Posts Tagged ‘grammar’

French is a beautiful language when spoken correctly as it has a musical flowing quality to it. Learning the language though can be quite difficult for English speakers with no French cultural background or experience in learning other languages as the pronunciations, grammar and many subtle concepts are quite different to English so when learning to speak French you need to start right at the beginning and get the groundwork right before going on to more advanced things.

How to speak French – The Basics

One of the first things you must understand when learning to speak French is that the French divide everything into genders meaning that every noun has a male and female association. Knowing when a noun is masculine or feminine is a frustrating concept for many but it must be mastered to understand how to speak French properly. When educating yourself in French you must be aware that the ending of nouns and often the prefixes indicate which gender they belong to so for example:

• un aide is a MALE assistant and une aide is a FEMALE assistant
• le mode is a method or a mood and la mode is a fashion
• le solde is a sale or a balance of accounts and la solde is to pay

As you can see this can be confusing where the same word with a slight change means something different and if you do not pronounce it correctly you will change the meaning of a conversation dramatically. How to speak French, the basics at least, is often more a battle in how to change the way you think when speaking more than memorize these words however so do not get stuck on trying to remember everything as the basics are the rules that define the grammar.

Author: Jennifer Longe
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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When you undertake to learn any language you are opening yourself up to a completely new learning experience. With any new learning experience you are likely to experience differences, and therefore difficulties of various sorts. That means if you are looking to learn French beginner problems may occur. In this article I am going to point out the main issues for those wanting to learn French.

The first French beginer problems you are likley to encounter lie in the realm of pronunciation. French is notoriously difficult for English speakers to pronounce well, but if you bear in mind certain factors, you can helpt to keep this problem at bay.

First of all, take time learning the French sounds, before you emnark on further study. Learn words and simple phrases to start off with, copying the voices you hear on the audio component to your course (and, by the way, a French audio comonent featuring native French speakers is indispensable, so dont try and learn without one), and comparing your pronunciation to that of the native speakers.

When you are comfortabel with the pronunciation, then you should start to learn the mechanics, or grammar of the language, using your course, be it book and CD, or software.

Your next obstacle will probably be the linguistic concepts of the language. What you hae to remember is that French and English are, gramatically, very different. If you have heard that you can just pick up a language without studying the grammar of that language, then you have been mislead. Such an approach is a recipe for disaster. Take your time to learn the basic concepts early on, and admittedly, while you might experience some frustration (which is a typical side effect of learning anything new, and nothing to be alarmed about) early on, you will find it benefits you greatly further down the line.

The third of the French beginner problems we shall look at, and a typical one I have noted is that of students complaints about being unable to understand French. In the early days it is to be expected that you will be unable to understand fluent French. The problem lies simply in not having the desired level of French at your disposal. Of course, some French will allow you to understand some, or on occasion, all of what is being said or communicated. But with patience you will find that, the more French you learn, the better your understanding of French will be.

The secret to learning any language is persistence. You will encounter problems, and difficulties but if you keep on keeing on, French beginner problems will soon give way to understanding and success.

Author: Christopher Byrnes
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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