LE FRANÇAIS! The FRENCH Language is Fantastic

[@Langfocus]

Hi everyone! Are you learning French? Check out FrenchPod101 ►( bit.ly/frenchpod101 )◄ - one of the best ways to learn French. For 33 other languages, check out my review! ► langfocus.com/pod101 ◄ I'm an active member on several Pod101 sites, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do! (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

[@MapsCharts]

I don't speak French but sah quel plaisir

[@pbvajirkar]

J'aime votre l'article. Merci.

[@arminyaakub8719]

👍👍👍

[@orylazy3087]

The original name of modern french isn't francien but françois we pronounce it " FrANsswa " but the video is perfect 😜🤗😚

[@nicotarbo1616]

J'apporte quelques précisions importantes: _ La moitié de l'anglais vient du français. _ La moitié des mots français utilisé par les anglais ont été modifiés par les anglais. _ Le français est le 2ème langage international,elle est aussi la langue officielle des J.O,de l'U.E (politique) et de l'ONU. _ Le français deviendra la langue la plus parlée au monde en 2025 (grâce aux africains car les 3/4 nord de l'Afrique parle français,donc presque toute l'Afrique). _ Le français est souvent compris par les anglophones (dû aux prononciations biens distinguables) mais les francophones comprennent rarement l'anglais (dû aux prononciations pas souvent nettes). _ Wikipedia et les organismes américains rabaissent les chiffres sur le nombre de locuteurs et de pays utilisant le français donc mentent sur la répartition mondiale du français voulant légitimer à tout prix la suprématie de l'anglais en créant une fausse hégémonie de l'anglais.

[@tamaspolyak5564]

We all know that while The Roman Republic conquered Gaul, a small village fought back lead by the heroes Asterix and Obelix.

[@sampellicelli9789]

Astérix est là

[@elliot_yoyo]

Ça va faire mal

[@benjaminretuertaditdelacru7520]

Ça va cogner , la bagarre

[@elliot_yoyo]

Asterix est là

[@michelbeauloye4269]

The location of this small village is shown on the map of Gaul under "Bretagne".

[@acethefiredragon8525]

*What aspects of French have you found challenging?* Everything *And how have you dealt with those challenges?* I haven’t

[@etienne7930]

It's dêfíñîtèly me

[@miloolvidado7457]

Just like me I’m giving up on learning french but I really want to learn 😁 even I know it’s impossible 🤣

[@cocoabeanzwantstopuzzle]

french is one of a small group of languages i deem utter disasters (english, basque, welsh, gaelic, polish, and chinese are other members, for varying reasons). the difference between it and the others: i didn't give up on the others. (well, english is my native language) french, i did. i wanted to, but like how when you don't know the difference between "et" and "est" and that's for starters! i don't wanna rant further but i have a LOT of problems with that language.

[@etienne7930]

@@cocoabeanzwantstopuzzle . Yeah I always confuse with them... 😔😅

[@internetstranger3686]

Rélàtáblê

[@anthonyvanrenterghem4733]

As a french, it was extremely fun to watch this video, I couldn't think about anything else that : "Oh my god, how can people learn that language ?"

[@naboost9485]

Same

[@mangeshrajeghodake]

Je apprendre français. Je ne suis pas parfait. Mais votre langue est difficile. Les congesuion sont plus complex que l'angles.

[@salsabilyakoubi9386]

As I am Tunisian, I was taught French for the past 11 years yet I find English easier despite only studying it for 4 years and it being more inconsistent with its rules. So I'm a living example of how hard French can be.

[@mariasanchezm.364]

French , is funny to listen .

[@xeniahorbas8020]

Anthony Vrtg I am suffring from it for almost three years and I'll do the C2 exam soon. I must be insane.

[@Purebeautyluv]

Very good video. As a French learner, the hardest part is remembering when present tense verbs for “je” take on the “tu” verb. I never remember if it’s “je prend” or “je prends.”

[@heliedecastanet1882]

"Je prends". Irregular verb from the 3rd group. The most difficult one.

[@claibornedavis]

Just watched this... Fantastique! Paul, your KZbin channel is a true gem for language enthusiasts and wannabe polyglots. I had many years of scholastic French (including a History of the French Language class) and this brought some of that back. Your "fête/feste" example reminds me of the similarities and divergences between words such as "fenêtre" (window) and "defenestration" (to throw OUT of a window). Well done!

