Breaking some myths about the French language

French is not phonetic | Grammar is complicated | French people speak so fast

People say French is a very difficult language to learn. 

Who says that? People who tried to learn French and stopped, people who are currently studying, and people who even gave up before starting.

So… Yes. It is true. At least partly. French is not an easy language, especially if your mother tongue is English, and you are brought to a new world of feminine and masculine words, articles and more. 

But it is not impossible. 

Today, I would like to break some myths about the French language.

French is not phonetic

Whoever says this actually means that in French you don’t read each letter separately and ignore some of the letters.

Well, that’s true. In French some of the letters are combined to create a different sound (e.g. EN, AI, AU) and many final letters are silent.

But you may have forgotten (if you learned English a while ago), or never noticed (if it’s your mother tongue), but English also has letters or connections between letters that produce other sounds (they even vary by the letters around). 

I will give you 3 tips to learn to read and pronounce French.

1. Any final letter that is not a, é, i, o, u, y, c, l, f – don't pronounce it. The most common (and silent) letters at the end of a word are d, s, t, x, z.

2. Learn specifically to pronounce the sound “e” (as in JE) - round and closed lips - and the sound “é” (as in AI, EZ, é) - open lips like in a smile.

3. Listen to (and repeat) every word you learn (in class with a teacher, in an online dictionary, or on websites with recorded conversations). It is particularly important to repeat the words out loud.

Grammar is complicated

Ok, I agree with that. French grammar is more complicated than English grammar. But in order to have a simple conversation, you don't have to learn all the grammar rules.

While learning a language, there are 2 important steps:

1. Learning the rules and practising them in writing and/or vocally.

2. Listening and copying to internalise the rules (and this can take years).

I will give you 2 tips to help you simplify French grammar.

1. To “know” if a noun is masculine or feminine, learn it the first time with an article (un, du, au, mon…). Go to an online dictionary, look for a very simple positive sentence (without “the”), like “I want some rice” or “I bought a new car”, and you will get the noun (rice / car) with an article. Learn this. Pretty soon you'll understand the difference between the masculine and feminine articles, and in the meanwhile you can start using the words with their article in a sentence.

2. In French, you can get along with 3 tenses and a few individual and frequently used verbs in some other tenses: present tense (to talk about now, in general, and the near future), passé composé (to tell about your past actions of yesterday, last week, ten years ago…), imparfait (to describe past feelings and descriptions, and tell about habits in the past) and several individual verbs in CONDITIONAL tense such as JE VOUDRAIS, TU DEVRAIS…

French people speak so fast

I totally agree with you. We (the French) speak fast, we swallow letters, and there are many words in slang that are not taught in classes or books. But in my opinion, in any language, there are people who speak fast (I sometimes find it hard to understand American actors in movies).

I will give you 3 tips to overcome this problem.

1. When you talk to a French person, you can always ask him/her to speak more slowly and/or with simple words. “Pardon, vous pouvez parler plus lentement, s'il vous plaît ?”

2. Practise your French pace! Choose a sentence and repeat it several times, every time quicker.

3. Practise understanding others. In any YouTube video or audio file from a website, you can modify the speed. Start listening at 0.75, and after you understand what they're saying, listen again at 0.8, 0.85, 0.9. Finish with the original speed.

I hope I have been able to convince you (at least a little) that French is not such a difficult language to learn. Also, remember that there are many benefits to the French language, especially if you speak English or Spanish: 

1. You don’t have to learn a new alphabet! Imagine if you were learning Russian, Chinese, Greek or Arabic.

2. There are many similar words (in writing) to English and Spanish.

   
   

3. You can find a lot of learning material on the Internet, and many options to listen to French (songs, podcasts, movies…).

So, now is your turn to start, go back or continue learning French!