Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts

2011/06/28

Rocket French Is A Reliable Program In Learning French

Learning of languages is very important because it is thought that those people who learn more languages enhance their intelligence to many folds. Besides, internet technology has made the world a global village and the one may encounter with the people of other languages and cultures quite often. France is the country that has the largest population in world so it is needless to mention that the one may encounter French speaking people more often. Moreover, France is the largest market for the world commodities so all those firms that want to excel in France should have an understanding of French language.

No firm can attract local consumers in foreign language so French language should be given due importance by firms. Learning of French language is also helpful in understanding French culture that is very important for market economy and it can for sure be said that language is an important aspect of culture. Learning of French language is also important for all those who want to make a research upon France.

France is progressing very fast and is a competing bigger economy now but the one cannot get benefits from French success without knowing French language. French language learning has thought to be a very tough task a short while ago but internet has made it easy for people to learn this language online. There are a number of courses available online for learning French but there are only few of them that can be helpful in getting versatile knowledge. The one may face different situations and he has to be aware from different aspects of language and vocabulary. The one may embarrass in a hotel if he knows basic vocabulary for doing business or he may find a difficulty while doing shopping in market. So, the one should decide for a French language course that could help him to know versatile words.

Rocket French is a course that is available online and it is preferred by a great many people due to its versatility of words. It is a course that is interactive and it aims at improving all the aspects of language. Rocket French course helps in speaking and improving of French language. Rocket French helps people to speak French language in natural accent and it enhances the confidence of learners to many folds. Rocket French is the best course for enhancing French vocabulary. Learning a language is incomplete unless the one is incapable of understanding the native accent and Rocket French has included audio courses in its syllabus. There are all but one thousand words of vocabulary included in Rocket French course. Mega French software games are included in Rocket French course and it not only helps students to enhance vocabulary but they can also add different new words in the games too.

Rocket French is an amazing online course. This course consists of audio lessons that will surely help you to master this language.


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2011/06/27

The Key To Developing Fluency In French

Nobody has ever said the learning to speak French is easy. But is there one thing--maybe a kind of silver bullet--that one could call the key strategy for effectively improving your spoken French? This is a hard question because there are so many things that one should be doing. Listen to songs, visit the country, live with a host family, take private classes, find a language buddy, watch TV and movies in the language, read comic books, novels and newspapers, etc. The list of things to do to improve your French is long.

But there is one key thing that will probably give you the most bang for the buck. I call it creative imitation. It's nothing new; it's really how children learn languages. They simply imitate the people around them.

For adults, it's a lot more work. But first of all, what are we trying to accomplish? Fluency in French means two things. Firstly, you want to be able speak spontaneously, smoothly and effortlessly. French should just roll off your tongue. Well, that's the idea. Getting there is the hard part. What you don't want to do is fumble, stutter and have people waiting while you search for that lost word. That's when most people give up and switch to English, to the relief of everybody.

Secondly, you do want to speak accurately. We all make mistakes, and people know that French is not your native tongue, but you don't want to make horrendous grammatical mistakes that will grate the ears of your listeners. French is a bit of an unforgiving language. Most people feel you either speak it well or not at all.

The fundamental idea of creative imitation is to simply observe and reproduce entire dialogs and phrases word for word until you feel comfortable. This obviously works particularly well in immersion where you are surrounded by the language. In your notebook--you do have a little notebook for this very reason, right?--you write down as best as you can something that you wish to imitate. You can try it right away if you have the courage. Or you may prefer to run it by your teacher and repeat it aloud a few times.

Another approach is to find or create some dialogs or phrases in books or in whatever materials you are using. Just make sure that the material is authentic and up-to-date. Flashcards are wonderful for this sort of thing. When you leave the house, always take your notebook or flashcards with you.

In any case, you want to rehearse your material ten to twenty times or whatever it takes to etch it into your memory.

This approach works wonders at various levels. Your understanding of spoken French will improve quickly because you are using authentic materials. At the same time, you will quickly develop a repertoire of useful things to say correctly in various contexts. This is great for self-esteem because of the positive feedback you will get from native speakers. And in no time your French will have improved considerably.

