Learning English is difficult for the French

Muriel,

> your are a perfectonnist, Gerard
(understood as You're a perfectionist)

Yes, I'm a passionate!

When I started learning English again (in 2000), my dream was to speak American as well as a native (the truth is that I had an American lover). I will never reach that level though I can teach many things to English natives (mainly because as a French I'm very interested in grammar, cultures, etc.)
Anyway, I'm no more with my American lover but I'm still a passionate of English.
I prefer to be at a high level in English language than at average level in lots of languages; the other languages will come later (I intend to live at least 40 additional years).

Muriel,

You must know as it is a very common word.

MurielB a écrit:sorry, you are a perfectionnist ! I don't know the word glitch

I guess you already looked up in a dictionary: a glitch is a very small mistake.

In my mind (but I'm going to check) in a decreasing order, we have: an error, a mistake, a typo, a glitch.
Neighboring meanings, you could also insert: a confusion, a bug...

Hi everyone,

I would like to point out another frequent mistake which is now famous among English speaking people as it was recently made by Nicolas Sarkozy in front of Hillary Clinton (Jan 20, 2010).

Sarko is known for his poor English...
The French have to realize they often have several meanings behind a word.
It's true with other languages but English has got more words than French due to the multiple roots and the homonyms got specialized... the problem with En is that there're too many words and French not enough.
Well,
The French have to realize they often have several meanings behind a word. There's often one word when English has several due the the numerous meanings.
For example, behind "temps", there are 2 main meanings: weather like in "le temps est bien moche aujourd'hui" and time/hours like in "il est 5 heures, Paris s'éveille" (my dictionary displays 11 meanings).

Ask Google about 'Sorry for the time!" Sarko' and you will see the success of our former President, for example:
- Canal +

Halas, other French presidents are hardly better -> L'anglais et nos Présidents : grands moments de solitude. Read the article, it's worth it!

Hi everyone,

I'd like to write about a very common mistake made by intermediate/advanced people learning English.

In English, you must not separate a verb and its object: never ever!!

- when you use a compound tense like in "You shouldn't have made this mistake", the "verb" is "made"
- the verb "to be" doesn't have an object.

In French language, we often place an "adverbe" immediately after the verb and hence between verb and object (COD-Complément d'objet direct).
- j'ai lancé volontairement la balle à sa figure (good and common French)
When we speak a foreign language, we tend to transpose everything from French to the new language (translate word by word)... this is never very good because every language has its grammar!

I repeat: a verb and its object must not be separated!

The location of the adverb: you've the choice between 'before the verb' or 'at the end of the sentence'.
-> I voluntarily threw the ball at his face
or
-> I threw the ball at his face voluntarily.

NB: Nothing to do with objects at adverb location but...
Notice the "u" in voluntarily (different to the French volontairement)
Notice the "at" preposition which implies a nasty intention (a more neutral way would have been "to" here).

That's it guys!

Bonjour à tous,

Un blog que je découvre, à suivre -sans doute-

-> Monsieur le Prof
Pion dans un premier temps, puis professeur stagiaire en province, je suis aujourd'hui TZR (remplaçant) en banlieue parisienne, et vous fais part de ma candeur, de mes découvertes, de mes surprises et de mes désillusions

Son dernier billet

-> Pourquoi les Français resteront nuls en anglais

Diable, diable ! Plus pessimiste que Muriel le Monsieur !

Hi everyone,

-> Les Français sont nuls en anglais: peuvent-ils s'améliorer? (par Grégoire Fleurot - [3/3] Troisième partie de notre série sur le problème de la France avec l'anglais.)
Pourquoi les Français sont-ils nuls en anglais? Slate.fr se penche sur cette question au travers d’une série de trois articles. D'abord, le constat: oui, les Français sont vraiment nuls en anglais, les études le démontrent. Quelle est la part de responsabilité de l'école dans cette situation? Et, enfin, quels sont les facteurs bien plus profonds et structurels qui influencent le rapport des Français à l’anglais, et même parfois à l’apprentissage des langues étrangères en général?

A lire aussi, les deux autres articles de notre série:
>> [1/3] Les Français sont vraiment nuls en anglais
>> [2/3] Les Français sont nuls en anglais: la faute à l'école?

Bonsoir Gérard
Au café polyglotte de Calais ce soir il y avait beaucoup de jeunes lycéens et ils parlaient vraiment bien. Je pensais que certains n'étaient pas Français. Je pense que le "concept café polyglotte" pourrait vraiment aider les scolaires à mettre en application ce qu'ils apprennent à l'école. Nous ne pouvons rien changer à part introduire ce petit plus

Bonsoir Muriel, bonsoir à tous,

Oui, les scolaires peuvent s'améliorer en mettant en pratique ce qu'ils apprennent.

Bonsoir gérard, tous
je comprends vraiment les désillusions de ce professeur ! Tout à l'heure j'ai parlé avec un professeur d'Anglais en retraite qui était un prof excellent et enthousiaste (Il est de plus mon voisin) Il m'a dit avoir organise des pieces de theatre en Anglais avec ses élèves ce qui les aidaient énormément. Pourquoi ne pas introduire cette activité dans le programme scolaire ?

Bonsoir Muriel, tous,

C'est ce que fait notre prof d'Allemand dans une association de formation !
Le Café-langues d'Ermont (Stammtisch+Roundtable) a été créé par des étudiants d'une association : ELC-Ermont Langues et Cultures. Durant l'été, ils oubliaient tout ce qu'ils apprenaient durant l'année et c'est la prof d'Allemand qui les a accompagnés pour lancer Stammtisch).

Cette même prof (en fait c'est une Française qui a épousé un Belge de langue allemande - frontière est de la Belgique) donne des courts d'Anglais et d'Allemand aux enfants du primaire d'ELC grâce au théâtre : les enfants apprennent facilement, sans s'en paercevoir.

heureusement que beaucoup de choses sont crées parallèlement à l'école et qu'il y a encore des profs créatifs et enthousiastes !

Good morning. I have just read this page and I am sure you and Gerard already speak English better than most English people.

Language continually changes which is part of its attraction to me so why does it annoy me so much when it does change ? It also dates you e.g. Everyone now uses the word " uni " as in " his son is at uni . " I would say " his son is at university " which shows my age !

In your list - " Whom shall I invite is very correct " and is what I would say but in common language now I'd say 70% of people do not know the word whom exists let alone uses it correctly !
Finally, what prompted me to write this and it shows American influence. I would say 99.9% of people call the school subject " Maths", short for Mathematics . However, a trickle of people are now saying " math " just to appear trendy.


johnB.

Thanks for your words,John. As an English native speaker what you say is always very enlightening. Also in French the words date you. They also show your social background or your personality.
When people want to appear trendy, they use the word”maths” instead of “mathematics”,it’s true because the way we speak shows a lot about us.
It shows whether we are precise, emotional, empathetic or cold etc. Paying attention to all this would help us to get to know others better.

I assume it is just a typo ( typing error) but to appear trendy people say " Math " singular, i.e .the American version.

I wonder if everything has to be shorter and quicker these days to save time when inputting on their mobile phones. johnB.