The majority of people, when they first dabble in learning a language like French, tend to acquire relatively easy phrases like the numbers or the alphabet as well as a few key expressions like "I love you" or "Good morning!"
This approach tends to make the learner immediately feel like they are part of the new language community. If they happen to know people who speak this target language, these initial baby steps at learning are certain to earn a few smiles and much approval!
When you decide to get serious about learning a language, this is when you tend to look at grammar. Quite simply, grammar is what allows you to create content in any language. You are no longer just reciting lines you learned from a website or a traveler's guide. Now you are able to produce something of your own. This is the key role that grammar plays and is the reason why it needs to be an integral part of any learner's language agenda.
Let's examine a simple topic in grammar - the subject pronouns. These are basically words that establish who's doing any given action.
I - je; You - tu, He - il, She - elle, We - nous, They - ils
At this point, you'd probably feel relieved. Whew, this looks just like English. It's a one-to-one match.
The word You = the word tu and so on and so forth.
But this is exactly one of the core underlying problems I'd like to address here. One of the very first realities you need to truly grasp if you're going to learn a language is that things don't quite work the same way in all languages. Language is like a trip to Wonderland. Things down the rabbit hole tend to get a bit unstable and weird.
For instance if we were to flesh things out a bit and present a more complete chart of the pronouns above, we'd have.
I - je; You - tu/vous, He/It- il, She/It - elle, We - nous/on, They/It - ils/elles???
And this is the point where people start feeling a really uncomfortable. What? How can the word You be two different things? How can an It also mean He and a She? Why are there two words for We? And I thought It was already il and elle. Now it's also the plural ils and elles? Is French grammar confusing you yet?
Why have I mentioned all of these examples? Because I want to make absolutely sure that you're going down the right path when it comes to learning French grammar - and that path is definitely NOT rote memorization. This is one of the major problems I see many people who learn a second language stumbling over. Consequently, they quickly get flustered and give up before they've really even started.
When you learn a grammar rule, it is to be taken as a guideline but almost NEVER an absolute.
This is especially true when it comes to French grammar because French is notorious for being the language of exceptions even more nefarious than English.
The right idea is to look at everything as if you were putting together the pieces of a puzzle. See how things blend together. Appreciate the differences and how nothing is ever 100%, and above all else, give yourself time! Learning French isn't going to happen overnight, but your brain will eventually be able to absorb all of the finer points and compartmentalize them so that make a bit of sense!
Now let's resolve these apparent paradoxes above:
How can the word You be two different things?
You is both tu and vous because the word You in English is both singular and plural. Tu is the singular You, and vous is the plural You (guys) as well as being the singular formal form of You.You is also both tu and vous because in the singular form, tu and vous are the informal and formal way (respectively) to say You to people. If you just met somebody, you wouldn't use tu. That would be rude. English doesn't have these differences for the word You.
How can It also mean He and a She?
Because all nouns (people, places, things, and ideas) are masculine or feminine. Yes, a chair actually has a gender in French
So instead of saying It is green if you were referring to a green chair, in French, you'd say Elle est verte(She is green).
Why are there two words for We?
Yes, We in writing or formal situations tends to be nous but when we are talking it's usually translated as on. This is because conjugations with nous are a LOT more complicated than on, so just to save time and make life easier, we tend to stick with on when speaking.
I thought It was already il and elle. Now it's also the plural ils and elles?
Sometimes words that are singular in English are plural in French. Take the following sentence.
The information was useful - Les informations etaient utiles.
So then if you replaced the word information in both languages by a pronoun, you'd get:
It was useful - Elles etaient utiles.
The Elles in this case now translates into It. Thus, this final conundrum has been resolved.
For your FREE eBook on the powerful TOP French resources I used to go from speaking zero French to being SUPER fluent in no time, please visit - http://www.charliesfrenchfactory.com/welcome.html
No comments:
Post a Comment