How Did I Manage To Speak French (In A Few Year's Time)?

There is no secret nor is there a shortcut in learning a new language, especially if you do it at a later age.  I officially started learning the French language back in 2012, few months after I married my French husband.  But way before that, while we were still at the boyfriend-girlfriend stage, he was already starting to give me a few grammar lessons.  And after each of those grammar lessons, I was almost convinced that "no, this language isn't for me, it's too complicated" only to find myself conversing in French a few years later! Lesson learned: never underestimate your own capacities...ever!

Since the beginning of our relationship, we've always agreed that English will be our primary language in conversing together but later on we realized that it's actually very important for me to learn his language especially since we envision living in France for a few years before finally retiring somewhere else.  This led us to making a decision of me going to language school, if I want to be fluent in French his grammar lessons won't be enough.  But it was only for a couple of months, far from being enough yet it was already a good kick start.  

I officially started learning at the first quarter of 2012 and was already able to speak the language decently enabling me to work part time the last quarter of the next year and yes, this too surprised me in a way.  My husband and I have met a lot of people who asked us how I managed to learn and get fluent as quickly as I did and there is no single answer for this question.  As previously mentioned, I went to language school for a couple of months just before leaving for France.  And when I arrived, as part of my integration process, I attended four hundred hours of language training but aside from that here are the other things that helped me get the hang of it:

1. Have an open mind.  Learning a new language, especially a tricky one like French, needs an open mind.  Don't get yourself stuck in the grammar rules and pronunciations of the language or languages you speak.
2. Buy or scout for free learning materials online and don't just stop there, USE THEM.  Learning is investing.  This new language you're trying to learn may take you places, give it all you have with the time and resources you have.  And there are a lot of fun apps for smart phones that are very effective now a days.
3. Get a "Becherelle" or download a conjugation app like "Le Conjugueur".  This will allow you to know the different conjugation of each French word according to their tenses.  If you want to be fluent with your French then this is a must.
4. Embrace the awkward.  Hearing new words and trying to say them by producing odd sounds can be really awkward in the beginning but you'll never get used to it unless you allow yourself to repeat it enough until it sounds and feels...well, less awkward.  Hey! You're learning a new language, the word new isn't there for nothing so chill! 
5. Live in the country where this language is spoken.  They say that this is the best way to learn a new language, true, unless you opt to speaking your own language while living in that place.  Language is a beautiful part of the culture, integrate yourself and trust me, you'll be appreciating the country's culture in an even deeper level and it'll make your life easier.  You won't have to worry about making sign languages when faced with someone who can't speak the same language you speak.  Not that something is wrong with sign languages, it can be fun and creative too! ^_^ But would it not be better if you can go about your daily life in a normal way like everyone else around you?  In France, not a lot of people speak English let alone Cebuano or Tagalog or whatever Filipino dialect you speak.
6. Read-Listen-Imitate, repeat.  Each of us retain information differently, this worked for me.  I look at a word, listen to someone say it, try to imitate the person and I repeat the procedure.  They help me remember the words, thus, enriching my vocabulary while helping me with the pronunciation at the same time but pronunciations are tricky, don't get discouraged too easily, brave it out!
7. Start from scratch, use children's books.  In France, they have these booklets called "cahier de vacances" that are available in different subject matters, pick the one for learning French and enjoy learning easy-everyday vocabularies.  Imagine you're four years old again and just started going to school.. ^_^
8. Don't be afraid to watch that television.  Say,  you live in that foreign country now and you're too afraid to watch your t.v. set because most channels speak a language that you don't understand.  Don't be.  Go on and watch that t.v. but not with a goal of understanding what's shown just yet, use it to get yourself familiar with the words and how they say it.  Then later on, you'll be surprised when you start to understand and follow simple conversations or topics.  Sitcoms, variety shows, the news and cartoons are very good things to watch in foreign television.
9. Make good old "subtitle" your friend.  Watch a movie in a language that you understand and have it subtitled with the language that you're trying to learn.  Or watch a French movie with an English subtitle.  I know not everyone is a friend of Mr subtitle but this is a very helpful technique especially when it comes to idiomatic expressions since these are things that aren't translated literally most of the time.  Now, you're leveling up!
10. You can't overdose on music.  Have you already heard of a song with the lyrics that you don't understand but the beat was so nice it stays in your head and you end up actually enjoying it?  I think most of us already have.  Music is another part of a country's culture, a beautiful part.  When you listen to music with the language that you're trying to learn don't get frustrated, first you'll understand only bits and pieces of the lyrics and little by little you'll understand the whole song.  France has a lot of beautiful, meaningful, romantic songs, don't miss them!
11. Don't be ashamed to ask even when talking to that random person at the grocery.  French people don't bite.  Don't let the lack of vocabulary hinder your improvement.  And at home don't stop asking questions about words that you've heard and you'd want to understand.
12. Make notes.  Keeping cheat sheets is a good way to helping you remember those newly learned words and expressions.  When you hear a word that's used so often, jot it down and when you get home ask your husband or wife or whoever is with you.
13. Live, breath and eat French.  Make it a part of your life.
14. Don't settle for less.  Practice, don't be afraid to make mistakes, allow others to correct you without feeling offended and don't stop and be contented with a limited vocabulary.  Believe you can and you will!

