The best time to learn foreign languages is, basically, as young as possible. My youngest daughter went to a nursery for a while and they had French lessons there, as Fran suggests, in a conversational style. Certainly they should be teaching foreign languages (French, German, etc.) at primary school. Our country is shameful in the way it neglects this vital aspect of education. Even if you don't end up being a linguist it's always really good to be able to chat to people on holiday in the local language, especially when ordering food and drink.
I agree and have to say that my two little ones are learning the basics like how to count and a few words in French. Boy is 9 and girl is 7.
Only thing is, some people do just struggle. We did a bit of french and german in year 5 and 6 and we had to do german until year 9 and french until year 11. But even after all of that i cant speak a word of either, i just couldnt get it. Was top set for everything else but when it came to language i was NVQ. So all of that education (for me) was a waste of time. But saying that, maybe if they taught it from the start of primary school i would be better.
I had five years worth of French education and I'm still ****. My conversation with him would have to go "Bonjour, Morgan! Je m'appelle Dan. Tu es bien a foot. Quelle est le date de ton anniversaire?"
A real problem was that in 1962 they stopped teaching parsing in English grammar even though I was at a Grammar School, whilst they carried on discussing French in terms of past participle etc so we had no idea what they were talking about. French was analyzed in depth as we were going to take it at O level. Would have been better to have taught us to speak it fluently without doing a translation in our heads. I was a top student and got good grades, but five years of French was totally wasted and the time taken up by it was a waste of my time as I would never have been good enough to pass any exam. Being able to order a coffee would have been more useful, but I am still too embarrassed to attempt it. Strangely, I will attempt it in Italian...mainly because, unlike the French, Italians do not pretend to not understand you.
My French is much better than my Italian, but I find Italian much easier to converse in. Italians speak so clearly compared to the mumbling French!
I intend to take a conversational Italian course when I retire for two reasons...love Italy and it is said to be the easiest language to learn as they pronounce every letter in a word. Also if you put on a pretend Italian accent it will sound right.
I think that goes for most languages Fran: the way you pronounce the words is every bit as important as the grammar, vocabulary etc. By the way, Spanish pronounces every letter separately as well, and there are no diphthongs (!). Edit: What I mean is, all double vowels are pronounced separately and run together, rather than making a different single vowel sound. (e.g. a-e-ropu-e-rto) Usually though, Spanish is spoken so quickly that you can't hear the separate sounds. How did we get to this in a thread about Morgan Schneiderlin?
To the French? Never. I have learned loads of French swear words and insulting phrases just to annoy them. It is an Englishman's duty to insult the French (and the Scots) at every opportunity.
The food you eat is recycled into your body. They can identify where you have lived by analyzing your remains. On this basis I can announce that Morgan is officially English QED
....and where do you think my desire to annoy the French came from? Morgan this and Morgan that gets very wearing after a while. Many years ago I had a call from a very young French woman working for the Accorr hotel group and she asked me if I wanted to go to Paris for the weekend. The flight would be free and I would stay in one of their new hotels for free as well. All I would be required to do is provide an appraisal of their new hotel. Well I was up for this and when she said the the very lovely Mrs Godders: could come along as well and that all I would have to do is pay her air fare you can imagine how chuffed and excited with it all I was. I was imagining romantic evenings walking along the Seine and wonderful art galleries and restaurants when she said I need to ask you a few questions first. How old are you she asked and like a fool I told her the truth. Oh I am so sorry sir we were looking or someone much younger and hung up. I have never stayed in an Accorr hotel since.
Not sure that would annoy them! The French enjoy an enormous range of swear words and if you're not using them at every opportunity then you're not speaking proper French