[@JaymesWebbs]

This is my best KZbin channel, nobody can provide accurate information like Paul, thank you for the video.

[@DaVinciCosmeticsUSA]

so true

[@rothsshvili5125]

I love it except the BGM which is not my type. ;p;

[@marcduchesnay5536]

Pour moi ce fut un très bon cours d'anglais. Merci.

[@mashaaa000]

grave XD

[@arachnid5206]

For me this was a very good English lesson? Your welcome :) God I love Duolingo

[@howinthewhat]

@@arachnid5206 but remember, Duolingo is a school, the rest is done by self :)

[@nattoxe1703]

"Punaise, s'il te plaît reviens apprendre je n'attends que ça depuis 2 mois" signé Duolingo 😂

[@howinthewhat]

@@nattoxe1703 mdrrr

[@CertifiedDeadMemes]

As someone who is native in both englsh and spanish, I found french suprisingly easy at first but then more and more challenging as time went on. Conjugation was a breeze as well as the basics of writings because of my spanish background; however, I struggled way more with pronunciation than I expected, but at the end of the day it was a rewarding experience.

[@clavierpixelkey650]

Pronunciation was easy for me but listening is another story… if only VF (version française) films are subtitled in French…

[@clavierpixelkey650]

I'm going to try watching VF films with English subtitles. The idea is that I can understand the meaning of the English sentence in one glance and then my ears can focus on the French sounds (which tend to sound quite different in a sentence) and my brain can connect the French sounds and the meaning, while adding my own French subtitles in my mind, sometimes in a more phonetic French version. If I don't catch any French words, it's still okay, as they'll be stored in my subconscious.

[@tonydelariva7163]

Same here. I'm Mexican and speak both English and Spanish. The structure of French is pretty similar to Spanish, it's the pronunciation that is SOOO different, but it's a beautiful language.

[@tsubakicomunista3088]

Ñ

[@nostalgiatrip7331]

@@clavierpixelkey650 exactly. i took four years of french in school, and then continued to practice using online resources and reading lots of french. I had no problem with pronunciation and accent, and i can read just about fluently. But my grammar is questionable half the time and i cannot for the LIFE OF ME understand what the hell anyone is saying when i listen to it spoken. I can actually understand spoken french creole and louisiana french better than i can MPF

[@SuperLn1991]

Hi! I'm french and your video is very well done (our language can be difficult even for us!). i'm sorry for my bad english! I'm from Lyon and we don't have a particular accent but often add some "y" every where. Exemple:" j'y ais fait", instead of "je l'ai fait". In south of france they often don't prononce the c of avec, so it sound like "avé" (just like in Ave Maria). They also pronounce the e of une. In Toulouse region they pronounce the s of moins while in the rest of the country we don't. Some words change in south or north: un sac ( for plastic bag) became une poche (pocket), fenêtre (window) became carreau (tile) for cars windows etc... "Plus" (if you pronounce the s) means more, if you don't it means no longer. (j'en veux plus can be I want some more or the opposite that's why the "ne" of "ne...plus" is usefull written). I think belgium/swiss accent is easy to understand but quebec accent is very strong and it can be difficult to understand and (sorry) it's sound funny, like a mixt of old expressions and a drunk guy! But they accent often disappears when they sing. I wonder if we sound funny, or pretentious for them :) For the ô or ê accent from the s, you can see it on Hospital (english and old french name) => Hôpital ( modern french) but the s is steel here and pronounce for hospitalité (hospitality). In english the worst false friend for me is evantually. Eventuellement means maybe and never "finaly". In the world, French is often qualified has the language of love but for french it doesn't sound romantic at all, we consider Italian as the love language.

[@josee-annejoly6896]

GeorgianaDarcy hey! I'm from Quebec ;) to answer your question, yes the french accent from france does sound funny to us haha kids often try to imitate the french accent when being jokingly snobby haha to us it sounds like a snob version of our french, because it sounds exactly like what you would read in the books while ours sound completely different than the written french! I've had french roomates in the past years and it was quite funny to compare our accents! We also use some identical words for completely opposite meaning, like suçon and sucette, in Québec suçon is the candy, and sucette is a hickey, and in France it's the opposite! I do have a very embarrassing story with those words and one of my french roomate hahaha

[@vincentlefebvre9255]

GeorgianaDarcy Qu'est-ce que c'est cette pathologie à s'excuser de son niveau d'anglais? Tu t'efforces à te faire comprendre par un locuteur d'une autre langue . C'est très bien , un point c'est tout .

