Has anyone here learned to speak French?

[Scruffydog777]

I had taken a couple of years in French in high school, but that just teaches you the basics and not really enough to learn conversational French and the thing I felt I needed to learn it well that I never had was someone you could speak to on a regular basis who knew the language well. Today I imagine some of the programs that are available today are better equipped to do a better job of teaching it than was available back in my day.

[Elise]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

A few years ago when we at AAm wanted to send a gift to Alizee and Greg for the birth of Maggie, we got in contact (by email) with the owner of a store in Ajaccio that sold baby clothes. Luckily, she spoke English. And even more lucky, she was good friends with Alizee. We had a message we wanted on the card, and they designed a card for us. We wrote the message in regular French, but the owner gave us the option to translate it to Corsican French, which we agreed to do. They did the translation and sent us a picture of the card. There are some subtle differences and a few not so subtle differences. It's a local dialect and you are probably right that it will eventually die off, but for now, Alizee does speak it and being that she has spent most of her life in Corsica, probably prefers it over the French that the people on the mainland use.

If I ever had the choice, I would choose to learn regular French instead. Alizee understands it and knowing the language would be useful traveling around France or any other French speaking country.

Oh, perhaps we are talking about different things here. I took the first comment that advised learning Corsican to mean the Corsican language, which is a separate language in itself. It is not mutually intelligible with French and is much closer to Italian (native Italian speakers would understand it). As for the version of French spoken in Corsica, I thought it is just an accent. Like if you think about differences between the English spoken by a Londoner or a Scot, the words are the same but pronounced with different accents. So if words are different in Corsican French that is news to me.

The topic of minority languages in general is quite interesting to me. Languages die out every year. There are often debates about how to preserve them as most people agree it is important heritage. Maybe this is too off-topic now, I just think it's cool.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I had taken a couple of years in French in high school, but that just teaches you the basics and not really enough to learn conversational French and the thing I felt I needed to learn it well that I never had was someone you could speak to on a regular basis who knew the language well. Today I imagine some of the programs that are available today are better equipped to do a better job of teaching it than was available back in my day.

Yes, it is hard when you don't have someone to speak with but there are more resources than ever thanks to internet!

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Okay. Good tip again.

It could work, even if it seemed difficult at first. The French language is somehow so special when you compare what you hear and what the words are.

But gradually I could try that, calmly...

By the way, how long did it take to learn, ie, that you began to understand more?

Music lyrics are the harder things for listening practice and even in English music I remember never being able to work out which words they were saying...

It's difficult to say exactly how long this took and I'm still learning. I started in my young childhood and picked it up again a couple of years ago in a more enthusiastic and proactive way, trying to absorb words and watch street interviews. How much I understand of something really depends on how slow/fast they speak.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Elise

Oh, perhaps we are talking about different things here. I took the first comment that advised learning Corsican to mean the Corsican language, which is a separate language in itself. It is not mutually intelligible with French and is much closer to Italian (native Italian speakers would understand it). As for the version of French spoken in Corsica, I thought it is just an accent. Like if you think about differences between the English spoken by a Londoner or a Scot, the words are the same but pronounced with different accents. So if words are different in Corsican French that is news to me.

You are absolutely correct and my mistake and I should have known better. Corsu goes way back long before the French took Corsica as a territory. In fact, if I was visiting Corsica and implied to the native that their language was Corsican French, I probably would have to run for my life.

Just FYI - I remember reading an article on trip planning to Corsica as a foreigner some time ago. They did not recommend trying to communicate with them in Corsican... unless you are Corsican. French is the best choice, but Italian and Spanish are passable.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

You are absolutely correct and my mistake and I should have known better. Corsu goes way back long before the French took Corsica as a territory. In fact, if I was visiting Corsica and implied to the native that their language was Corsican French, I probably would have to run for my life.

Just FYI - I remember reading an article on trip planning to Corsica as a foreigner some time ago. They did not recommend trying to communicate with them in Corsican... unless you are Corsican. French is the best choice, but Italian and Spanish are passable.

