mr.moderino

[jovial quail]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[silk agate]

you do what is not correct in english grammar

thats why they translated it in english grammar, not word for word

Tu fais quoi dans la vie - What do you do (in life)

voila

[tulip solar]

But quoi is the third word. How does quoi (what) start the sentence of what do you do

And I have no idea why dans is there, I think dans means in when you're referring to entering a building

[tiny jackal]

different languages have different grammar

[silk agate]

quoi cant really start sentences unless its 'what' as in 'huh'
"Quoi?"

qu'est-ce que is 'what is' if its at the start

Qu'est-ce que tu fais dans la vie
Tu fais quoi dans la vie

Same thing mn

but yes french ≠ english

so voilà

[tiny jackal]

"What do you do in your life" aka "What do you do [as a job]"

[tulip solar]

Yes how would you make a question exactly like in English order and grammar

[silk agate]

^

qu'est-ce que (what) tu fais (you do) dans la vie (in life)

[tulip solar]

I thought it was Est-ce que

[silk agate]

Est-ce que is a closed question

Est-ce que tu aimes le sport

Do you like sport

[tiny jackal]

est-ce que is a question marker, kind of like how English throws "do" around to allow inversion

[tulip solar]

Est- ce que que tu fais (you do) dans la vie) (What you do in life)

[silk agate]

no

because est-ce que is a clsoed question: yes or no

[tiny jackal]

that's "Do you do in life"

[tulip solar]

Est- ce que tu aimes le sport (What you like sport)

[silk agate]

what do you do in life?
"yes"

NO

est-ce que - do... (yes/no answer)

[tiny jackal]

"Do you like sports"

[silk agate]

qu'est-ce que - what is... (open answer)

[tulip solar]

''thats why they translated it in english grammar, not word for word'' Are you saying French sentences sometimes don't make sense in word for word English grammar and that Busuu translates what makes sense for english speakers?

[silk agate]

well

english isnt french

and some words and phrases arent literally word for word

and so is word order

like we say a red car, not a car red

une voiture rouge

a car red

thats not english

becaseu its a red car

[tiny jackal]

french grammar can't be translated word for word to english because theyre two different languages

[tulip solar]

Which has been a struggle 😢 I came in French expecting to just learn all the Frnech words, use the same rules as English and become fluent. Complete shock

[silk agate]

fanboy do you speak any other lagnbuegs

[tulip solar]

English only

[silk agate]

unfortunately not all languages have the same grammar

french is pretty close already, a few things shift

[tulip solar]

Yes! Une voiture rouge has been completely shocking to me. I still don't understand why they did that

[tiny jackal]

french is quite close to english grammatically compared to the vast majority of languages, but it's still not the same language

[silk agate]

but if you peek an eye at turkish grammar youre gonna be more shocked

and more confused

[tiny jackal]

why did we do "a red car"

english often arguably makes less sense

[tulip solar]

A red car is perfect because you're explaining the red car before the red car

A car red seems awkward in my prospective

[tiny jackal]

in english

[silk agate]

yes because its english

[tiny jackal]

bc youre not used to it

[silk agate]

wait till you see conjugation

[tulip solar]

Exactly.

[silk agate]

youre gonna have to get used to french grammar lol

[tulip solar]

Yes conjugation has been a struggle. Everything means ''To something'' Lire means ''To read'' Faire means ''To do''

[tiny jackal]

"a car red" makes sense because you have a car in your mind and now you can paint it
"a red car" you're waiting for the noun to get the information to put it on

different languages have different priorities

[tulip solar]

Wait a minute you might be cooking something I never thought of that

[silk agate]

if this was an italian server it would have been fine because all adjs go after (unlike some in french like bon./nouveau etc.)

une nouvelle voiture, una macchina nouva

but since french is mixed

thats irrelevant

[tulip solar]

Any thoughts on Busuu? I got premium and I'm using the free version of Duolingo (I have a classroom so no ads for me on duo) (The classroom is just me)

[tiny jackal]

;duo

[jovial quail]

Duolingo: The Pros and Cons

Duolingo is usually helpful to retain vocabulary, short sentences, and simple concepts of grammar and syntax. It may enable you to approach your target language without much pressure and in a gamified way. Some people find that to be a great motivator.

On the other hand, Duolingo teaches some concepts badly, if at all (this may vary depending on the specific course). It generally only scratches the surface of language, and offers a pretty mechanical and dull view of it. Some learners might also find that a gamified approach of language is not beneficial to them.

For those reasons, Duolingo should not be your only learning tool, and is best used if you already have other methods and resources you can count on. If there are many things that you don't understand in your Duo lessons, chances are you need more in-depth methods for the time being. If you understand most of your lessons, you may be too advanced for it to be helpful to you.