[@tommarch.4493]

Ah un autre lyonnais ^^ But yes, the accent on differents "voyelles" (i don't know how to say that in english) is different with the region where you spoke the language, for exemple, In Lyon we speak with "è" to replace "ais" of "j'ai mangé" but in France Metropol the difference is tall as a flower, if we change of local region as Quebec, or Morroco it's just different.

[@vincentlefebvre9255]

GeorgianaDarcy Vus par vos cousins d'Amérique ,il se peut que certains Français semblent quelque peu hautains, voire condescedants à l'égard des Canadiens . D'une part il ne faudrait pas oublier que le lien avec la France aura été carrément décapité pendant plus de deux siècles . Les régionalismes ont toujours existé . De plus bien trop souvent les Européens confondront l'accent et le niveau de langage . Il y a des limites à se faire une image folklorique du Québec . Étonamment lors d'un voyage (de noces !😊) en France je n'ai jamais eu à répéter ne serait-ce que lorsque je m'adressais à des Arabes ou des Africains . Les gens ont été d'une grande gentillesse et fort sympathiques . Des Français m'ont déjà dit que je n'avais pas d'accent ! Bien sûr que j'en ai un et ça s'entend instantanément ! Quand aux chanteuses québécoises elles font souvent pâlir d'envie par la puissance de leur voix . C'est bien connu . N'en déplaise à certains locuteurs d'autres langues le français est et demeurera une langue internationale et la plus prestigieuse de l'histoire bien qu'elle ne soit plus la lingua franca .

[@vincentlefebvre9255]

NO NAME Found Voyelle s'écrit "vowel " en anglais" . Phonétiquement cela sonnerait comme "vàwoul " .

[@YramVeryLittle]

I just LOVE every single video you make, Paul. Great job, as always. I've been studying French for many years (i'm Italian) and i think that all the tenses of the verbs are the main trouble, the rest is not so difficult once you get used to the language. Btw it would be amazing if you made a video about false friends in some languages (ita/spanish/eng/french) and explain what they mean and why they have that meaning today, going through the etimology. It's just an idea :) I admire the job that you do to make every video. Maria

[@romaindeville1134]

Salut Paul ! Ta vidéo est très intéressante notamment sur les origines de cette langue, sa pratique à travers le monde et en tant que français, cette vidéo est parfaite pour toute personne souhaitant débuter dans l' apprentissage du français. Excellent travail !

[@jeanpierrechoisy6474]

En outre plus la diction de Paul est d'une telle clarté que, quand je l'écoute, j'ai presque l'illusion d'être anglophone ! Alors, qu'à l'autre extrême, il existe certains anglophones dont l'accent ne me permet pas de comprendre plus de 15% des mots... au maximum. Je me demande si les étrangers apprenant le français peuvent avoir des différences de facilité de compréhension aussi grandes selon les accents locaux.

[@cruzgomes5660]

@@jeanpierrechoisy6474 As a foreigner who is currently learning the French language I must ask, what is your favorite and least favorite regional accent for the English language? I am also curious so I shall ask this as well; what is your favorite as well as least favorite local accent of the French language?

[@jeanpierrechoisy6474]

