If I want to learn french only to read literature and philosophy, should I bother with pronunciation? It seems like there is a huge gulf between pronunciation and spelling in french to the point both seem like different languages lol
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difficult to learn a language if you don't use it. french people are some of the most arrogant and negative people in the world though. if you make the slightest tonal difference to a native speaker they spit on you and kill your cat and piss on you and maybe stab you. if you want to practice then get some more civilized french speakers like the Swiss or Belgians.
>difficult to learn a language if you don't use it.
My use case only involves reading skills. I
much harder when you don't have that back and forth. you can learn it but I don't think you will easily be able to grasp and understand it or have a inner voice in the language where it feels natural to use
language cannot be carved up this way. it's harder, not easier, to learn a language when you access it through writing and not real life or at least audio/video, because you get less information by which to infer meaning. it might seem like a subset of the problem to you ("just reading") but it's actually still all of it but with helpful context removed.
But why would you ever want to talk to a native french speaker? The frogs fricking hate us, better to just leave them alone
>if you make the slightest tonal difference to a native speaker they spit on you
I will reveal to you the secret of the french now. It's because unlike others languages (such as english) which can be understood with some effort even if the speaker doesn't actually speak the language well, french cannot. It is an unforgiving tongue, and it doesn't tolerate mangling pronunciations. We simply can't understand you. I have watched english movies or shows with the occasional french sentence tossed in for comedy and even when the director bother with a subtitle it's a complete coin toss as to whether I'll understand what the actor is saying, and this is something said by a professionnal, with as close to a good elocution as possible.
https://voca.ro/1jOjZQ4BYeQ7
Let's test that. I don't speak french in any meaningful capacity, though I have studied it and can read some of it.
>french people are some of the most arrogant and negative people in the world though. if you make the slightest tonal difference to a native speaker they spit on you
it's the opposite french people are push-overs and they have been killing the french language over the last 200 years by introducing shitty English words with no reason.
I gave up on pronouncing things correctly, so be my guest
t. someone with intermediate French reading comprehension
what do you mean exactly, ignoring the spoken language entirely and just learning from text only? you'd only be makin it harder for yourself.
French here. I would say don't bother too much, if we can understand you then that's the most important. There is indeed an important gulf between the spelling and the pronunciation. Pardon my french but this language is a pain in the ass to learn. You're in for a world of pain on the grammar, conjugation not even accounting for the fact that all nouns are gendered (even we frequently make mistakes). It's probably easier to learn how to speak it before learning how to read it. But as mentioned earlier, our people tend to not be nice to foreigners trying to learn the language. As such, I would say try to learn the basics of grammar and try to start reading as fast as possible You're interested in literature and philosophy? Too bad, start with simple books, kids stuff, you'll have to build up vocabulary but more importantly, get used to the numerous rules and their exceptions. If you can talk with people that's great and it'll undoubtedly speed up the process, but you're not here for that. Hence, don't get too hung up on it.
The problem with french from a non native perspective is you speak it like scots or however I actually talk when I'm shitfaced drunk from an english perspective. All the media relies on knowing what p't chd'n c'r means and I can see how you would get it, ut ye ain't've gan t'tried fer gattin it lest y've t'wrassle wi'it. There's a common enough dialectical representation that one who speaks it knows but good luck to 'SLs.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
I want to learn it too – primarily for prose and poetry – but I don't get why you would not want to learn the pronunciation. What's the point in learning French for reading if the experience will be significantly worse than reading a translation? If you don't know the pronunciation you will be unable to appreciate the literature of the language – or maybe I just misunderstood you. O_o
What do you want to read? It’s essential for poetry and some fiction. For non-fiction maybe not as important but I don’t see why you shouldn’t at least know the general rules of vowel pronunciation, there’s just five vowels you know.
I don't think French us that hard to pronounce.
OK, pronounce "chariot et charisme" in french, then tell me why one "ch" is like a sh and the other a k. Am I expected to learn Greek and Latin just to read French?
i dunno, did you have to learn german, french, greek and latin to speak english, which is full of the same kinds of inconsistencies? you learn the pronunciation of chariot and charisme by hearing natives say chariot and charisme a bunch of times, like any other thing in any other language.
Is this supposed to be a joke based on the fact that "chariot" and "charisma" in fact have the same dichotomy of ch-pronunciation in English? And, in fact, English does this much more and much more often than French does (through, cough, dough).
French for Reading : Sandberg
After this book all you'll need is a dictionary
I remember asking a question like this a long time ago and everyone mocked me and told me it was a stupid idea
Now I can read French somewhat fluently although I wish I could hear French and recite it
Does anyone know where to get good recitations of French poetry? I tried looking for a good recitation of Rimbaud but all I could find was extremely dramatic recitations with sound effects
You would think this makes it easier, cut your workload, etc., but the opposite is true. Best way to learn a language is simply total immersion.
Best way to learn French is to live in France for 6 months. Second best way is to read French newspapers, watch French tv, play videogames in French, talk to French people online, go to language exchanges irl, read French children's literature.
>the best way to read...is not to read
he just wants to read, not talk, not listen, not write. Gaining proficiency in one area is much faster and easier than working on 4 when you don't need or want 3.
Language acquisition just doesn't work this way. By tapping into 4 different domains (writing, reading, listening, speaking) your brain forms infinitely more connections
It worked that way for me
The only reason why I think people believe that you need output exercises is because the textbooks that they used simply didn't have enough input
When your input consists of 10 or so sentences per chapter, those 10 or so translation exercises you did each chapter are essential, not because output is a necessary condition of acquisition but because in the process of translating you received input
If you get flooded with input you do not need to output at all but if you're starved of input you may end up thinking it's necessary
I learned French in school, very input based, not focused on speaking at all, but studying grammar, vocabulary etc. And my French was shit compared to my French after spending just a week in France and actually talking to people. First three days were awkward and stunted, but after that something unlocked in my brain, as if everything got synthesized, and I spoke with them almost fluently. Nowadays I barely use my French and it only resurfaces if I meet other French people and if I can talk with them until it all comes back again
Studying grammar and vocabulary doesn't seem input based to me
Anyway yeah that's what people who follow an input heavy approach describe
They spend a thousand or so hours reading and listening, and then they start to make an effort to speak and it just suddenly clicks and they're capable of speaking
The point is that they were already capable of reading native level literature at that point
i find that written input is simply much worse than any other kind because it cuts off a bunch of information that your brain expects, having evolved to make sense of speech and not marks on paper. i've tried it both ways and i learn much faster by going videos then audiobooks then books rather than starting with text, even when the end goal is reading. limiting yourself to words on a page is harder, because the sound and rhythm of speech, as well as facial expressions and body language, actually make it easier to comprehend and retain language, as opposed to being an added complication. it's writing, being a technology, that's an added complication.
Personally I 100% agree with you that it’s far better to start with a solid foundation of the spoken language
I have managed to make rapid progress through reading but it’s unnatural to approach a language in this way and likely leads to inferior results long term
My plan was to immediately listen to an audiobook recording of the first book I managed to read but I found it to be extremely frustrating and so I just moved onto the next book
It’s often recommended that you spend 80% of your time listening and 20% of your time reading and I think that’s a good rule for beginners
much like English, you will get used to it through enough exposure. listen to audiobooks (https://www.litteratureaudio.com/) to calibrate your inner voice to sound like a frog's. also find a recorder you like and imitate him as closely as possible. soon you'll be able to read correctly without making the conscious effort. record yourself and compare/contrast with the original to see what you need to fix. will take months of daily practice but it will not be a problem if you actually enjoy the activity. bonne chance