[tiny jackal]

this applies more or less for any one resource, especially apps

;ressources

[jovial quail]

Check out our Big List ™ of resources here! https://www.reddit.com/r/French/wiki/resources/

[tulip solar]

Thanks good to know. I want to be better at French. Its genuinely fun

Just future reference, I will be asking about De in the future. The most difficult thing for me is the word De, I see it everywhere and never understand. I just know it means From, Of and its used everywhere

[silk agate]

baby steps you will naturally find out what it does

[tulip solar]

Example on busuu: Il est professeur de francais'' (He is a french teacher)

[tiny jackal]

it's arguably one of the hardest things to explain because it comes up in so many places

[silk agate]

its like he is a teacher of french

[tiny jackal]

and certain usages visually overlap

[tulip solar]

Thanks good to know. Another stumper is the word au, I will likely be asking about that in the future as well. ''Elle est docteure au service des uregences''. I thought au was a+ le also meaning at

(She is an A&E doctor)

[tiny jackal]

theyre prepositions

[silk agate]

She is doctor at the service of urgences

[tiny jackal]

prepositions are random as hell across languages

[silk agate]

at the -> à le -> au

[tiny jackal]

so even if you learn the general rules, you're bound to come across plenty of usages that don't make much sense to you

try to use context to understand, and let the prepositions come naturally as much as you can

because there are a lot of cases where it's just the verb that happens to have that preposition for no particular reason

[tulip solar]

Ahh thank you I appreciate

[tiny jackal]

It doesn't hurt to ask every now and then because there are some rules about how they're used in certain contexts

Just remember that you have to be very specific about your examples, and there's a decent chance it'll just be "that verb just uses that preposition"

[tulip solar]

Chatgpt told me if I spent 1 hour learning French a day it would take me 1.5/2 years to become C1 (b2) in French (fluent i think)

[tiny jackal]

Lol

Fluent is a vague term

C1 is university level, you won't get to that level with only 1hr per day for the entirety of your learning

But starting with 1hr is fine

Don't aim for anything specific, just try to find ways to incorporate French that don't feel like a chore

[tulip solar]

Where would you rank French in difficulty out of the European languages

I just know we are easier than German

[tiny jackal]

for an English speaker it's one of the easiest, as it's quite closely related

[tulip solar]

I know Hungarian and Finnish are extremely hard

[tiny jackal]

But difficulty ultimately is a complex topic and will more depend on your motivation and ability to find things and people you enjoy in the language

French will be hard if you don't enjoy it

[subtle fog]

it's shocking to you because you're not used to it. The two systems are otherwise just as good.

If anything, I'd have a slight preference for putting adjectives after the noun, that way you don't have to wait until the very end of a phrase like "elegant black Italian leather winter jacket" until you reach the noun and can finally make a mental image of the object.

[tulip solar]

I never understood how French was closely related to English. French is Romance and English is Germanic. But French is closer to English than German (correct me if im wrong)

Im definitely not complaining

[tulip solar]

I remember losing all 5 of my hearts in duolingo (Before i got the free classroom) to adjective questions. Complete shock to me and very awkward, like using your left hand for the first time to brush your teeth

[jaunty surge]

Well French is close to English in the way that because of the Norman conquest English gained a lot of vocabulary from from it.

That and because of the cultural influence of France, you are likely to be a bit more exposed to French

another thing is that romance languages and Germanic languages are both Indo-European languages, so that itself makes it easier for a English speaker to learn French than say a non IE lang like arabic or japanese where you'll have to wrap your head around a lot more new concept.

Not sure if I'd call French closer to English than German tho, English still predominantly uses germanic vocabulary in common speech

[tulip solar]

Is there any flaws with English that French does better?

[jaunty surge]

"a flaw" is a very fuzzy concept with languages, after all there isn't really a inherently correct way to language

[tulip solar]

good point

[tiny jackal]

There are concepts that can't be fully translated, but that goes both ways

[subtle fog]

There is only one objectively undisputable flaw, which is the English language's inability to tell apart saucisse and saucisson.

[stark monolith]

The Normans invaded England

[pulsar garnet]

Not 'flaws' but differences that help you to understand that your native language is also weird

I've talked with you about « est-ce que » for example. Why does French use this clunky word while English doesn't? I then pointed out that do-support, the way English asks a question, was more clunky so by recognising that, you also recognise that at the end of the day, it's not useful to do word-by-word stuff

[stark monolith]

If we’re operating on a framework that the way English does things is more natural, easier, and better, then what kind of answer could possibly satisfying to “why does French phrase things differently from english”

[tulip solar]

No 😢 I mean English is 100x more natural, easier for me. Imagine riding a bike with both hands for your entire life and then one day take both hands off and ride no hands. Obviously you're gonna fall a few times getting used to the massive change

[pulsar garnet]

Of course but the point is that the faster you accept that you will fall – following your analogy – the faster you'll start riding this new bike comfortably

[stark monolith]

that’s how it works for everyone learning a foreign language

it’s a bit like riding a bike you’re whole life and then learning to dive a car. no one expects you to get it right out of the gate and there are probably some transferable skills. But what’s the point in asking why do I have to fill it with gas instead of powering it with my feet?

Like if someone explains all the technical linguistics behind french grammar and its development from latin, is that going to satisfy you?

you don’t want to learn how a combustion engine works, you just want to know why you can’t ride your bike on the highway and can’t drive your car on a narrow mountain trail

the differences between french and english are the reasons you’re learning a foreign language, otherwise you would already know it