​@@cruzgomes5660 My answer is nothing more than my modest personal experience, with a subjective component. But not only, because there are objective qualities that I appreciate enormously, in particular the clarity of the diction. From this point of view, RP ("received pronunciation") has an obvious advantage. If this accent, or a fairly close pronunciation, dominates very largely at the BBC, it is precisely because it is understood without problem by all English speakers. During my first stay in Scotland (five weeks with my eldest son), including three weeks in the very north of Great Britain, we were surprised at first. But, once we got used to it, this accent was easier for us to understand than the one we had been taught, typically English. We met a couple of Germans, (like us strongly interested in ornithology). Their experience was the same. One day, I received a phone call from someone preparing an article on the Chamois, for a US wildlife magazine. He asked me out on a date. I thought, "An American and I can understand that? He must be from New England." Which he confirmed when we met. Among the diversity of US accents, three features are present, often not always... fortunately because I don't like them at all aesthetically: • excessively vibrating "L"s ; • a nasal accent, very nasal, giving the impression of hearing a Briton with his nose in a clothespin. This is not a typically French perception: an Englishman told me that this is also the British perception; • "t" pronounced like "d". For example : "a boddle wader". This is also the origin of the word "dollar": deformation of Thaler, the old Austrian currency. Trump talks like this. My favorite French accents: • that of Touraine, rightly considered THE benchmark; • that of French-speaking Switzerland, very melodious. In geographical continuity, the Savoyard accent seems to be an attenuated form; • even further south and as far as the Mediterranean coast, the Provençal accent is also melodious, although very different. It extends outside Provence stricto sensu to the east as far as the Italian border and to the north includes the south of Dauphiné: the accent of the Midi east of the Rhône; Geographically between the two previous ones, the accent of the north of Dauphiné extending towards the northwest to Lyon and even Saint Etienne, is mine. I perceive it as neither ugly nor particularly beautiful. When it is very marked, this accent is comical. The same is true of the patois of Savoy or Switzerland. Geographically between the two previous ones, the accent of the north of Dauphiné extending towards the northwest to Lyon and even Saint Etienne, is mine. It doesn't look ugly or particularly beautiful to me. When it is very marked, this accent is comical, just like the patois of Savoy or those of Switzerland. Among the French accents that I dislike: the accent of the South west of the Rhône (Montpellier, etc.) in particular a singularity: in French the group "an" is pronounced as a single sound, a nasalized "a", except if the "n" (simple or double) is followed by a vowel. However, the accent I am talking about persists in nasalizing them even in this case, which is perceived by other French people as unpleasant to understand and me easy to pronounce; upper-class Parisian accents if they are really marked: are generally perceived by other French people as somewhat affected and pretentious; working-class Parisian accents are generally perceived by other French people as friendly and fun My favorite French accents: • that of Touraine, rightly considered THE benchmark; • that of French-speaking Switzerland, very melodious. In geographical continuity, the Savoyard accent seems to be an attenuated form; • even further south and as far as the Mediterranean coast, the Provençal accent is also melodious, although very different. It extends outside of Provence stricto sensu to the east as far as the border with Italy and to the north includes the south of Dauphiné: the accent of the Midi east of the Rhône; Geographically between the two previous ones, the accent of the north of Dauphiné extending towards the northwest to Lyon and even Saint Etienne, is mine. I perceive it as neither ugly nor particularly beautiful. The French accents that I dislike: • the Parisian accents if they are really marked. So that of the working classes are perceived as very vulgar and that of the upper classes as affected and pretentious. • the accent of Midi west of the Rhône (Montpellier, etc.) especially one of its quirks, the group "an" is usually pronounced as a single sound, a nasalized "a", except if the "n" (simple or double) is followed by a vowel. In this case, the "a" and the "n" are pronounced as two distinct sounds : « année » est prononcé comme : "a-né". However, the accent of the Midi west of the Rhone persists in nasalizing them even in followed by a double consonant : « an-né-. Which the other French perceive as unpleasant to hear and not easy to pronounce ; • in certain populations of the suburbs of large cities a language is spreading which seems less and less French, impoverished whether it is vocabulary, syntax or phonetics: for example the "o", "a" and "i" nasalities pronounced in identical ways, resulting in serious inaccuracies, confusions, even misinterpretations. Accents other than those from Paris and from the South west of the Rhône, if they are very marked, are generally perceived by the French as comical (usually), nice (often), bizarre (sometimes). I enjoy reading English, for the extraordinary richness of its vocabulary for descriptive adjectives and action verbs. But I'm not nearly a fan of his phonetics. I much prefer the phonetics of German and, although I don't understand these languages, the phonetics of Italian, Slavic languages, Hungarian. The phonetics of Spanish gives me the feeling of a beauty but...”severe”, or rather a little austere.

[@bloodliriel]

Hello! I am currently learning French because I moved to a region in Luxembourg where basically all daily conversations are in French. I had French at school (25 years ago), but learned Latin. I translate basically everything from Latin and that usually works well (hey, I get compliments from French people for my language skills! I am seriously flattered!). I find grammar really challenging, because I never learned anything beyond the basics and now have to self-teach. If I had actual lessons now and an explanation of how to do it, I would probably be a lot better!

