LE FRANÇAIS! The FRENCH Language is Fantastic

This video is all about the French language, its history, and features.

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Special thanks to Thomas Gabiache for his audio samples, and Benoît Oster for additional help!

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Music:

Main: “In Case You Forgot” by Otis McDonald.

[Langfocus]

I'm an active member on several Pod101 sites, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do!

(Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

[tamaspolyak]

We all know that while The Roman Republic conquered Gaul, a small village fought back lead by the heroes Asterix and Obelix.

[anthonyvanrenterghem]

As a french, it was extremely fun to watch this video, I couldn't think about anything else that : "Oh my god, how can people learn that language ?"

[marcduchesnay]

Pour moi ce fut un très bon cours d'anglais. Merci.

[CertifiedDeadMemes]

As someone who is native in both englsh and spanish, I found french suprisingly easy at first but then more and more challenging as time went on. Conjugation was a breeze as well as the basics of writings because of my spanish background; however, I struggled way more with pronunciation than I expected, but at the end of the day it was a rewarding experience.

[marinsoletti]

In France, there is a constant war going on between people saying " _un pain au chocolat_ " and those saying " _une chocolatine_ ". They both mean "a chocolate croissant" but people in the south of France tend to say " _chocolatine_ " whereas in the north " _pain au chocolat_ " is more commonly used.
That's right. As French people we argue on different ways of saying pastries names. How cliché.

[besitzbelastet]

Did an English-speaker here say French spelling was impractical?
Rough. Cough. Dough. Bough. Through. Though.
All perfectly logical.

[acethefiredragon]

*What aspects of French have you found challenging?*
Everything
*And how have you dealt with those challenges?*
I haven’t

[DomiPordeus]

My native language is Brazilian Portuguese and the most difficult aspect of the French language for me is the huge difference between pronunciation compared to the writing forms

[Miromesnil]

Being a Spanish native speaker, I found French grammar pretty straight forward and easy, including verb conjugations. The challenge for me about French is that it is difficult to understand when someone is speaking. It is not like Spanish or Italian that you can write down what you hear without not necessarily understanding the meaning.

[Tursiopstruncatus]

Understanding spoken French is undoubtedly the most challenging thing when you are learning it... I say this as a Spanish native speaker and French learner. How to deal with that? Well, with a lot of patience and practice, haha.

BTW, I hate the way the numbers 70, 80 and 90 are mostly said! I prefer the Belgian/Swiss way: "septante, huitante, nonante".

[Alisson-tlci]

*I'm brazilian and i speak and like the french languege* i speak little french

*et pour tous les françaises ou gens qui parlent le français, je vous aime tous*

<3

[julien.s]

In the French part of Switzerland, the way we say some numbers is different, and it's a simpler form, here are some examples :

Soixante-dix (70, literally "sixty-ten") 🇫🇷
Septante (70, seventy) 🇨🇭

Quatre-vingts (80, literally "four twenties") 🇫🇷
Huitante (80, eighty) 🇨🇭
In Geneva however, people tend to say "quatre-vingts", like the French do.

Quatre-vingt-dix (90, literally "four twenties ten") 🇫🇷
Nonante (90, ninety) 🇨🇭

[dianasofia]

Writing in French is challenging indeed. I still have trouble with it, but as I have noticed, so do French themselves.

[JaymesWebbs]

This is my best YouTube channel, nobody can provide accurate information like Paul, thank you for the video.

[DaBezzzz]

Hardest thing to learn when learning French: LISTENING.
They speak so fast, it's like oh yeah i know that word its translation is this and YOU'RE ALREADY HALFWAY THROUGH YOUR NEXT STORY HOW

[Purebeautyluv]

Very good video. As a French learner, the hardest part is remembering when present tense verbs for “je” take on the “tu” verb. I never remember if it’s “je prend” or “je prends.”

[marco_evertus]

As someone who's learning french I found this video very very interesting.

[jbs.]

This video is equivalent to three years of French instruction in an American high school.

[Karlichou]

What's most challenging when learning French as a kid?

- A lot of kids use the German conditional syntax in stead of the regular French syntax
ex : "Si ma mère serait là, je lui ferais des calins" (If my mother WOULD be here, I would give her hugs)
which is quite correct in German : Wäre meine Mutter hier, würde ich sie umarmen"

- The overuse of pronouns : CORRECT "Donne-le-moi" INCORRECT "Donne-moi-le" (Give it to me)
ex : "Je ne le lui ai pas rappelé" (I didn't remind her about it) which is a nightmare to configure

- Verbs or nouns which have two or three meanings. ex : brûler (burn / set fire), apprendre (learn / teach), sortir (get out/take out), comprendre (understand/contain). Those are verbs which are either transitive or intransitive...
Other confusions : lait/laid (milk/ugly) serait/saurait (would be/would know) .... AND SO MANY !!!!

- among young children and popular classes, the ordre between adjectives can be quite challenging
ex : une petite maison ? une maison petite ? (a small house) Un bel homme ? Un homme beau ? (a handsome man)
POETRY : La verte prairie / COLL : la prairie verte (the green meadow)
Depending on noun/context : Une forte impression (a strong feeling) / Une place forte (a stronghold)

- Guess of substantism. ex : Realism vs Reality vs Realness vs ...
Loneliness : Solitarité ? Solitarisme ? Solitude. Positioning : Positionnage ? Positionnalité ? Positionnement.

- There's a past tense we never use orally because it's too formal, but it's quite useful and broadly used in its written form... But almost nobody can remember what are the declination... Ex : I came, you came etc...
-> Je vins, Tu vins, Il/Elle vint, Nous vînmes, Vous Vîntes, Ils/Elles Vinrent (Yes we love wines ^^)
The same occurs when using the subjonctive tense, which has no equivalent in english, but we use it every in almost every sentence... Badly, a lot of people still make mistakes "Il faut que je vais ..." vs "Il faut que j'aille ..." (I must go ...)

- Because we usually "l' " or "les" or "cet/cette" before the voyels in those words : "Les abysses" (deepseas) "L'algèbre", "L'algorithme", "Idylle" (idol), ... we never know if those words are masculine or feminine. But who cares?

- All their life, French people will always have doubts in regards of orthograph : Langage or Language ? Méditerannée or Méditerranée or Méditerrannée ? Apparemment or Apparament or Apparamment ? (apparently)
Grammar and genderization is a nightmare : Let's say I'm a girl :
"Je me suis lavéE" (I washed myself) "Je me suis lavé les cheveux" (I washed my hair) "Je me les suis lavéS" (I washed them)