To me, la liaison is really a pain in the neck. I easily lose track after listening to a few sentences. That's why I go back to French for kids. Listening to simpler French won't frustrate me too much. Il était une histoire is what I'm working on. This is perhaps way too easy for you guys.

[Hofmann]

I've studied for 5 years grades 8-12. I've never used it in a real life situation before.

[chrix]

So that makes 5 of us, right? Would that be enough for a social group? We should wait for more people who have some connection to the French language...

Also, we need to see if the social groups become more usable once the forum updates its software.

I think, they can be useful, at least the German one can come in useful, especially since there are no good German language forums on the Chinese language...

[Ole]

Also, we need to see if the social groups become more usable once the forum updates its software.

I think, they can be useful, at least the German one can come in useful, especially since there are no good German language forums on the Chinese language...

C'est vrai!

[DrWatson]

Count me in! Communicating in French about my interest in le chinois!

I don't write very well in French, but if it wouldn't bother anyone I'd try to contribute.

[atitarev]

I've noticed that here's no French social group, despite there being groups for German, Japanese, Russian and Arabic.

Chrix, you can create a social group yourself! Pourquoi pas ? I like French, not just the sound. I learned it casually, did 2 semesters at Uni and learned to sing some Joe Dassin's songs. This was sufficient for me to follow the high school program's textbook with no problem at all.

The social groups here are not very active. The broader you make the focus, the better.

[Daan]

Thanks to many years of exposure to French as a kid and in high school, I used to be pretty fluent in French, but forgot a lot after I started studying Chinese. I minored in it last year, but since moving to Taiwan I can't help thinking my French has gotten even worse than before. My reading skills are still quite alright, but writing...oh, don't get me started. I suppose I would join any French-related activity here, but I can't make any promises as to how active I would be.

[chrix]

atitarev, sure. So the question is: should this group be one to discuss all matters Chinese using French or discuss all matters French in English? I guess you could do both....

So if anybody can open up a social group, I'd say I'll open up a group as soon as the forum software is updated.