Trying to speak a new language can be very challenging but it is all worth it in the end.  I'm a talker, I love sharing my ideas and communicating with people around me.  If I were not able to speak French then my life in France will not have been the same.  I wouldn't have been able to find even a part time job.  I'd always have worries about not being understood and I'd always be depending on my husband for everything.  I'm not saying I master the language because I don't, I'm very far from that and I most probably won't reach that level, but I know enough to go about my daily life just as how I went about it in the Philippines and this gives me a certain freedom and confidence and if I am able to do it then there's no reason why you won't be able to do the same, you might even be better than me. ^_^

SUGGESTIONS:

• Try getting the LIVING LANGUAGE COMPLETE COURSE - this is a package with a very well explained book, an English-French dictionary and 4 CDs.  This book helped me a lot in understanding French grammar.
• Visit  LanguageGuide - they have a lot of beginners' exercises available for free.

Easy to Remember Words

Yes, even if this language isn't that easy to learn there are a few words that are not so difficult for us my fellow Bisaya folks.  This is good news!  But before we talk about them please accept my apologies for the delay of this entry.  I was on vacation and it took me some time to be back on the writing mood.

So, in this entry I'll share with you some of the words that I have found easy to learn and remember because they are not so far from our mother tongue.  After each French word will be its pronunciation, you'll notice that the pronunciations will be placed in between two forward slashes to avoid confusion.

Let's start with: avril /avril/- this is the month of April.  I noticed that in French they are not particular about capitalizing their months of the year or days of the week when they right them even in formal letters.  I was hesitating for this one because in Cebuano we don't really use the V sound, we use B instead but we have the street called V. Rama and I remember always hearing it being said correctly and of course we also say Viva Pit Señor!  So, we do say the V sound when we have to!  If you wanna say the month of April in French just say avril instead of Abril and you just said a French word!  Easy right?!  I'll write a different post about months of the year and days of the week so don't worry, you'll learn them too. ツ

Then we have the word cache-cache /kash kash/- this is something very familiar to ladies who love shopping but I'm not gonna talk about the clothing store here, I'm gonna talk about what this store name means.  This comes from the verb cacher /KaShe/ (first group) which means to hide.  Now, cache-cache is a famous children's game played probably all over the world.  In Cebuano we simply call it tagu-tagu.  So, have you noticed the similar pattern?  Look at the different translations: French - cache-cache; Cebuano - tagu-tagu; English - hide and seek; Tagalog - tagu taguan.  In both French and Cebuano we just repeat the same word twice.  

Example sentence:  Jouons à cache-cache!  (Let's play hide and seek!)

The next word is doublé /duble/ and yes it means double which in Cebuano we say doble. 

