"Not Worth its own thread" Thread

[TedEH]

OTOH: she's right, the more you use and immerse yourself in the language the more you're going to learn. You should try to read french, write french, watch french tv shows, speak french, etc. all you can.

I mean, I've got some french books - I'm re-reading the old Dragon Ball books in french (lol), all my youtube ads are french, the lyrics in our bands are french, our jams are bilingual, the office is bilingual, most of daily life here is French once you leave your own home - immersion is not a problem. And we do occasionally talk about language, and or use French in all these places. But it's not all the time, and it's not forced.

When you try to order something, get the eye roll and switch back to English, I cannot for the life of me force them to switch back. The accent is a giveaway, and nobody wants to struggle to communicate while doing a job. And in any other situation where I'm there for a purpose, there's no time for us to grind to a halt to give me language lessons when we're trying to accomplish something.

And it's not like the way I've been going hasn't been making progress - I passed the previous level, and have been told I'm in good shape going into the 3rd level. And it's also not like I'm refusing strait out to try to use it, but there's a limit.

When I say militant, I mean being told "I need you to commit, right now, that you will not speak to your band mates in English anymore". No, I can't do that. That's not reasonable.

Assuming one is in a predominantly English-speaking country, opportunities to practice need to be made.

If you asked the Quebecois around here, they'd be very quick to tell you that this is a distinct nation with only one official language: French. There is an abundance of opportunity - enough so that there isn't a need to invent ones where it would throw a wrench into things or make me out to be a jerk.

Practice? Yes. Find opportunities? Yes. Insist that everyone around be your practice buddy even if they don't want to? No. Dedicate yourself to this one thing that you're mostly doing out of a courtesy and because the law just short of mandates it in response to a complicated history of the French and English hating eachother hundreds of years ago? That's very hard to commit to.

I would think that if you want someone to stick with something, you have to let them have some control of the pace. I don't need to learn fast. I don't need to assimilate right now. I know very well that if I force it in too many situations, I'm going to get frustrated and bail, which I'd rather not do.

 

[gabito]

When I say militant, I mean being told "I need you to commit, right now, that you will not speak to your band mates in English anymore". No, I can't do that. That's not reasonable.

Well, if it's not reasonable then just don't do it. Maybe you can practice with a friend once in a while or ask specific questions about how to pronounce some things. Reading out loud helps too, I don't have many opportunities to practice my English besides talking to customers every so often (that's the PM's job mostly...), so that's how I practice when I feel rusty or in preparation for something.

Also it's in part why I post here: to practice writing in English in a more or less natural way, make some mistakes, and try to correct them before the edit window ends.

So, yeah, find some reasonable opportunities. Teachers will give you generic advice and they're probably right about it but they don't know the details about your life or your motivations.

Or you could just move to France. Nobody there will switch to English to help you, even if they speak and understand English

 

[BlackMastodon]

I remembered the thing I wanted to look up but I forgot an hour ago.

 

[TedEH]

Or you could just move to France. Nobody there will switch to English to help you, even if they speak and understand English

Ain't quite the same French though.

 

[gabito]

Ain't quite the same French though.

Yeah, and my country's Spanish is very different from Spain's, but we can insult each other very intelligibly when we have to.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

This really just comes down to tone.
I tried learning both Spanish and American Sign Language. Both took the same approach but the Spanish teacher came off with the same vibe that Ted is describing. This needed to be my life now. And as a high school kid taking this class so I could graduate- that accomplished the opposite of what she surely intended.
ASL, on the other hand, was pitched the same; but the tone of the pitch was a lot more inviting. It would be good for you vs you have to. In my experience, trying to sign your way through conversations with others is a great way to build phrase associations compared to the conversational hostage-taking pitch.

The 'militancy' of a zealous instructor was also what turned me off from trying to dip my toes into music the first time when I was a kid. Like I get you're enthusiastic and that you want me to be enthusiastic too but you need to build that organically rather than demand it up front. Come in too hot and you're going to put people off.

Well, even well-intentioned people can come off wrong: heaven knows I know that after 29 years of marriage.

I guess all I'm saying here is style is something you can choose to ignore. If I got pissed-off at all the teachers who had the wrong approach, I would know jack shit right now (tho my wife would argue that is, indeed, the case today).

 

[Rubbishplayer]

If you asked the Quebecois around here, they'd be very quick to tell you that this is a distinct nation with only one official language: French.

I try not to talk to talk to French Canadians...

 

[Rubbishplayer]

Ain't quite the same French though.

Eh?

 

[TedEH]

Eh?

Not sure if a serious Eh, or a joking Eh. Quebec French is pretty different from metropolitan / Parisian / European French, whatever you'd want to call it.

This guy explains it better than I could:

 

[Rubbishplayer]

Not sure if a serious Eh, or a joking Eh. Quebec French is pretty different from metropolitan / Parisian / European French, whatever you'd want to call it.

This guy explains it better than I could:

It was a serious "eh". When I was living in NYC, I often came across French-Canadian visitors but didn't perceive any huge differences from classic French. That said, my ignorance of the subtleties of the dialects could've hobbled me.

 

[TedEH]

It was a serious "eh"

The video says it better, but it's like any other dialect in any other language, there's differences in pronunciation, some phrasing that's not quite the same or would be technically correct but would sound unnatural in one place or another, different anglicisms when those apply, differences in certain shortcuts or slang, etc. I'm no expert, but I can hear the difference in that video when he tries (and doesn't quite nail) sounding Canadian.

 

[nightsprinter]

I wish I could disable the ability to view the "Ended" section of my Watch List on Reverb. I just can't help myself, look, and see so many things I wish I had pulled the trigger on dangit. Being responsible sucks.

 

[TedEH]

I wish I could disable the ability to view the "Ended" section of my Watch List on Reverb.

I wish that facebook marketplace would auto-remove sold items from your saved list. It's gone, I don't wanna see it no more. Kijiji does this. Doesn't seem very hard to do.

 

[Seabeast2000]

Taken a hankering for some finger picked parts of some favorite songs. Damn I suuuuck at it. Not sure I have an inner Jonny Hiland but I'll keep working on it so I can sound cool in front of other people for 10 -15 seconds.

 

[nightsprinter]

New Judy drop