French
From Learn Any Language
| Spoken by | ? |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | France, Belgium, Canada, French Guana |
| Language family: | italic |
Lalala
Contents |
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Grammar
[edit] Orthography
The French orthography is generally considered hard, but as with most things, it is merely a question of learning the rules that apply to it and the logic appears.
[edit] Common difficulties
Articles are by many considered a difficult part of French grammar. French uses indefinite articles (un, une, des), definite articles (le, la, l', les) and partitive articles (du, de la, de l', des) and the rules for the usage of these should be studied carefully.
French has many homophones, vers, ver, verre, vert and vair are all pronounced the same.
French conjugations in themselves are not very hard for someone who is already used to languages with numerous tenses, but the fact that many endings of verbs are pronounced the same complicates things. "Il était" (he was) and "ils étaient" (they were) are, for example, identical. Some claim to find a small difference between "j'aurai" (I will have) and "j'aurais" (I would have), but others do not, and these things may make it difficult to keep tenses apart and actually know which one you are using when speaking or hearing someone speak. A thorough study of the tenses and their spelling is therefore recommended. Young French natives themselves are experts at making mistakes when writing French verbs. A very common such error is "j'ai manger" (I have eat(infinitive)) instead of "j'ai mangé" (I have eaten).
Understanding spoken French is also something many find hard. In French one does not cut off one's words where the words end "physically", but combine them in order to avoid finishing a word with a consonant (enchaînement). "Mon oncle" will be pronounced "mo noncle". Silent letters at the end of words will also in some cases become sounded as they combine with the following word starting with a vowel (liaision), and for this there are certain rules, but part of it also depends on how "well" you speak and is a matter of style. An example of an obligatory liaision would be "les enfants" where the s, which is otherwise silent, will be pronounced [z]. Words in general in a phrase will be regrouped in undefineable rhythmic groups where the last syllable of the last word of each group carries the stress, while the rest of the words remain unstressed.
[edit] Resources
There is an FSI-course for French.
French101
