Learning/perfecting the French accent?

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Original post by Cipher3D From what I've learned, it seems that it is near impossible to become like a native-speaker in a language if you're learning a language (no matter how long you learn) after 10 years of age. However - I would like to think otherwise. I've just started to learn French right now (and I'm 17) - is there any possibility at all that at some point in my life that I'll be able to develop the ability to speak like a native? Are my vocal structures unable to ever enunciate the nuances of the French language?

From my experience, it'll be extremely hard. I'm a french speaker who's been working in the US for just over 3 months, yet no one in my team/circle of friends is even able to pronounce my name in a satisfactory manner despite some of them trying really hard. (Jean-Francois)

Some things English speakers need to work on, on the top of my heads:

- J's are soft. It's 'J..', not 'Dj...'
- 'an' 'ent' 'ean'. There is no N, forget about the N, we don't want to hear even the slightlest trace of it.
- A is 'ah', not the english 'a'

And from my POV, I believe it's a bit easier for french speakers to speak a 'somewhat correct' english than the other way around, yet I still feel I'm making little progress... That being said, you'll never sound like any native speaker. (Hell, the native speakers don't even sound the same between themselves) [rolleyes]

Your best bet would be to go live in france for a while.

I reckon that the only way to really get to know any language is to be constantly surrounded by people speaking it. Books and tapes etc, in my experience, tend to focus on the language in a formal manner, but people rarely speak that way and use slang and colloquialisms [smile]

All the best,
ViLiO

I'm going to agree that the fastest way to learn a foreign language would be to go somewhere where there is actually real people using it in real world situations.

If course, I only speak one language so I really can't claim to know anything regarding learning languages, but I can assure you that the Canadian Education system was absolutely no help whatsoever.

I spent 14 years in 'French Class' and I learned more about French on my own than I did there. What is with memorizing these endless lists of conjugating irregular verbs? Why all these memorize all these stupid phrases? I never had to do any of that crap when I learned English. And what if I did memorize all that crap? At best, I might be able to write a letter to someone in France, I still wouldn't have any idea how to speak the damn language.

Do you have any idea how long it was before I realized that 'Bonjour' wasn't infact 'hello', but two seperate words, 'good' and 'day'? If they taught me the words 'good' and 'day' first, and didn't try to make me memorize poorly translasted phrases they would have saved everyone so much trouble.

In conclusion, I think the education system is a huge joke. Not just French class, it's all crap.

Best of luck learning your new language, though.

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Original post by smart_idiot Do you have any idea how long it was before I realized that 'Bonjour' wasn't infact 'hello', but two seperate words, 'good' and 'day'? If they taught me the words 'good' and 'day' first, and didn't try to make me memorize poorly translasted phrases they would have saved everyone so much trouble.

This is interesting from an etymology perspective, but is not something you really have to realize to speak a language. I't analoguous to breakfast in english. We don't really think of it as break and fast together much. (At least I don't).

Edit: Yeah in the case of bonjour I guess it's important since you would say 'bonsoir' during the evening. It's amazing how we can totally abstract those little things away and never think about them.

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Original post by smart_idiot I spent 14 years in 'French Class' and I learned more about French on my own than I did there. What is with memorizing these endless lists of conjugating irregular verbs? Why all these memorize all these stupid phrases? I never had to do any of that crap when I learned English. And what if I did memorize all that crap? At best, I might be able to write a letter to someone in France, I still wouldn't have any idea how to speak the damn language.

I would like to elaborate on this and go into detail, but then I'd probably take this thread too far off track, so I'll just say this: I agree with you. My two years of spanish has amounted to pretty much nothing.

I share your sentiment. I have been taking Spanish for about three years now and I realize I still know next to nothing. Like yours, I've been only learning pithy phrases that would barely get a tourist around, and most likely garner me strange looks.

But I decided to learn French on my own, so a week ago I started. It's a fabulous language (in my opinion), and the only thing I'm thankful for in Spanish is the large amount of concepts that stay the same between the two languages.

I've been sort of obsessive about it, and according to my friends, I probably know more already than half the people in French 3 class (but I don't think that means much). So now I'm just wondering if I can develop a fluency that would allow me to ,well, live comfortably with the French (I'm planning to live there for an extended period someday). By "living comfortably" I mean to be able to become a part of their culture and society, and not be marked as "the outsider".

And I recognize that learning French on my own will do nothing for my pronunciation, but that isn't a problem for me now, I'm only focusing on reading.

The big difference between english and french is the rythm of the speech. French is very monotone, always keep the same tone, and get a little bit lower at end of phrase.

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This is interesting from an etymology perspective, but is not something you really have to realize to speak a language. I't analoguous to breakfast in english. We don't really think of it as break and fast together much. (At least I don't).

