In my career as a student I tried several languages: German (as my native dialect seems to puzzle people from the opposite side of germany, I consider german my second language), english, latin, spanish, french and even chinese.
French was the worst. I didn’t like that at all. I took two attempts because I didn’t believe it the first time, so now I can say wholeheartedly: I don’t like french.
Being a native french speaker, I can understand why. It has a lot of rules (for both spelling, grammar and pronunciation), a lot of counter-rules, and quite a bit of counter-counter-rules. And, unlike english (in which there’s also a lot of old weird decisions that are still kept, but you only learn about them a bit later in the cursus), the french language is weird from the get-go and only gets weirder.
I’m not sure if it makes sense to study French in the United States unless you’re in Louisiana, New England, or near the Haitian community in New York or Florida. And even so, Quebecois, Haitian creole, and Cajun French are all pretty much mutually unintelligible, and nothing like Parisian or Gascon.
Well to be fair, Quebecois is Real French ™ pre revolution with just a few idiosyncrasies added over time. Just like the dialect in Newfoundland is supposedly English or Bayerisch is to German.
My grandfather was fluent in 8 languages (including Latin, Russian, French, Greek and Esperanto), and to keep his mind alert when he turned 70 he began learning Japanese and became fluent in speaking and reading it.
Myself, I learned a smattering of languages while growing up – some Russian, some Japanese, some Esperanto – and at high school took 5 years of French, becoming reasonably fluent. In my early 50s I began learning Italian, and am about to go back to learning it (having taken off 3 years to gain my nursing qualification).
My point is, you are never too old to learn a new language – if it’s how you want to spend your time.
You probably had the wrong idea when you signed up. They don’t actually do any Frenching in class.
They don’t Joyce? But my teacher kept me back after class every day for remedial lessons in Frenching.
Hopefully Mr. Bug won’t say “yes” when some Frenchman asks if he wants some “merde” in his sandwich.
Oh come on, it’s not that bad.
Sérieusement, le Français n’est pas si terrible que ça…
😉
In my career as a student I tried several languages: German (as my native dialect seems to puzzle people from the opposite side of germany, I consider german my second language), english, latin, spanish, french and even chinese.
French was the worst. I didn’t like that at all. I took two attempts because I didn’t believe it the first time, so now I can say wholeheartedly: I don’t like french.
Being a native french speaker, I can understand why. It has a lot of rules (for both spelling, grammar and pronunciation), a lot of counter-rules, and quite a bit of counter-counter-rules. And, unlike english (in which there’s also a lot of old weird decisions that are still kept, but you only learn about them a bit later in the cursus), the french language is weird from the get-go and only gets weirder.
I’m not sure if it makes sense to study French in the United States unless you’re in Louisiana, New England, or near the Haitian community in New York or Florida. And even so, Quebecois, Haitian creole, and Cajun French are all pretty much mutually unintelligible, and nothing like Parisian or Gascon.
Well to be fair, Quebecois is Real French ™ pre revolution with just a few idiosyncrasies added over time. Just like the dialect in Newfoundland is supposedly English or Bayerisch is to German.
My grandfather was fluent in 8 languages (including Latin, Russian, French, Greek and Esperanto), and to keep his mind alert when he turned 70 he began learning Japanese and became fluent in speaking and reading it.
Myself, I learned a smattering of languages while growing up – some Russian, some Japanese, some Esperanto – and at high school took 5 years of French, becoming reasonably fluent. In my early 50s I began learning Italian, and am about to go back to learning it (having taken off 3 years to gain my nursing qualification).
My point is, you are never too old to learn a new language – if it’s how you want to spend your time.
Nice to see someone else who dabbles in Esperanto. Mi estas komencanto, sed mi lernas.
Adam, I’m pretty sure you have entirely the wrong idea of what people mean when they talk about “language police”.
What we have here is a failure to communicate bilingually.
Clever.
You know, Adam, it’s never too late… YOU SHOULD REALLY GIVE IT A TRY.
Muahahahaha…