# Anybody interested in french lessons ?



## otch0z (Apr 23, 2018)

Not really a serious question as most of y'all are in the US and I'm in France. It's that I've been living in the same city, studying, since september and it's getting boring. Anyway, here's my story :
I got back from north america to france last september to start a master's degree to teach french as a foreign language (to travel, of course). Unfortunately, I soon discovered that the subject wasn't that interesting to me. Because I lacked of psychological strength I didn't drop out to make money with a job in order to travel afterwards and stayed in university instead (my parents being geographically close their point of view seemed more relevant that it should have been, university being a great stress maker this year). Fortunately this time, school ends at the end of may (that's right, you just need two semesters to get a diploma for teaching french. So never trust a french teacher !)
Of course, I should be studying instead of writing posts on STP, but I also wanted to check if anybody here has the similar experience ? Anybody teaching any language traveling ? Anybody has anything to say about this, anyway ? Please help me procrastinate, phonetics have never been so depressing


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## roughdraft (Apr 23, 2018)

i started learning in December, when i worked with a french dude who was traveling, and we wound up at the same spot. 

ACHOO a tes souhaits! ACHOO a tes amours!

les carrotes sont cuites

bonjour, au revoir, merci beaucoup 

'straphe' is like a stanza in poetry yes?

gn is like enyay in spanish, correct? 

seems there was something about vowel sounds...i have written here

a+u = o
eau= o

a + i = e (avec apostraf ; on my device I'm not sure how to add accents)

in = en
in = ein = ain = un

parlez vous espagnol? because this is what we were speaking in he did not speak a ton of English

yeah and do you like the film La Haine? or Jules et Jim? a bout de souffle? some of my all-time favorites 

i know you say you were not serious with the question but maybe this will provide a good enough distraction ha ha!!


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## otch0z (Apr 23, 2018)

ah YAS thank youuu there's so much to be answered here that's perfect
"straphe" is actually "strophe" but you got that right, it is a stranza in poetry 
Vowels are bitches in french. For real. I bet that guy wasn't from quebec or southern france because he didn't make a difference between in and un, which are different sounds in certain parts of what we call francophonie (all the places that speak french)
gn is that thing is spanish, yes ! 

Quick lesson about phonetics in french : it is one of the languages that has the biggest number of vowels (14 if I remember well, most languages have 5)

Hablo un poquito de espanol pero tengo de practicar porque no hablo para un gran tiempo (I know this probably doesn't make any sense as, weirdly enough, I try to speak spanish with english structures). I will just stick to clichés here : french people are not exactly gifted when it comes to talk in english.

I know and like La Haine for sure but never heard of Jules et Jim or A bout de souffle ! I guess I'm terrible at cinema. If you don't know it you can check out Delicatessen, I think it's a very good movie, it has a very strange vibe but that's what makes it beautiful. 

Let's end on my favorite french expression : "Le temps que tu (...) On aurait le temps de tuer un âne à coups de figues molles !" (basically, "for the time you're taking doing (whatever thing), we would have enough time to kill a donkey with soft figs"), meaning "you're taking too much time" and "Il faut pas tortiller du cul pour chier droit" ("one does not need to move their ass to shit straight"), meaning "please, go straight to the point"
Ahhh french is such a poetic language


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## roughdraft (Apr 23, 2018)

tres tres tres bien!

yes my buddy is from a tiny town near Lyon, not too south i suppose

the other movies are by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. really made some cool flicks; helped me through puberty/middle school and turned me on to European cultures. thank you i want to watch Delicatessen now! i just got back to the States so hitting a library for dvds is somethin I'm gonna do

your Spanish sentence is indeed very English. i think better would be

<< Hablo poco castellano por practicar poco tiempo. >>

would you give me the 14 voyelles from your more expert point of view, please?

and what are the best parts of France, to you?

do you desire to return here to North America to teach French, or are you more interested in somewhere else? anywhere in particular, city, state?


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## otch0z (Apr 23, 2018)

Sooooo the best I can do is give you this link to the french sounds : 
http://www.4stepstofluency.com/french-pronunciation/

basically, you can forget about the second /ɑ/, it's more or less the same that the first one (so the right symbol is "a") and about /ɛː/, which is the same as /ɛ/, or at least in four years of linguistics nobody told me there was a proper difference. It's all according to regional pronunciation.