Example sentence:  Le prix de l'essence est doublé.  (The price of petrol has doubled.)  

Unlike in English, there is only one type of H in French and that's the silent H all the time.  They say un hôpital /opital/ for a hospital which is close to how we say it in Cebuano.  And just a quick note on this; here in the region of Bretagne they have their own ancient language (dialect) called Breton /brotong/ and in the Breton language they say ospital for hospital which is totally like how we Cebuanos say it!  Isn't that great?  Now you learned not just a French word hôpital but a Breton word ospital as well, how amazing is that!  And can you guess how they say hotel?  It's not how we say it in Cebuano but it's another quick word to learn too.  Yes, they say hôtel /otel/.  

How do we say useless in Cebuano?  Let's say there's a brawl between a nagging wife and her lazy husband.  We'd probably here the wife say "Inutil kang tawhana ka, tibuok adlaw sige ra ka'g ligid ligid!" (What an example, I know!hahaha).  Though the word can also mean disabled/handicapped, in this context it just means the husband is useless and for the word useless a French person would say inutile  /inutil/.  Amazing right?  When I first heard this word and understood what it meant it just made me smile.

Example sentence: J'ai toujours froid, le nouveau pull que j'ai acheté est inutile.  Maintenant, je comprend pourquoi ce n'etait pas cher.  (I still feel cold, the new sweater that I bought is useless.  Now I understand why it was not expensive.)

After inutile we have lavabo /lavabo/ - sink in English and lababo or lavabo in Cebuano.  See?  Not all french words are hard!

Example sentence:  Les robinets du lavabo de la salle de bains sont mal fermés.  (The sink faucets in the bathroom are not properly closed.)  

Another interesting word would be un résultat /rezulta/ - which means result.  The only difference is that we don't use the Z sound in its Cebuano counterpart resulta.  Again, notice that the last letter is dropped.

Example sentence:  Il est admis à Harvard, voilà le résultat de son travail!  (He's accepted in Harvard, that's the result of his efforts!)

Up next is the word un savon /savong/ - soap in English.  In Cebuano we say sabon so they are close with regard to spelling but not the pronunciation however I still find it an easy word to learn for a Filipino.

Example sentence:  Il n'y a plus de savon sur le lavabo de la salle de bain.  (There is no more soap on the bathroom sink.)  

Then we have the word sexy /seksi/.  It's the same spelling in English but it's pronounced in Cebuano, seksi.  So, if someone teases you by saying the word seksi instead of pronouncing it in English you can have a good rebut by saying, "hey, I was trying to speak French!" ツ

Another word is un veranda /verongda/- a porch in English and veranda in Cebuano.  There's a slight difference in the pronunciation but it still counts for me.

Example sentence:  Notre véranda a une très belle vue sur la baie.  (Our porch has a very beautiful view of the bay.)

There you have it!  Now you have a few French vocabularies to practice on.  Let's keep learning little by little.  Positive learning attitude, strong determination and hard work are keys to learning a new language.

Note:

In French everything has a gender, even objects.  This is one of the reasons why the language is tricky.  The English articles are easier to learn (a, an, the and sometimes some).   The nouns that I have used above are all masculine; un hôpital, un résultat, le lavabo, un savon and un veranda.  We will talk about the French articles on my next post, that will be next week so stay tuned! 

Let's Start from the Basic

To ignite your interest in this language I'd like to share with you the basics.  As they say (and it's true); "we always start with the baby steps before we could really walk."

How can we start formulating a sentence without knowing the parts of speech?  In this post I'll be sharing with you the French personal, objective and possessive pronouns and the first group of French verbs.

In English, personal pronouns are (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they), while the objective pronouns are (me, you, him, her, it, us, you and them).  In French, the personal pronouns are: Je... (I), tu...(you -informal), il... (he), elle... (she), Nous... (we), vous... (you -formal and/or plural), ils... (they masculine), elles... (they feminine).

