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How hard is french pronunciation?
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<p>Most Americans never get the French "r" and "u" sounds quite right...</p>
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<p>I went all over France speaking French and never getting made for American. Certainly I am not fluent enough to be judged a native speaker, but each French person praised my accent and had a different guess about which European country I was from. Americans with a fairly good ear can have a decent accent if they learn from a teacher with a good accent (especially a francophone).</p>
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<p>french pronunciation, to be honest, is too easy. i absolutely cannot understand some people's inability to pronounce the "u," and "r" or to pronounce the nasal sounds perfectly. french pronunciation is a child's play compared to that of arabic (of which half of the sounds don't even exist in english) or cantonese (which has amazing amount of tones)</p>
<p>what is difficult with french is understanding a native speaker because they speak so fast and join the words in a long sentence. </p>
<p>in terms of grammar, there is only one small discomfort: pronoun and dop/iop order. overall, the spelling, grammar are incredibly easy. </p>
<p>german has long words which seems like it will take couple minutes to say one word.</p>
<p>So, with a lot of practice over a couple of years, will I be able to communicate without a bad accent? I am worried because I want to become fluent in the language I choose to take. I wouldnt really consider myself fluent in french if I had a bad accent.</p>
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<p>Eh when I went France I tried to speak French but the people for the most part were kinda dicks about it.
Germany however was a different story. I speak German a lot better and when I struggled most people would speak to me in English which made me feel better.</p>
<p>Um German is pretty hard but cool. Passive, present perfect, the different cases (accusative,dative,genitive) and some other relative pronoun stuff with deren and the like gets confusing though.</p>
<p>^ Could you go into more detail about when you were in France and tried to speak French?</p>
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<p>Well I was mostly in Metz and Calais. I would never come up and try to speak English I always tried French first. Of course some people were receptive and helped me out by switching to English, but a lot people kinda laughed and gave me the "learn the language look" I mean I tried....</p>
<p>For the most part I enjoyed my stay in France, cool places and some very nice people. My comment was in no way a reflection of the usual American attitude of the French.</p>
<p>Ok I will stop hijacking this thread :p</p>
<p>I learned both French and German(not as fluent). Besides English, I think French is the official language at the Olympics. I vote for French.</p>
<p>american attitude toward france...what exactly is this?? </p>
<p>anyway, most germans speak english. why bother learning german? even though the french speak english also, they don't like it when u speak to them in that language, so it's a good thing to learn french. ..but of course u will be respected more in france (or europe generally) if u spoke spanish or italian. but, on the whole, old world people will not be impressed with someone speaking several languages for they themselves are bilingual or trilingual. i had a bulgarian friend whose father spoke 5 languages and he wasn't even a hummanities major. also, many students in east asia KNOW MORE written english than an american. in africa, which many of u consider to be inhabited by backward and uneducated people, they usually know french, arabic and/or english in addition to their tribal languages. welcome to the world folks. this world is changing into place inhabited by a multi-lingual race</p>
<p>it's true voldemort, there are many speaking several languages - but learning a language is not only about practical issues and/or posing.</p>
<p>It enlarges your background and learning a language provides you witrh the ability to understand a culture. Why bother telling them that you "just" speak two languages (incl. your native one). You have worked hard on your skills and we respect someone who shows interest. It's the same with universities - if you are arrogant and show that you don't think you must work on your essays, they will reject you.</p>
<p>What haisakido says can also be referred to your own people. Few englishmen actually learn another language and many of those who try never achieve mastery (believe me, I've been in the UK and the teaching methods are horrible). Now, you (which distinguishes you from the French) do speak to us but you expect us to learn your language. That's fine as long as English is the primary language but you won't do any business in upcoming countries like Russia or China.</p>
<p>You might look down on all the japanese and chinese with perfect SAT scores - but they don't come from nothing. The chinese handle one of the most complicated languages to learn plus do relatively well in English. It's not only about remembering Barrons 3500.</p>
<p>Personally, I love English, at times I even prefer English over German and often I think and dream in English - though I've been raised in Germany all my life and though neither of my parents is especially good at this language. I don't consider myself to be an expert in your language but it is sufficient. By learning English, I have found a way to understand your culture better as I did by learning French and Latin.</p>
<p>It's a positive thing, but you should not point your finger at others "who refuse to speak any other language".</p>
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<p>^ i think the education in UK is so contradictory that i can't make an opinion on it. for example, oxbridge are excellent schools, but they're not difficult to get into. and i suppose most englishmen and women speak french.</p>
<p>yes, english is a beautiful language primarily because it is the most romanticized of all germanic languages. in fact, it is TOO romanticized to pass as germanic. but, the truly beautiful languages are the OLD ones.</p>
<p>i've been considering spoken german and it kind of sounds like french while english sounds more like spanish or italian.</p>
<p>French is embedded in the English language, like aubergine(eggplant), courgette(squash), etc..
I think English is more like German.</p>
<p>i think i read in my psych book that over 3/4 of the world is bilingual.</p>
<p>I am a native German speaker and I will continue to study French in College. I honestly think that you should study the language you like the best because that is what will ultimately make you love the classes and work really hard which you have to do for all languages. I do have to say that it is very funny for me to listen to Americans pronounce German or French so I do not know wihich is better. I believe pronounciation wise, they are pretty equal. Grammar wise, German is rather hard, but French is harder since there are so many exceptions in the French language.</p>
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<p>my psych teacher said something like: i don't think a non-native speaker could EVER have the native american or british accent. </p>
<p>but, for french, i think it IS POSSIBLE for an english-speaker (ESPECIALLY BRITISH) to speak with native accent. why? english is so similar to french; british people sound words like french people (peculiar to only to england and france). american english is slightly more distance from french for it has dropped many british orthographical tendencies; and it had a very different pronunciation system (also very peculiar).</p>
<p>but as a whole, french is a piece of cake. if u want to know what really is impossible pronuciation-wise, take arabic and u will cry.</p>
<p>isn't greek the most difficult in terms of grammar?</p>
<p>My brother is really into German philosophy. He's getting his PhD in it. I guess you just need a passion. I don't know what anyone here can say.</p>
<p>Also, I read some posts saying French is more similar to french than german...</p>
<p>this is not true. German's gramatical structure is incredibly similar to English, and much vocabulary is very similar. English is mainly a Germanic language, with strong influences from early french (latin) and many other nordic languages.</p>
<p>tag for later use
random: sauron parla italiano! ah, le lingue mi piacionno tutte.</p>
<p>^_^</p>
<p>Iām resurrecting this old thread.</p>
<p>Both French and German rock.</p>