Question:
Two weeks ago I started to learn French. I need to get as proficient as I
can within 6 months.
I've had 3 out of 14 private tuition lessons with Berlitz so far.
To say its proving difficult is a _major_ understatement. The fact that I
don't have an english literature background seems to be a large part of my
problem. My instructor has seemed to take the fact that I don't know a
personal pronoun from a subjective pronoun, or present subjunctive from
perfect subjunctive personally. Ie she seems a little annoyed that I'm even
bothering!
So... grammer is a real problem. I've got two text books here and I've read
the sections on verbs carefully and I don't have a clue what they're talking
about. They both seem to talk about totally different things.
Does anyone have any tips? Recommend any really good grammer books (written
in english for those who didn't take an interest in english in high
school)....etc?
Answer:
I suggest you buy an ENGLISH grammar. Review your own grammar, it is
much easier. Because you are a native speaker, you don't need to know
what is an adverb or a conjunction to speak english, because you speak
according to your ear.
Once you reviewed (or learnt) that, it will be MUCH easier for you to
understand french grammar, because it is very much like the english
one. So you'll be able to just translate the vocabulary, and in
grammar it is pretty easy to understand what means what in french
(Infinitive/ Infinitif, Subject/ sujet, object / objet, verb /verbe,
etc. :-)
Take a english newspaper article. You must be able, for every word to
say what kind of word it is :
- noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, article,
pronoun or modal (these don't exist in french, can, must, could,
etc.).
- For every verb, you must be able to say, which tense it is in,
past, present, future (simple, continuous, perfect, participle),
gerund (lucky for you, no such form in French :-) and wich mood,
infinitive (eg: to eat), indicative (most common He eats, I ate,...),
imperative (order form : Eat !), subjunctive (not used very often in
english but a lot in french, eg: I suggest I BE the teacher). French
has an extra mood, conditional; you use the modals could, would in
English but modals don't exist in French so it is an other conjugation
- Also for verbs, you must be able to say if it is transitive (the
what question is possible, eg : What do you eat ?) or intransitive
(what question impossible : What do you go ?!!!????). For the latter,
you always use preposition after if there is any complement (same in
french)
- For every sentence, you must be able to isolate, the main clause,
and the relatives clause (if there are any), and to recognize the
subject, the object, and other complements (mainly time and location).
Now, once you are confident with that in English (if you are not too
stupid you can be pretty good at it in a week or two, no need to be a
pro, you'll find out later what is a causative - make someone do
something -), French is a piece of cake, because English grammar is a
simplified form of the french one.
And in 6 months, you don't expect to master the "plus que parfait"
which is completely useless in spoken french, so whatever you'll know
about the English grammar, you'll know it about the french one !
Remember, English comes for a great part from French, so you already
know a lot of vocab but you don't know it ! Example, most of the words
ending in "ion" (possession, persuasion, direction, etc.) are french.
Same meaning (most of them), same spelling, different pronounciation.
All adjectives in "ive" (native, naive, etc.), same thing...
Once you are confident with your english grammar, go for the french
one, it will be piece of cake, the few differences are not hard to
understand, just hard to master (like the merging of certain
prepositions with certain articles when they occur together. If you
don't know what the hell is a preposition, how can you do it
properly ?? Hopefully for you, English and french are really cousin
languages, the grammar are almost the same, and once you'll know that
a preposition in English is : in, on, at, to, from, etc. you'll
understand that the french translations of "at" and "from", "à" and
"de", can merge with the following article if it is "le", "the" in
English and make new forms : "au" and "du")
Mainly, the biggest obstacle will be the verb conjugations. So don't
bother learning every tense (how the fuck you heard about the
subjunctive mood already !!! Bad teacher!) !
You need to know only the following ones (in that order) :
- Présent (used in french as the present simple AND continuous in
English, eg : I play football, I'm playing football : je joue au foot)
{to play is transitive, while jouer is intransitive in that meaning}
- Passé composé
- Imparfait
Don't bother learning the future, in spoken french no one uses it.
Everybody uses the following :
aller (présent) + verb (infinitif), eg : je vais manger
Compare with English where you can use
to go (present continuous) + verb (infinitive) eg : I'm going to eat.
Same shit !! :-)
If you are improving, you can add the conditional present and the
subjunctive present.
ALL other tenses are USELESS in spoken French, don't bother even
looking at them. If your teacher is trying to teach them, say you want
to speak casually, not to read Proust, and go back to something you
are not confident with.
Master the verbs, avoir, être, aller, venir. These ones know them well
because they occur VERY frequently (the first 2 when you make the
passé composé, aller when you make the future, venir when you make the
near past - frequent in spoken french - venir de (verb), eg : je viens
de manger, I've just eaten)
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