In the French language there are three groups of verbs; in the first group are the verbs ending in -er, in the second are the verbs ending in -ir and in the third are the verbs ending in -re.  Each verb group is conjugated differently.

Let's take for example the verb jouer (to play).  It ends in -er so therefore it belongs to the first group.  Verbs of the first group have the following endings when conjugated -e -es -e -ons -ez -ent meaning, if the subject is je the ending should be -e, if the subject is tu the ending should be -es, if it's ill or elle the ending should be -e, if it's nous the ending should be -ons, if it's vous the ending should be -ez and if it's ils or elles then the ending should be -ent.

Examples: je joue (I play), tu joues (you play), il joue (he plays), elle joue (she plays), nous jouons (we play), vous jouez (you play), ils jouent (they play), elles jouent (they play).

Have you noticed the endings?  So, remember that if a french verb ends in -er then they should have the following endings when conjugated -e -es -e -ons -ez -ent (unless it's an irregular verb).

Then let's talk about the objective pronouns.  These are the pronouns that act as the object of the sentence, they receive the action of the sentence.  They are as follows: moi (me), toi (you), lui (him, her, you (formal), nous (us), vous (you -formal and/or plural), leur (them):
Example: Donne moi le livre.  (Give me the book).

Lastly, the possessive pronouns.  These are the pronouns that tell us who owns something.  Here they are: mien (mine, masculine), mienne (mine, feminine), mes (mine, plural masc./fem.), tien/tienne (yours), son/sa (his, hers), notre/nos (ours), votre/vos (yours), ses (theirs).

If you have noticed, in the French language there is a formal and informal form of you (tu and vous).  You don't use the formal form when talking to someone from the family or to a friend unless you are a member of a noble family and on the contrary, you should AVOID using the informal form (tu) when talking to a stranger or to a professional encounter like your doctor, your lawyer etc.. because doing so is considered very impolite.  I  unfortunately have made these mistakes several times simply because it's very confusing to switch from tu to vous but as soon as I realize my mistake I do say my apologies right away.  It's just really awkward at times that's why we have to make conscious efforts in avoiding to do so.

About the pronunciations, as I have mentioned in my introductory post, the French language uses a heavy accent.  Pinabundak ug pinagahi kung sa binisaya pang pagkasulti that's why if you're a Bisaya then you really won't find it so difficult because we know how to do it, right? In the case of the pronouns, there are only two that requires a soft sound, the elle/elles and of course I've mispronounced them several times, what did you expect?!  Bisaya baya, pasensya!lol..  Kidding aside, here's my "informal" pronunciation tip:

• Je - /djo/ like the first syllable of the name Jovanni NOT djow
• Tu - you just have to say it as it is, remember the reading lesson in elementary ta te ti to tu? 
• il - again, say it as it is and be careful because when you say it with a soft sound it'll become elle
• elle - this is pronounced like the letter L in the alphabet and be careful because saying it with a hard accent will make it become the masculine il
• Nous - in Cebu there is this expression "hala nooo?" (we use it to utter worry or disbelief uppon hearing someone's unfortunate/unhappy experience), so to pronounce the pronoun nous you just have to say no in a Cebuano way ت
• Vous - it's like saying the first syllable of the word voodoo
• ils and elles - they are pronounced like il/elle, in French they don't like reading the last letters of their words ت
• moi - mwa
• toi - twa
• lui - Lwi
• leur - lor (note that the French R is weird, you know that sound when you gargle water?  That's how they say their R), so when you say leur /lor/ don't use the tip of your tongue like you usually do to produce the R sound, use the back of your tongue as if you're about to gargle.  I'm serious, don't laugh, that's really how you do it. ϡ
• mien - myang
• mienne - myen
• tien - tyang
• tienne - tyen
• son - song
• sa - sa
• notre - notr (apply the French R, say not and then after the T produce the "gargling" sound), don't be afraid to exaggerate, you'll get to practice and clear your throat at the same time..hahaha
• nos - no
• votre - just apply what you did with /notr/, it's the same technique
• ses - don't read the last letter, this is not the same ses that we use as pet names for our gay friends.  Remember your elementary reading lesson again, sa se si so su
• jouer - /djowe/
• joue - /djo/
• joues - /djo/
• jouons - /djowong/
• jouez - /djowe/
• jouent - /djo/

What have you noticed with how they pronounce their words (especially on the verb jouer)?  Like I've mentioned earlier, they don't like saying the last letter/s most of the time.