Of course it isn't necessary, but it would have helped me understand these things, and of course, there would have been less memorizing to do if I knew how to put words together to make phrases instead of memorizing phrases. It's like trying to teach someone to spell a word by making them memorize the letters in the word. That is, in my opinion, insane.

Besides, knowing the meanings of the words is a nice way to understand the word. Breakfast has a much more interesting meaning if you look at it like break [stop] fast [abstaining from food].

I agree with everyone about foreign langauge classes. There are kids who get straight A's and can barely say a thing. When you get into the higher levels they expect you to write all of these essays and do all of these projects when you don't know enough words to say much of anything. Then when you learn most of the major bits of grammar like the tenses, its nothing but review and learning bits of vocab that everyone is going to forget anyway.

I had an Art History teacher who said that no matter how good the teacher is, you really can't learn a language by taking a class, you need to be immersed in it.

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Original post by smart_idiot Do you have any idea how long it was before I realized that 'Bonjour' wasn't infact 'hello', but two seperate words, 'good' and 'day'? If they taught me the words 'good' and 'day' first, and didn't try to make me memorize poorly translasted phrases they would have saved everyone so much trouble.

As was already mentioned, these compound words are memorized and used as-is by french people. As a matter of fact, I say "bonsoir" at any time of the day ("good evening") but that's because I like startling people.

Besides, who would try to understand the etymology of 98? Which is: quatre-vingt dix-huit (four-twenty ten-eight or 4*20+10+8).

the same etymology with that of "four score"'s, I suppose.

Thanks for bringing the horrors of counting back. Trying to do some math in my head and at the same time recall which words go with which number didn't work well for me. It kind of reminds me of teh evil roman numerals.

Watch Looney Tunes episodes featuring Pe Pe le Pew for 24 hours straight. Then you'll have a flawless French accent.

Lot's of actors do accents just fine (most of the principal characters, including Batman, in Batman Begins were not American). This leads me to believe that it is possible. I think not being afraid of sounding stupid is an important first step.

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Original post by Cypher19 Watch Looney Tunes episodes featuring Pe Pe le Pew for 24 hours straight. Then you'll have a flawless French accent.

Haha.

I feel that I actually learned a lot of French in the 4 years of French class i've been taking. Speaking French is definetly easier than speaking English. At least French has a straight foward pronunciation. English isn't my native language (Spanish is) and I have the hardest time pronouncing new words. There don't seem to be any rules and if I don't hear the word before I'll probably butcher the pronunciation. I can pronounce almost any French word (with some accent but still) just by looking at it and following the basic rules and accents.

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Original post by QzarBaron I feel that I actually learned a lot of French in the 4 years of French class i've been taking. Speaking French is definetly easier than speaking English. At least French has a straight foward pronunciation. English isn't my native language (Spanish is) and I have the hardest time pronouncing new words. There don't seem to be any rules and if I don't hear the word before I'll probably butcher the pronunciation. I can pronounce almost any French word (with some accent but still) just by looking at it and following the basic rules and accents.

Haha, definitely.

OK kids, here we have 'height' and 'weight' They're spelt in the same way and have a rather strong semantic bond, but they're pronounced in two totally different ways.

(Yes, 'hate' always slips in instead of 'height.' [sad])

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Original post by jfclavette Quote: Original post by QzarBaron I feel that I actually learned a lot of French in the 4 years of French class i've been taking. Speaking French is definetly easier than speaking English. At least French has a straight foward pronunciation. English isn't my native language (Spanish is) and I have the hardest time pronouncing new words. There don't seem to be any rules and if I don't hear the word before I'll probably butcher the pronunciation. I can pronounce almost any French word (with some accent but still) just by looking at it and following the basic rules and accents. Haha, definitely. OK kids, here we have 'height' and 'weight' They're spelled in the same way and have a rather strong semantic bond, but they're pronounced in two totally different ways. (Yes, 'hate' always slips in instead of 'height.' [sad])

Fixed.

The words are not wheat :)

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Original post by Maega Quote: Original post by jfclavette Quote: Original post by QzarBaron I feel that I actually learned a lot of French in the 4 years of French class i've been taking. Speaking French is definetly easier than speaking English. At least French has a straight foward pronunciation. English isn't my native language (Spanish is) and I have the hardest time pronouncing new words. There don't seem to be any rules and if I don't hear the word before I'll probably butcher the pronunciation. I can pronounce almost any French word (with some accent but still) just by looking at it and following the basic rules and accents. Haha, definitely. OK kids, here we have 'height' and 'weight' They're spelled in the same way and have a rather strong semantic bond, but they're pronounced in two totally different ways. (Yes, 'hate' always slips in instead of 'height.' [sad]) Fixed. The words are not wheat :)

I can't tell if you were being sarcastic or not.