[@MCSTNDTCAFAG]

Sincerely from natural French speaking person point of vu; if you already are able to make yourself understood, lessons would probably be of very little effect! The main problem with French is that the rules, sadly, always suffer numerous exceptions. I guess the most effective way for French learning is the immersive way. Provided you take a little time once in a while to read a dictionary since French precision suffers a lot from limited vocabulary. Reading French is great too. (you can borrow books written for little kids at first to keep it very simple, it's great to learn the way French is articulated and a wide range of vocabulary). I would rather see you trying to use different ways of saying the same thing, so you can pick up the nuances between the different forms. But if you decide to take lessons, I' would be very interested in your feed back. (especially if it's written in French) 😉You'll see, very soon you'll wake up one morning and realize that you where speaking French in your dream! Cheers.

[@BruneSixtine]

Native speaker, what regional differences am I aware of ? French spoken in France has different accents depending of the region. For exemple you can differenciate a southern French to a Northern French to an Eastern French to a Parisian only by hearing the accent. The French also use a slightly different vocabulary depending of the region, the most relevant difference would be between Northern France (former langue d'Oïl) and Southern France (former langue d'Oc). There are also heavy accents with ancient vocabulary which are ancient dialects still spoken by the elders everywhere across France. If you stop in a village of Burgundy, and talk with an old man, his accent could be very challenging to understand. During World War I, when the mobilisation générale happened and every able men were incorporated into the army, the French population was gathered in the trenches, and the men all had their particular accent and local dialect. It was certainly funny and a little bit difficult to communicate sometimes, but the French population realized during this war how different each region of the country was. The Belgians and the Swiss also have a slight accent compared to Northern French, but it is far from being as heavy as Southern France accent. In Québec, the French speakers kept the accents of the time they settled in America. So when you hear old audio records of people speaking with former accents of Normandie, Bretagne or Charentes, you realize the people could be mistaken with nowadays Québecois ! In the Carribeans, the people elaborated different créoles, and they're sometimes very difficult to understand for a native French. But the speakers of créole dialects can speak French too. Of course with their own accents. All across Africa, the different people have their own accents too. The language is in constant evolution and change with the different influences it meets.

[@streiks7912]

You're right, you just made a mistake about Belgian and Swiss accent compared to Southern French accent. The French spoken in Belgium and in Switzerland has an heavier accent than the one spoken in southern France. And during WW1 some people from certain regions of France like Corsican people who didn't understand continental French were sent in the first assault to die first as human shields...

[@BruneSixtine]

@@streiks7912 "The French spoken in Belgium and in Switzerland has an heavier accent than the one spoken in southern France." Sorry but no. Compared to the accent North of Loire, the Marseille accent is much heavier than the Belgian or Swiss ones. "And during WW1 some people from certain regions of France like Corsican people who didn't understand continental French were sent in the first assault to die first as human shields..." Again this is false. The statement that during ww1 France sent some particular troops first, as human shields, on the western front, is a lie. First, the Corsicans didn't have their own regiments. They were mixed in the regiments with Frenchmen of other regions, so the Corsicans were treated like any other Frenchmen. They just couldn't have been sent first to die in the first place. Or any Frenchman could have been sent first, Corsicans, and the French of any other regions. There was no discrimination on the frontline. The historian Marc Michel completely debunked this lie that France used to use it's african troops or any other troops, as meat shields. This is a lie, he demonstrated it in his thesis named l'Appel à l'Afrique (The call to Africa). I uploaded a video on youtube in 2011 to prove it, so you choosed the wrong person to spread your lies ! Take a look at this : /watch?v=yjdLj9URLoQ

[@gerardvila4685]

Brune Yes, but "Heavy accent" is a bit vague. IMHO the clearest difference between the southern accent and the northern is that in the south, the letters at the end of words are pronounced much more (as they must have been historically, otherwise they wouldn't be written). A Maiseillais will pronounce the last "e" of "Marseille", a Parisian will not. And Nice (the French Riviera) actually belonged to Italy 200 years ago, like Alsace used to be German, Catalogna (Perpignan in France, Barcelona in Spain) was an independent state. So it's not surprising that Niçois sound like Italians, Alsaciens sound like Germans, Catalans sound Spanish (those who aren't Spanish in the first place), and so on. In other words, large European countries (and even some small ones like Belgium) are multi-ethnic and the frontiers between them depend mostly on who won which war in which century (or sometimes who married whom), and their languages and accents reflect this.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

