Country France

[Gats]

Je ne m'attendais pas à un sujet sur la grammaire française dans une section "Culture clash".
Je m'attendais plus à une discussion sur les préjugés ou des choses de ce genre.

 

[Black Lagoon]

il y en a même pas un sujet maintenant, juste des gens qui passent et disent bonjour.

 

[Morph]

Re: French : a hard langage [ Part 1, and more i hope ]

It's very similar to Italian. To be in Italian is essere, and to have in Italian is avere.

If your mother tongue is French, then Italian is the easiest language you can learn. I think it shares about 80% vocabulary with French.

Being English myself, French is the easiest language I can learn, I believe we share about 40% of our vocabulary.

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I looked into the irregular verbs a couple of hours ago and I don't understand the website I was on.

Etre (to be) in present tense is: Je suis. Future tense is: Je serais. Past tense: J'ai ete.

I don't understand how "Je suis" means "to be" when it means "I am" ?

I think I'm missing something, could a French speaker please enlighten me on this? Everything in the first post of this thread makes sense, but what I read on the other website confused me.

Je suis (present tense; to be) ??

Just had a thought.. could je suis actually mean both "I am" and "to be" ?

------

I asked someone if "Je suis vignt-deux ans" made sense in French, since it translates to "I am twenty-two years old" in English. Apparently in French they say "I have twenty-two years old" instead of "I am twenty-two years old". Is this correct? If so, then it is one of those very subtle differences between the languages that are going to be most time consuming to remember.

 

[k-dom]

French conjugation is so complicate that even French people do mistake. So I have to correct the first post. Partir and dormir are not verbs of the 2d group but of the 3d one. Verbs of the 2d group are regular verbs that ends in -ir and the most used example is finir ( to end ). The ending are
-is, -is, -it, -issons, -issez, -issent. Partir and Dormir are irregular at singular ( je pars and not je partis, je dors and not je dormis)
Actually partis and dormis are the passé simple forms. The time which is simple only by name since it's so complicate that we don't use it in oral language :-)
So if you want someone not to learn french, start with the verbs...

 

[Koen]

I really wouldn't call French the easiest language to learn. Imo it is more difficult than English. As you say they have different language usages

eg:
J'ai 27 ans -> I am 27 years old (lit. tled but wrong: Je suis 27 ans)
Il fait chaud -> It is warm (lit. tled but wrong: It is warm)
Tu me manques -> I miss you (lit. tled but wrong: Je te manque)

-> I like the french language a lot. I am not as good as a Frenchmen but I think that I am able to have a decent conversation

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

certains croient que le francais est tout a fait difficile mais malgré sa je le trouve simple.

Il suffit de le donner un peu de temps et tout va bien, wé je vous l'assure.

 

[k-dom]

There is also
I agree -> je suis d'accord
And I agree with you, there is no need to speak it perfectly unless you want to make a job out of it. Peolpe won't bother you with grammar and Knowing the language with help you a lot if you travel to francophone countries.
As for difficulties I think French pronunciation is easiest than English. And we don't have tonic accent. Whereas I have repeated countless time the same word in English before being understood, and when they said the word themselves, I couldn't tell the difference with what I said :-)

PS : dark lord, wé doesn't exist I guess you mean ouais which is a variation version of oui

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

PS : dark lord, wé doesn't exist I guess you mean ouais which is a variation version of oui

Yeah, Moroccans invented that along with

C ki
té KI

SAVA

But I do understand you're concern I mean there some words that are valid now in french despite being grammatically wrong

 

[k-dom]

This looks like SMS writing. Do you really use it in Morocco ?

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

This looks like SMS writing. Do you really use it in Morocco ?

Yup we basically do everything you do

Our entire education sytem is in french, and our work environnement is french, our rich people are called phrancophone

Let's just say that we're french too

 

[k-dom]

No you get rid of us in 1956 and that was a wise decision.
Be careful before your country becomes the French Florida with all of our elders buying houses for their retirement :-)

Speaking of cultural exchange, did you know that couscous has become one of the French favorite plates ?

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

Speaking of cultural exchange, did you know that couscous has become one of the French favorite plates ?

Really ? I could imagine it being served in a moroccan restaurent in the city, but to become that popular is strange.

Couscous is basically a vegetarian meal, I mean you could do without meat on top of the bawl and it would still deliciously rock.
The ingredients are healthy thats why more people feel safe eating it

BTW, did you taste the moroccan TAJINE ? I mean this one rocks too

 

[k-dom]

I have eaten some Tajine in restaurant but I guess it's not the same than a homemade plate. But I have to go visit Marocco one day. Everybody I know who went there found it great

 

[DLord.Van.Buuren]

Yeah, totally, morocco rocks especially Fes, el sawira, tanja, they are awsome tranditional cities, though you shouldn't go to casablanca.

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

Yup we basically do everything you do

Our entire education sytem is in french, and our work environnement is french, our rich people are called phrancophone

Let's just say that we're french too

Les marocains ont beau être en Afrique et les français en Europe, il n'empêche que la France est beaucoup plus proche du Maroc que de ses voisins européens - exception faite pour la Wallonie belge avec qui la France entretient aussi de vieux liens fraternels.

L'amitié franco-marocaine est immense. Ne serait-ce qu'en terme de langue, d'échange culturel, d'Histoire, de communauté de destin, de familles, la France et le Maroc sont davantage que de simples voisins. Il suffit de le voir dans le quotidien. J'ai pas mal d'amis qui sont venus faire leurs études en France, et je dois avouer que parfois j'oublie qu'ils sont marocains.

 

[AliceP]

Re: how to learn french?

I use Live Mocha on occasion. It's a pretty good site that teaches you different languages through step-by-step modules. You just sign up there and it'll keep track of your progress for you.

http://www.livemocha.com/

livemocha is not available anymore, try https://www.lingq.com/