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French language FAQ

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Question: Why should I learn French?

The ability to read French offers entry into one of the great European literary traditions with a flourishing contemporary culture. The ability to speak French at any level will obviously increase your enjoyment and confidence when you visit France.

Question: How difficult is learning French?

It all depends on the level of proficiency you want to achieve. Linguata French is designed to give you the confidence to get around with a basic vocabulary and a supply of useful phrases. Above all this program allows you to listen to a native speaker and gradually tune your own pronunciation as you imitate what you hear.

Question: What are the particular difficulties for an English-speaker learning to speak French?

There is no doubt that the pronunciation of French is the aspect that causes English-speakers the greatest difficulties. For this reason pronunciation should be given as much or more attention than acquiring a vocabulary from the very beginning: it's a barrier to communication if you can only make yourself understood by writing down what you want to say!

Question: What are the pronunciation issues to bear in mind when learning French?

Though French uses the same alphabet as English many of the letters are sounded differently. Fortunately most of the consonants sound like their English equivalents but notice in the program for instance that 'h' is never sounded while 'r's' are more prominent. As in English 'c' and 'g' have two sounds according to the vowel that follows, and the addition of a cedilla below 'c' forces it to behave as though it were followed by 'e' or 'I'.
You will need to pay particular attention to vowel sounds which are much more precise in French and less likely to slide into another vowel sound. On the positive side there is a great deal of redundancy in the way vowel groups are sounded: for instance, 'au', 'eau', 'aux', 'eaux', 'os', 'ô', o and 'hô' all sound like the 'o' in 'so', as in hôtel and numéro; and ê, è, ai, ais, ait, ei, aî, ë and et sound like the 'a' in 'mayor', as in mère (mother) and j'ai (I have).

The French u is a source of particular difficulty. It has two sounds: one is an 'uh' sound like the 'u' in 'utter' which occurs before 'n' as in un (one) and Lundi, while the other more frequent sound does not have a direct English equivalent though a similar sound is found in German as ü. Listen for this sound in rue (street), salut (hello, cheers!), ça suffit (that's enough).

Question: How important are accents in French?

It's best not to worry too much about accents at first. Some, like the circumflex, are redundant though they are historically interesting in that they replaced 's' at an earlier stage in the development of French. Others are useful because they affect the way the vowel is sounded: notice in the program for example the difference in the 'è' of 'frère' (brother) and the 'é' of 'thé' (tea). However, you will find that it is more important to communication that you aim to keep your vowels 'clean' and 'tight'. You will notice that doing this requires far more active shaping of the mouth and lips than is customary in English.

Question: What else is important to communicating in French?

Crucial aspects that you should observe as you listen to Linguata French are the speaker's use of stress, intonation and rhythm. Note in particular that syllables tend to be stressed evenly, i.e. at the same volume, throughout a phrase whereas in English stress tends to occur within words. Listen, for instance (in 'A First Few Words. 2') to 'J'essaye d'apprendre le français or Un café noir, s'il vous plait'. You will notice variations in tone with a dip at the end of each grouping of words but the volume or intensity remains remarkably consistent throughout. In the question 'Peux-tu m'aider s'il te plait?' instead of a dip at the end there is a slight lilt upwards, but you will notice that there is still a dip after the phrase/group Peux-tu m'aider. The rhythmic element comes from the speech groups formed through the French tendency to run words together: 'Peux-tu m'aider' and 's'il te plait' are examples of 'rhythmic groups', small word clusters linked by meaning and grammatical requirements.

These variations in stress, tone and rhythm give French its musicality and will contribute disproportionately to your success in making yourself understood. Knowing about them is the first step; the second is to listen to Linguata French and repeat the examples over and over again!