| Forward to the Current FRENCH Forum |
| Caramelicious | Tuesday 28th of December 2004 05:12:17 AM |
| From Learning Spanish to French? - Bonjour
My native language is english but for about 3 years I have been learning Spanish. I have decided to take along the task of learning French just for fun. From learning spanish to french is it actually as hard as it seems. I find it hard making the accent and the trills go away and pronunciation is hard for me also because of the heavy spanish influence that is already instilled in me. Is it really this hard or am I over reacting ?!?!?! | |
| kyokiru | Tuesday 28th of December 2004 10:44:16 AM |
| - Well, I took 2 semesters of Spanish my sophomore year (I am still in high school), French I the spring of my junior year and I am currently in French II ( senior year ). Now there was a summer and a semester between my last Spanish and my first French classes, and some of my Spanish has been forgotten, but I found that my Spanish helped my learning of French. I doesn't really seem to affect my French "accent". However, I find myself saying "et tu" instead of "et toi" a lot. And there are many false "friends"; for example, the sound "gah-toh" is cat in Spanish and cake in French. But keep in mind it varies from person to person. We all learn differently. So I seriously doubt you are over-reacting. You have just become so accustomed to Spanish, that it is like how you adjusted to the Spanish pronunciations when you first started learning that language. You'll get used to it. Sorry to ramble on. J'aime parler. | |
| La Pluie | Sunday 02nd of January 2005 10:22:53 AM |
| - Actually, I think French is quite phonetic compared to English, although Spanish is about as phonetic as it gets. When I see a new French word, I know how to pronounce it immediately... But when I see a new English word, I'm lost half the time.
I started studying French before Spanish, but I've never gotten pronunciation between languages confused. Maybe you just need to sit down and play some sound files over and over and speak what you hear. The French R was a little hard for me at first, but I got it down that way, just using it continuously. As for pronunciation, I think it just takes practice more than anything. | |
| Caramelicious | Sunday 02nd of January 2005 11:59:51 PM |
| - [quote][i]Originally posted by La Pluie[/i]
Actually, I think French is quite phonetic compared to English, although Spanish is about as phonetic as it gets. When I see a new French word, I know how to pronounce it immediately... But when I see a new English word, I'm lost half the time. [/quote] Is your first language something other than english? ... Thanx everyone for your help and lol yes I do sometimes want to pronounce the ending letters at the end of french words but soon (Hopefully) it will get easier. I do find that learning conjugation through spanish helps me (Sometime) with conjugation in French. Although it seems to me that there is more of a solid pattern in spanish than in french. When I try to follow the same conjugation that I do for one verb with the same ending in french and try to use the same conjugation with another verb sometimes it does get a little confusing because it is not always the same... Is there a solid pattern and I am just missing it if there is can anyone point it out to me thanx | |
| La Pluie | Monday 03rd of January 2005 04:29:46 AM |
| - No, my native language is English.
I think what I said may only apply to Parisian. I don't know too much about Québecois, but it doesn't seem to be all that phonetic to me. | |
| Caramelicious | Tuesday 04th of January 2005 04:54:51 AM |
| - I guess right now I just don't see the 'easier to predict' part but I believe it is just because I am just beginning to learn French I am sure it will come soon. Right now for me I can memorize how to spell words asnd how they are conjugated although this takes a little time. With sound files when I look at the word and listen to the file many times sometimes I can kinda see where the pronounciations are coming from but most of the time not. So I just take it as that is how the word is pronounced and go upon my way. I sometimes still do not understand which letters to pronounce and which letters to ignore as I try to pronounce all of the letters when I first see the word, then when I listen to it I get a big surprise lol :) and then sometimes I think how am I supposed to say all those letters and make it sound like that little word as so it seems lol.
I have never seen or even heard of Anya? Hopefully she will see my new post and answer. Thankyou everyone for your advice and your suggestions. If you continue to write I will continue to read and learn. | |