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I got an A in standard grade French and I can't get by in France


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Old 03-12-2016, 17:16
Ovalteenie
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I'm in Paris for the weekend and I'm struggling to get by. I can speak basic phrasebook French but when they reply in rapid French I haven't a clue what they are saying. At FNAC in Forum Des Halles, I offered too much money and the guy gave me back the extra €20 note and smiled and said a big long sentence and I had no idea what he was saying and i just nodded foolishly.

Also despite my best efforts they can tell immediately I'm not a native speaker and they switch to English, while I try to be courteous by attempting to speak French...

Is there something wrong with the French that is taught at school? It bears little resemblance to how real French people speak the language
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:20
realwales
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Passing a GCSE in a language and being able to speak it fluently and properly are two different things.

School teaching of languages is designed to get you to pass the exams, with the purpose of making the school look good in the league tables. It's taught in a very regimented way.

I'd forgotten most of the French and Spanish I learnt at school within months of leaving.

To learn a language, you either need to go through outside school teaching, or actually live in the country for a while.
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:23
Arcana
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I find oral comprehension by far the most difficult aspect of foreign languages to crack.
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:28
Ovalteenie
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I bought a couple of French pop CDs but I don't think the FNAC cashier guy was fooled

Anyway Paris is wonderful just wish I had a companion
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:31
Phil Dodd
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French is a very emotive and articulate language, with a third of it carried out by body language and gesticulations.... Shrugging shoulders, waving arms, facial expressions.

How to learn conversational French ? Several weeks before you next go, start listening to French radio, watch French TV streaming via the internet, watch French YouTube videos, watch French movies.

The academic training is a valuable part of the language, but you do also need to add the interpretation and application, discovered first by use of multimedia....
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:35
St Dabeoc
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Je parle français comme une vache espagnole

gets you off on a good foot (unless you're speaking to a Spanish person by mistake)
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:42
frangipane
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French is a very emotive and articulate language, with a third of it carried out by body language and gesticulations.... Shrugging shoulders, waving arms, facial expressions.
You forgot the striped jersey, string of oignons, Gitane in the corner of the mouth, and sitting on a bicyclette is de rigueur.
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:43
Ovalteenie
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I just went into a French pharmacy and conducted it all in French so I'm really chuffed . Although I gave the wrong money and the French lady had to pick what she required from the bunch of coins in my hand. I do know my French numbers but not when they speak it really fast
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:45
Ovalteenie
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Je parle français comme une vache espagnole

gets you off on a good foot (unless you're speaking to a Spanish person by mistake)
One of the French CDs I just bought was Kendji Girac. Apparently he won the French version of The Voice and sings in French and Spanish

I only bought it because of the big publicity posters of him on the Metro, I hope he's good
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:51
St Dabeoc
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and if it's going badly

je vous avoir savour que je ne suis un que vous pouvez triffler avec!!
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Old 03-12-2016, 17:56
Frankie_Little
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I am jealous, Paris is lovely. Or should I say je suis jaloux, Paris est charmant?

Have fun!
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:07
jra
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I'm in Paris for the weekend and I'm struggling to get by. I can speak basic phrasebook French but when they reply in rapid French I haven't a clue what they are saying. At FNAC in Forum Des Halles, I offered too much money and the guy gave me back the extra €20 note and smiled and said a big long sentence and I had no idea what he was saying and i just nodded foolishly.

Also despite my best efforts they can tell immediately I'm not a native speaker and they switch to English, while I try to be courteous by attempting to speak French...

Is there something wrong with the French that is taught at school? It bears little resemblance to how real French people speak the language
You've learnt standard French, not dialects and colloquialisms (local lingo), which is where the problem may lie.
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:09
TUTV Viewer
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I got an A in standard grade French and I can't get by in France
Standard Grades are scored 1-7 (with a "1" being the top result). There's no way you got an "A".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Grade
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:24
Corrie_Fan2
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You've learnt standard French, not dialects and colloquialisms (local lingo), which is where the problem may lie.
It's problem the same issue that means people who've learnt English as a foreign language are going to struggle in certain parts of the UK.
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:33
tremol
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Speak what you want to speak.

I was tough french to a very basic level 25 years ago.

The very first time I actually was asked to use it was 3 months ago.

If you are polite, and have a smile on your face and an apologetic stance, most french will say sod it, lets play along


Allow them to correct you. You are wrong
If they respond in English, mais en Francias !
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:33
IvanIV
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It takes years of practice to be able to catch every word of a spoken foreign language. But at least you should be able to tell them, Can you please speak slower? And they do, they like it when you make an effort to speak their language even if it is far from perfect.
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:37
tremol
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It takes years of practice to be able to catch every word of a spoken foreign language. But at least you should be able to tell them, Can you please speak slower? And they do, they like it when you make an effort to speak their language even if it is far from perfect.
The French are actually very good about non-speakers trying to learn. I was in a queue in a tobac buying a pack of marlboro and the assistant could not understand my version of malboro. The people in the line behind me, buying newspapers, helped me procounce the word.
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Old 03-12-2016, 18:41
albertd
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You forgot the striped jersey, string of oignons, Gitane in the corner of the mouth, and sitting on a bicyclette is de rigueur.
In the Breton countryside perhaps, but hardly Paris.

Oh yes, and don't forget the beret.
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Old 03-12-2016, 19:18
Ovalteenie
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Standard Grades are scored 1-7 (with a "1" being the top result). There's no way you got an "A".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Grade
Yes I did get a '1' but just refer to it as an A as it's easier to understand.
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Old 03-12-2016, 19:20
Ovalteenie
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In the Breton countryside perhaps, but hardly Paris.

Oh yes, and don't forget the beret.
I haven't noticed many, or any, berets....

But they do like their scarfs. You can tell if a guy is probably French if they are wearing a scarf
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Old 03-12-2016, 19:30
MonsterMunch99
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I did standard grade french at school, and really it's only enough to let you get by and nothing more. Speaking set phrases in a classroom is worlds apart from actually having conversations.

I can still read French, and can order coffee and that's about it.
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Old 03-12-2016, 19:52
Inkblot
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Yes I did get a '1' but just refer to it as an A as it's easier to understand.
O level grades were given as numbers too. I have a 3 in French. Still remember a lot even though it was over 40 years ago.
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Old 03-12-2016, 20:02
MAW
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In the Breton countryside perhaps, but hardly Paris.

Oh yes, and don't forget the beret.
French isn't the language of choice in the Breton countryside. Though the bit where I spend a lot of time is stuffed with retired civil servants, to be the exception. The only way to really learn a language is to live there. Even in 6 months mine has improved amazingly. From a pretty low start mind you
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Old 03-12-2016, 20:09
noise747
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even if you can speak good french, the French will still find some reason not to understand you if you are not French. a mate of mine used to go to France a fair bit as a lorry driver and he speaks a load of different languages and he told me he have never known people like it that even when he speaks French they still seem to not want to understand him.

Italy, Germany and other countries are fine.
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Old 03-12-2016, 20:23
Ovalteenie
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O level grades were given as numbers too. I have a 3 in French. Still remember a lot even though it was over 40 years ago.
You must have sat it during the transition from O grades to Stamdard grades, when they used the new numbering classification in the last years of O grades. It was actually a bit unfair as an A was 70+%, but a 1 was 77+%... so those who got 70-76% in their O grades during the transition got a '2' instead of an A
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