I'm gonna stop.  That's information overload already.  I hope you enjoyed our first French lesson.  Stay tuned for more! à la prochaine! (Til next time!)

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Introduction

Photo grabbed from: http://blog.lemotpourlafri.me/

French is undoubtedly one of the most difficult languages to learn.  I'm from a country where this language is never really practiced or learned, not even in big universities.  It is something that is totally out of our history and culture.  The only French words or expressions we know are those that are internationally accepted or used like coup d'état (a very famous word in the 80's if you know the Philippine history), déjà vu, bon voyage, bon appetit and the like.  Then again, the majority of us use these words without even knowing that they are of French origin and we most of the time mispronounce them.

Love didn't just help me find the perfect man but it also gave me the wonderful opportunity of being able to learn the most romantic language in the world.  But honestly, you gotta understand the language before you get to appreciate the "romantic" part because when you plainly hear the words without comprehension they just sound like a lot of Zs, a weird nasal R and a heavy accent.  In the beginning of my romantic relationship with my husband I did appreciate it so much whenever he told me je t'aime because I know what it means but I still didn't understand it grammar wise and it didn't feel enough.  It's not like when we say the words I LOVE YOU in which we understand each word of it and their functions.  In some of our trips in the Philippines we met a few French travelers and my husband spoke to some of them.  I remember listening and thinking "how can they call this the most romantic language when it sounds so weird?"  And when my husband watched the French television channel I sometimes made fun of the language by trying to reproduce  (with exaggeration) the sounds that I heard so it'd sound even funnier.  I obviously didn't appreciate the romantic side of it just yet, I never really saw the beauty of the language the way I see it now.

Photo grabbed from: http://www.azurlingua-ecole.com/

In the beginning, I was very discouraged because when my husband started to teach me the basics of the French grammar (and kudos to him for being such a good teacher) I just thought it's impossible especially when I started saying the words because they just wouldn't come out right.  It got me so frustrated but the love I have for my husband motivated me to continue learning little by little.  Though we have agreed that English will be the primary language in our couple I still told myself that I have to exert more effort.  I felt a very deep urge to understand every word that comes out of his mouth because that would help me understand him more.

I have been officially studying French since 2012, I was still in Cebu back then.  I went to study at Alliance Française de Cebu (a very good French language and cultural center).  I had a night job so it was a lot of effort going to school after staying up all night but it did payoff!  I arrived in France with the basic conversational skills in my pocket allowing me to communicate with my husband's family (at a minimal level).

Around 7 months after my arrival in France, I continued my language studies and this time it was obligatory.  I did some four hundred hours of language training and I continued learning with my husband.  I also did some efforts like watching the news in French, watching French movies and listening to French songs even if I didn't understand most of the words.  By doing so, I became familiar with their sounds and how they are used.  I have passed my exams and now in niveau B2 (level B2).  I do personally notice my progress but I am still continuing my learning of course!  I am too far from being really good.  I still find myself looking up for invisible words in the middle of my speech.  I still don't understand a lot of words and expressions.  I still aim for lots of improvements.

I specified my blog title as a perspective of a Filipino/Cebuano because I'll be writing some comparisons and similarities of the Bisaya and the French pronunciations and accents.  If I'd say "Filipino perspective" it'll be too general and we have a lot of different accents in the Philippines.  I couldn't talk about and make comparisons with the accents other than what I know.

In my future posts I'll be sharing with you my various observations of the French language and the tricks and techniques that I have found useful in learning it.  Let's learn together, feel free to join me!  It'll be fun and you're gonna love the French language even more as your understanding of it becomes wider.