Dear Friends,

i am getting stronger and stronger feeling that french is usefull, If one can learn it.

Our ultimate aim should be to achieve the level of french, where we can compete with the candians knowing french. So, that they cannot deny us a job because we donot know french.

Further, in addition to the job of the professional life, knowing french is useful in one's daily life. As our childrends are tought french, we can supevise them, teach them and learn from them if we know some french.

canadian media always have some french content, we can better get the crux out of newpaper, TV, magazine and hordings etc if we know french.

There are many french words being used in canadian english we sometimes are not found in our english vocalubaries.

examples: sortie, accueil, entree, petit dejeuner, dentifrice, brosse a dents, outil, gauche, droit, billet, hiver, ete, ordinateur, caissier and porte etc etc.. this list can go on..

now you decide how much useful is learning french??

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India

Dear friends,

this is in continustion to the above. Donot feel that I am an supporter of french at the cost of Hindi, Punjabi, Gujrati or English.

My point of view is that each language is unique in its own way. each has history, culture, stories, poems, books and literature attached to it. which can be best enjoyed in original form only.. same way as the diffence between CN TOWER and KUTAB MINAR. for turists to enjoy both they have to appreciate there background motives also in addition to the present forms..

Beleive me, I have myself seen many GOAR Canadian appreciating The KUTAB MINAR and TAJ MAHAL on the point that how coud Indian build such unique ICONS hundered of years back..

I have seen some of them trying to learn HINDI also..

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India

The key to learning French is to understand that learning a language is NOT AN ACADEMIC SUBJECT. languages are taught in school rooms, which is, IMO, a complete waste of time. learning a language is A SPORT.

imagine if you wanted to learn gymnastics and you were put in a classroom for 1 year readign books with pictures of handsprings, rolls, tightrope walking, etc and doing written tests on "how to do a back flip". Then you were sent to the Olympics. how well would you do? Gold medal? Silver? not very well, right?

well the same thing is done with languages. students are put in awkward, irrevelant classroom situations for years at a time then suddenly thrust into meetings, discussions, etc and they are amazed that they cannot excel or even function.

Each language uses a different part of the speech apparatus; arabic the throat, chinese is nasal and French is the lips. The key to pronouncing French is to strengthen these muscles. it is all muscular. it is not intellectual. if you do not have these muscles, you cannot pronounce a single word in french to be comprehensible to a Frenchman.

the best way to practice is to do exercises every day: reading out loud is the best. if you read one hour OUT LOUD in french every day, i promise you that in one year you will be speaking like a Francophone. forget the endless classroom drills and grammar that lead nowhere.

the average native speaker, although he has a vocab of 7,000 words, only uses about 800 in every day conversation. learn these. to perfection.why make things difficult?

so put on your adidas, your tracksuit and start exercising

Quote:

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Orginally posted by Chris
The key to pronouncing French is to strengthen these muscles. it is all muscular. it is not intellectual. if you do not have these muscles, you cannot pronounce a single word in french to be comprehensible to a Frenchman.

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My 2 cents:

I usually find it a little tough to understand the fuss that some desi immigrants in Toronto make about learning French.

1. If you're starting from scratch in the language, a crash course in the language isn't going to give you the conversational fluency that may be required for a job...

2. In the GTA, you certainly don't need French socially. The same media content that's available in French is typically also available in English, so that doesn't hold good either.

Desi immigrants would probably be better off beefing up their English language skills, rather than trying to take on a new language.......

Just my 2 cents.....

Dear Chris, Jake3d and Crenshaw,

Thanks for your expert and serious advices. But I am amateur in french language.

It is just like that i am learning to stand and take a step, and you people can run and dance..

But, i met an indian knowing french, he could talk, act and sing songs in french.

further I (we) were told that everyone learns if (S)He tries seriously. As all of us learn to stand, walk, run and dance. We will certainly learn french one day if we keep on trying. But the problem with most of us is that we donot have much time to spare, and we think that the teacher or school will teach us.

teacher or the school is only a facilitator, we have to learn it ourself.

Enjoy Happiness.

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Enjoy Happiness -- Happy from India

you can do it, happy, but it's a long road. and there's no guarantee that it will enhance your career, as crenshaw correctly points out. however, it is a beautiful language and a very rich culture. if this is incentive enough, then go for it.

jake, i think the only way to please your daughter is to practice french the way french actors do: they do exercises in front of the mirror every day doing individual sounds, while exaggerating the movement of the lips: B, B, B (repeat 100 times), then D, D, D (repeat 100 times)... you get the idea.

english is the opposite: it doesn't use the lips. the mouth barely moves. one Pole i knew actually practised English by filling his mouth with pebbles and then trying to speak! he swore by this method... not sure if it's marketable though he he...