Stanley Aleong specializes in learning strategies for foreign languages at the advanced level. He believes that a highly effective strategy for achieving advanced proficiency in French or Spanish is to work with many carefully selected authentic examples. To learn more about some very effective learning tools based on this principle, visit Advanced French / Spanish


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2011/06/26

Good Ways To Learn French

French is spoken by over 110 million individuals globally. The language is spoken in many nations including France, Canada, and a few others. A number of U.S. citizens within the states of Maine and also Louisiana are actually native French speakers. The language is also a standard for many global organizations such as the United Nations. If you're thinking about learning another language for a profession or simply for personal enrichment, give some thought to learning French. French is the most beautiful spoken language and also suggests class and distinction. Mastering this language could be a great asset in your own profession and may also improve your experience when you visit French speaking countries.

If you choose to learn this language, you have a number of options. You might earn a degree in French from a university or college. A degree gives you expert knowledge of the language, both written and verbal. You might have already established yourself as a professional, and believe that understanding the language may help augment your career. If so, you may learn French online using a course, such as Rocket French, which is certainly a great way to study in your own convenience. They provide a free six day trial for their study course. Learning French this way will be a quick and easy way for you to master the language.

Of course, if you have time, another great way is an immersion program. In this manner, you have an opportunity to experience French culture. You will actually be residing in France and experience the daily life and culture of the French people. This really is the quickest option to learn French. You can expect to communicate with native French speakers each day. Most of the people will not be able to speak in English. For that reason, you must communicate with these people in French. You will be completely absorbed into French everyday living. You will take classes that can help you to write and speak in French. An immersion program is the most effective method for learning French fluently.

Being fluent in a second language offers benefits as a professional. For instance, you may attain certification to be a foreign language translator. This particular career opportunity presents lots of challenges and benefits. There are a lot of foreign language agencies that provide full-time jobs to translators. A translator ordinarily helps a company translate their particular business files and also company websites. You may want to work as a freelancer, taking care of your individual workload, and may set your own schedule. Another possibility may be to teach English in French speaking nations. Just by knowing French and English, it's possible to succeed in any French speaking country.

Mastering French offers you a chance to begin a new job or further build up your job just by working abroad. Additionally, you will enhance your trips in the French speaking nations. Learning another language will be a rewarding achievement. It is easy to learn French online right now by going to Rocket French.

Read related articles here: Rocket French Review


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2011/06/24

French Grammar - Rule of THUMB and Pronouns

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


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2011/06/21

3 Reasons to Learn French

French is one of the Romance languages from the Indo-European language family. It is closely associated with Spanish and Italian. About 110 million native speakers are found in France as well as parts of Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and Monaco. In other parts of the world, around 190 million people use French as a second language. Additionally, an estimated 200 million people study French as a foreign language. In fact, it ranks as the second most studied foreign language, second only to English.

There are many reasons why French is learnt. Some say that it is the most beautiful language they know. This may be more because of the rich culture of France than the language itself. The following are three reasons why you should learn French.

1. French is a widely used language all over the world.

Aside from France, French is an official language in Canada, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Rwanda, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Mauritius, and Seychelles among many others. Moreover, it is one of the official working languages in the United Nations, NATO, UNESCO, European Community, International Red Cross and other international organizations and entities.

All these mean that career and business opportunities are better when you know how to speak French. You will be more globally competitive if you know at least two languages. In international job listings, for instance, many positions require the ability to speak French. In addition, numerous French companies have offices in the U.S. Canada, also a French speaking country, has good trading relations with the U.S. Knowing how to speak the language puts you in an advantageous position.

2. Travel to France will be more fun when you know French.

France is one of the favorite tourist destinations in the entire world. Its castles, beaches, museums (think Louvre!), architecture, awesome landscapes, popular cuisine, wine, shopping and a whole lot more, are more than enough to keep tourists and vacationers of all ages entertained and occupied.

However, knowing how to speak French makes a lot of difference in the way you experience the country. The French people are not really the friendliest or the most helpful or the most tolerant bunch on earth. There are few French who can speak English fluently, so speaking English will not be of great help when you are in France. The French are also very critical of non-French speaking visitors. They do not take kindly to language mistakes by foreigners. So if you speak French and have a little understanding of their culture, French people will treat you more kindly and with more respect. You can avoid being treated rudely during your travel.