It’s about the same with most languages ;) swedish have very distinctive differenses depending of were in sweden and finland you go... and people that emigrated to for example america a long time ago and have learned their children swedish... yea those children have their swedish based of an older standard that also differs depending from where the one that teached them came from. Until everyone in sweden learned reading in schools and TV and Radio were common there was veryyyy large differences between different parts of the country and even different parts of a region or actually just the neighbour village. These dialects have been dying out during the latest like 100-150 years and now most people just have destinctive accents with some local vocabulary included.

[@pescairedelua5276]

@@johanfagerstromjarlenfors The situation is exactly the same here in france

[@Tursiopstruncatus]

Understanding spoken French is undoubtedly the most challenging thing when you are learning it... I say this as a Spanish native speaker and French learner. How to deal with that? Well, with a lot of patience and practice, haha. BTW, I hate the way the numbers 70, 80 and 90 are mostly said! I prefer the Belgian/Swiss way: "septante, huitante, nonante".

[@LeCombat86]

Je suis Québécois et on dit 70, 80 et 90 comme en France ici. Je préfère aussi la version suisse qui est bien plus logique à mon avis.

[@Tursiopstruncatus]

Interesant. Moi, je pense que le français du Canada est plus facile à comprendre que le français de la France ou de la Belgique. Je ne connais pas l'accent suisse.

[@belgianwaffles99]

Same here. I started learning french in Belgium and refused to use the french-style numbers when I started taking french classes back in American schools. And at least where I lived in Belgium I always heard "octante" instead if "huitante" but I understand it's a regional thing.

[@temmie5558]

Well, "soixante-dix" means 60 10 -> 70 and "quatre-vingt" (80) literally means 4 20 -> 80 so it's still logic (something sweet it's 60 + 10 but 4 x 20)

[@stephm4047]

70, 80, 90 comes from the gaulish influence in French. Because the Gauls used to count to 20 instead of 10. www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/les-pourquoi/pourquoi-dit-on-quatre-vingts-et-non-pas-octante-un-heritage-celtique_1786389.html

[@nataliasl2920]

Wow Paul this was So Helpful! I was often overwhelmed when you did these videos regarding other languages, but since I'm learning French, you have no idea how helpful this has been, it has really simplified and explained a lot of things for me, plus it has renewed my motivation for learning the language. Big Thanks to You! To answer your question, the double negative "ne...pas" was very bemusing for me at the beginning, until I started to learn the other forms like "ne...rien", "ne...jamais", etc... The most difficult part of learning french is definitely the different verb tenses, even being a Spanish native. And although speaking English and Spanish fluently has made learning French quite easily, dealing with false friends in Eng-Fr and Esp-Fr it's not fun... sorta reminds me of real life, they're everywhere.

[@armoricain]

Excellent comment, N Santander. It is true that "No se" in Spanish is simpler than "Je ne sais pas" in French, and French conjugation can be a bear, although the "1st group verbs" which are the "regular" verbs are very easy to conjugate as for instance the verb "parler" (je parle, tu parles, il/elle parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils/elles parlent) and even though "parle", "parles", "parlent" are spelled differently, they are pronounced the same way: "parle"; and even the "2nd group verbs" are not that difficult either, once you know the rule, like the verb "finir" for instance (je finis, tu finis, il/elle finit, nous finissons, vous finissez, ils/elles finissent). See, French is not that hard after all! LOL! As for the "faux amis", well, it's just a question of habit; and you also have words in both languages that are spelled the same way but have completely different meaning like "pain" for instance which in English means "dolor" but "pan" in French (by the way, "pan" which means "bread" in Spanish means "sartén" or "cacerola" in English! Isn't that interesting!?), or another example "main" means "mano" in French but "principal" in English. NB: I just translated both words "pain" and "main" in Spanish because first of all you are Spanish, and also because I just couldn't say "pain" means "pain" in English or "main" means "main" in English, it's as if I were saying: "Pan significa pan en español." I hope I didn't confuse you too much.