The French have had a reputation of being kind of difficult I'd guess you'd call it with foreigners at places like restaurants which I've found true not only in France, but also Quebec, but on my last trip to Ajaccio, I had dinner at the Chez Paulo restaurant. I met Blanche again. She doesn't know that much English, but they had a young man working there named Max who spoke English very well and he said on Corsica, they are making an attempt to be very cordial with tourists and that is what I found there. I can't remember having a bad experience there (except the guy on the train). Which is important when a visitor tries to speak the language and their pronunciation isn't quite right, they have the patience to figure out what you are trying to say.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Yeah.... Yes, especially in language learning, there often has to be interest and enthusiasm.

And it is always good if you start studying at a young age, because the older you are, the harder it can be to study...

I need to try different methods and maybe get even more reasons to study...

[Elise]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

You are absolutely correct and my mistake and I should have known better. Corsu goes way back long before the French took Corsica as a territory. In fact, if I was visiting Corsica and implied to the native that their language was Corsican French, I probably would have to run for my life.

Just FYI - I remember reading an article on trip planning to Corsica as a foreigner some time ago. They did not recommend trying to communicate with them in Corsican... unless you are Corsican. French is the best choice, but Italian and Spanish are passable.

Glad we resolved the misunderstanding! I think we are over-complicating the language question. I assume that if you meet a Corsican, they would speak French as a native just as much as someone from any other region of France. There are other regional languages in France but everyone knows French, it’s the language of France. Many countries have minority languages but still the national language would be spoken by all.

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Yeah.... Yes, especially in language learning, there often has to be interest and enthusiasm.

And it is always good if you start studying at a young age, because the older you are, the harder it can be to study...

I need to try different methods and maybe get even more reasons to study...

I like everything related to France (I’m a Francophile) so I have all the reasons to learn. I did start young and I know what you mean, it can be a challenge to make the time to practise every day.

Originally Posted by Alex Rien

The Tuscan dialect.

Corsican is used at all levels of education in Corsica. In most cases it is taught as a subject, but a few schools use it as a medium of instruction, along side French. Corsican courses for adults are widely available throughout Corsica, as well as in some cities on the French mainland.

More and more books are published in Corsican annually. There are also some Corsican language magazines, often sponsored or produced by political parties or cultural associations, and an increasing number of theatre productions.

This is really interesting, thank you for the information. Corsican is in a better shape than I assumed.

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

As I researched this matter further, I was surprised that the Corsican language is so small.

Alizée thus belongs to a rather small language population, although she may also speak a lot of French today.

It's a small island! Again I would say, even if they have a regional language, the national language is French so they're still native speakers.

I could be wrong on all this, just my reading and guesswork. Alex Rien, have I got it right? How do you know about this, do you know people from Corsica or something? I’m interested in minority languages and I don’t know much about this case.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by Elise

It's a small island! Again I would say, even if they have a regional language, the national language is French so they're still native speakers.

I could be wrong on all this, just my reading and guesswork. Alex Rien, have I got it right? How do you know about this, do you know people from Corsica or something? I’m interested in minority languages and I don’t know much about this case.

Yeah... It's a small area, and it doesn't seem to spread much elsewhere, even though one Napoleon tried once...

In other words, if Napoleon's "journey" had gone a little differently, the Corsican language could have been much better known, for he apparently respected the language considerably more than the French language.

Came to mind - it would be great if Alizée sang something in this language too!

[Alex Rien]

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Yeah... It's a small area, and it doesn't seem to spread much elsewhere, even though one Napoleon tried once...

In other words, if Napoleon's "journey" had gone a little differently, the Corsican language could have been much better known, for he apparently respected the language considerably more than the French language.

Most of the corsican speakers live in Corsica, though there are some in Paris and Marseilles and also in Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, Italy, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, the USA and Venezuela.

[Alex Rien]

Would you like more corsican songs from her?

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by Alex Rien

Would you like more corsican songs from her?

Wow, gorgeous, (I Also mean music) definitely more of this music! That's an order!