3. Knowing French allows you to appreciate French art, literature, cinema, music and dance.

French is the language of culture. Knowing how to speak French will help you understand the numerous great art, literature and music pieces.

French is not the easiest language to learn, which may be what makes it so appealing. When you have learnt French, you will have a sense of great accomplishment; you will have more confidence in the pursuit of your career; and can maintain poise when conversing with French-speaking persons.

Daniel C Howard is a language teacher living in Asia. He has over a decade of experience teaching all ages a variety of subjects. For free info and lessons on French, please visit his blog here.

You can also sign up for a newsletter full of free language tips from Daniel's many hours in a class. And as a bonus, stay updated on all the new information on http://www.learnfantasticfrench.com/.


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First Steps To Writing In French

So you've decided to have a go at writing in French. Congratulations! Your French must be at a very advanced level. Indeed, it is extremely rare to find individuals who can write well in a foreign language. Professional translators, for example, nearly always translate into their native language, the language in which they are most comfortable.

Although writing includes a world of literary works like poetry, theatre, short stories and novels, we'll concentrate on non-fiction.

But non-fiction is a vast category in itself. It includes things like emails, letters, blogs, text messages, advertising, marketing materials, press releases, memos, user guides, academic writing, term papers, technical reports, newspaper articles, legal documents, signs and notices, etc.

It may be of some consolation to realize that native-speakers of French often have difficulty writing. Unlike speaking, writing is a skill learned in school and requires a lot of practice. Not everyone writes well. As you can see, you're going to have to work hard at this. But if you're up to the challenge, here are some suggestions and strategies for success.

1. Recognize your limits and ALWAYS have an educated native-speaker review your work. All great authors have their work reviewed by a professional editor. Since French is not your first language, you will make mistakes. What is worse is to inflict these mistakes on your readers.

You certainly don't want to damage your credibility with bad grammar and clumsy writing. Except for certain very short messages, do not, I repeat, do not send anything out unless you are sure that it is correct.

There are even online forums where people will check your writing either for free or for reciprocal services.

2. Use the right tools. You'll need a good bilingual or monolingual dictionary and any appropriate reference works. All of these can be found online for free.

A highly recommended tool is a word processor with a grammar and spell check. If your word processor is configured for English, it will probably flag your French spellings as mistaken and automatically correct them. This is obviously annoying and downright counterproductive. Make sure to change your dictionary and spell-check settings.

Be careful with word processors. They can be good at correcting spelling mistakes and some grammatical errors, but they can only do so much. Do not rely only on software to correct your writing.

If you want to be really precise, be aware that French typographical conventions require that question marks, exclamation marks and full colons be preceded by a white space called une espace fine. To the untrained eye, it looks like an extra space in front of these characters.

3. Before attempting to write in a certain genre, create a collection of trustworthy examples of your target genre. These could be entire texts or sample sentences. For example, if you have to write memos, start by gathering some examples of memos that you like. The Internet is a fabulous gold mine of examples.

Study these sample texts to see how they work. Try to get a sense of the tone and style that are typical of the genre. Pay particular attention to the first line of every paragraph.

Some people recommend copying out good examples by hand to get a feel for how the language of a particular genre works.

4. Writing in French is just like any kind of writing. You should probably work from an outline. Vary your sentence structures and vocabulary. Seek the right tone of voice and appropriate style.

5. Imitate to the limits of plagiarism. Since French is not your native tongue, your best bet for producing good texts is to simply imitate trustworthy examples. The trick here is to take the sample sentences you like and modify them to your liking.

6. Once you're done checking for grammar and spelling, read your text aloud. This is a good way to catch grammatical errors and to see how the writing flows. Then have someone go over your work and make any necessary changes.

Stanley Aleong specializes in teaching foreign languages and believes that an effective strategy for achieving advanced proficiency in French or Spanish is to work with many carefully selected authentic examples. To learn more about some very effective learning tools based on this principle, visit Advanced French / Spanish


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