The best part of France, to me, is Québec. Just joking, actually I don't know much about France, I never really traveled here strangely enough. I know Quebec more even though I spent the majority of my life in France. I would say where I live is pretty cool (Montpellier). It's not too touristy for southern france, it's not super gorgeous but not too far from Marseille (which is the coolest city in France according to me) or Nîmes (if you wanna see old shit that's 2000 years old, that's the place to be). 
If I had to pick a "worst" and a "best" in France, the worst would be : feminism. People barely know what it means here, living in Quebec was such a good experience for that... But the best is just how civil disobedience is a thing... Like, nobody really respects rules here. You can buy booze around the clock even though it's not legal (guys from grocery stores will just ask you to hide your bottle going out the shop. People openly smoke weed in the street, and people will demonstrate for everything. For example these times a few dozen university are blocked by anarchist activists against a law. I hadn't had class in weeks (so we have all of our exams on the internet)

I would really like to get back to the US. I really liked it. I was expecting a lot of racist and ignorant rednecks but I actually ended up meeting only super sweet people willing to help us all the time. I know it might sound cliché but I particularly liked northern cali, the coast reminded me of Ireland but... "bigger". I found it really peaceful and welcoming. I enjoyed Austin, Texas too, and had a blast in NOLA just spending my time jamming with everyone (I'm a street musician too). We went through Denver and I thought I would have liked to spend a few months studying there if I had the chance. 
On the other hand, British Columbia, CA was amazing too. I didn't make it to Vancouver islands and apparently I have to (according to all of my canadian friends)
At first, beginning this master's, I was thinking about using it to travel in countries in Central and South America, Asia... But now I don't know if it still fits my ethics. We'll see, I plan on taking (another) year off to think about it anyway !


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## otch0z (Apr 23, 2018)

(and thanks for the spanish translation btw !)


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## roughdraft (Apr 23, 2018)

ahhh yes i love it much good advice too I've gotta go to Nîmes. and a good link so thank you

i am so glad you met good USApeople, it never ceases to blow my mind the negative assumptions from outside but i don't think I've met anyone who has spent a lot of time here or with Muricans who would say different than you so, yeehaw! 

& i think your friends speak the truth about Vancouver island...i spent a lot of time across the strait on the Olympic Peninsula and man...it almost shits on Northern California for the extremely lush and beautiful nature


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## otch0z (Apr 23, 2018)

Yeah, I don't know for other nationalities but people from france are just the worst when it comes to assuming everybody else is bad. Clichés about americans are the worst tho (I mean no offense but imagine looking at trump from the other side of the ocean, through the eye of medias which build on sensational bullshit) (also there's a ton of things that are quite shocking for us europeans). If you every make it to France and you wanna go to nîmes... My parents' house is super close to it, and even closer from Le Pont du Gard (I'll let you google it if you don't know it). Pm me, who knows !

Anyway, it always amazes me how it is normal to us to just go past super old stuff everyday and how north americans lose their shit when they see a building that is 200 years old... For real, everything is relative according to where you come from and what are your habits !


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## roughdraft (Apr 24, 2018)

thank you much..surely i will PM you on that topic if i make it over that way, possibly working in Spain next year once i tie a couple things together so ^_^ much obliged

I think a lot of people don't necessarily despise 'people from usa/etc' but rather can be reminded of what 'govt of usa/wherever' are up to when one answers the 'where are you from?', and the thought of the country's influence rub them the wrong way so..worst case scenario, i try to not take personal offense and take the time to work their humanity until their hooha is cooled down. i certainly went through that a couple times but true that it is especially with some Europeans. 

it is also very true how media sensationalism jacks people's perspectives too..in the words of one Argentinian friend for example.."ive never been to the states but from what ive heard i have to assume you and your family have a large amount of guns"..not that i have an opinion on that issue..it's simply far from reality

as for the shock, probably my favorite : drive-thru food service, totally get it, it's horrifying to an outside person who has an idea of respect in the way they consume things - and here you can just pull up in your vehicle and keep it running while someone brings you hot food - from a distance really it's like 'what's that place..?' and it's inconceivable what it is


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## otch0z (Apr 24, 2018)

Oh my, the best to me was when we came across a BANK DRIVE-THRU 
It didn't make any sense
Now I think "drugs" and it makes more sense
BUT STILL


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## roughdraft (Apr 24, 2018)

ahhh bank drive-thru, that didn't cross my mind but yeah i gotcha!

i dont know if it's drugs so much as "How can we keep people abusing their vehicles and neglecting their bodies?" (which equals $$$) same difference i suppose it all goes hand in hand in hand? or maybe the system is amoral and natural

havent spent much time in europe but it was the first place i saw dogs fighting in the street and people walking by like 'hmm whatever'


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## otch0z (Apr 25, 2018)

Everything that happens in the street is non-existent in Europe. Dogs fighting=punks=they ask you for money=danger=don't look at it and it won't exist (basically). I can tell you busking is a bitch here !
I mean, depends how dogs fight too. If it's for amusement people will actually be pretty happy to see dogs having fun in the street. If they are fighting for real tho, nobody will do shit. 

But for that bank-thru thing... There's no place that doesn't accept your credit or debit card ANYWAY ! So why would you need cash in the first place ? It's just so weird


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