[@MrKoemgun]

Well the "ne pas" is mostly used in written form and formal. The common people would in like 90% of the case toss away the "ne" and only use the "pas" "Je vais pas a la plage" is perfectly fine if spoken. Just like "Je mange jamais de tomate"

[@Zebix]

Hello, native French speaker of Belgium here, I've only discovered your channel today (referred by a friend) and I really like it. I am passionate about Linguistics and sad that I only discover you now! About this video : you have it right for everything, and missing quite a lot but of course it's hard to cover a whole language in less than 20 minutes. A few random remarks come to my mind. Note that even if I understand it quite well, I do not master the French from Quebec so these remarks concern European French. - There is a huge difference between written French and oral French. I'm not talking about dialects/patois or even regionalisms (I'll come to this below), but quite everywhere we see a simplification of the language, which is natural in oral languages but worth noting: * For example in the negation, oral French will probably never use the "ne" part. : "Il viendra pas" (He will not come). This is "incorrect" grammatically speaking, but the usage enforces it. * Same thing with the simple past, which is never used orally (unless you want to make fun / look classy) : "Elles partirent yesterday" (They left yesterday) is the correct form but you will NEVER say that, and use the "passé composé" every time: "Elles sont parties hier". * the first person of the plural "nous" (we) is almost never used except by grand-parents maybe. It is replaced orally by "on", which is normally the indefinite 3rd person. "We see them" should correctly be "Nous les voyons". But it will always be "On les voit". It even brings some totally incorrect agreement : "on voit nos amis" ("we see our friends"), the possessive "nos" is limited to the first person of plural "nous", yet it is used here, whereas the correct form should be "on voit ses amis". - Regionalisms are legion. Of course between countries, but also between regions (hello tautology!). There are even a lot of funny pictures about that, check out positivr.fr/langue-francaise-cet-atlas-repertorie-les-expressions-regionales/. * French speaking Belgium (L1) concerns about 5 millions people, and French has arrived quite lately in history for the people (XIXth century). It was an official administrative language, but until then all people, except the elite, spoke either Flemish dialects or Walloon dialects (which is a romance language and closer to French, alright). My grandmother for instance (born in 1923) learned French at school starting 6 y.old, otherwise she spoke a Flemish dialect of Brussels. Which makes French spoken in Belgium quite "universal". OK we have accents and slight difference of vocabulary, but a person from the south east of Belgium (Luxemburg area) will perfectly understand another one near the Flemish/French border without any problem. * As a Belgian, like some other people commented here, I will never (except when in holidays in France :)) say "soixante-dix" (seventy) or "quatre-vingt-dix" (ninety) but rather "septante" or "nonante", which sound more logical imho. But we are still stuck with the "quatre-vingt" (eighty) whereas Swiss French speakers (not all of them!) will use "huitante". There are a few videos available also about this very weird way of counting multiples of 10 past sixty in French, check them out. * In Belgium and especially Brussels, we have a lot of influence from the multiple countries who have ruled our area for centuries, like Spain, Netherlands, etc. You will find a lot of slang words and some weird sentence construction, coming from other languages. For instance, the famous "une fois" about which Frenchmen/women have laughed about us for many years : "Viens une fois!" could roughly be translated by "Would you please come?", where "une fois" is used as a softener for the imperative. This is a literal translation of Flemish "Kom eens", which is used for the same purpose. - Media make it so the French speakers from Belgium and Switzerland won't have any issue understanding every word of a Frenchman/woman, whereas the other way round is not necessary true. We have been groomed with French television / TV shows /dubbed movie (crappy, but no choice back in time..) and we assimilated all the vocabulary. Not a lot of people in France have often heard a person from Lausanne (Switzerland) or Liège (Belgium) which can be funny when they do. Happy 3 years to this video!

[@tututishtosh]

I'm sorry to disagree with you, but the reason the simple past is not used in speaking is because it is only meant for books and written language not for speaking.

[@MCSTNDTCAFAG]

@@tututishtosh I mainly agree with tishtosh, although simple past can sometimes be orally used to put the emphasis on the stilted side of a situation, and for the sol pleasure of earing it. Beside the "tasse de thé cul serré", side of it's usage, it 99,9% of the time used for writing. As for the "ne...pas", I disagree with Zebix too! I use "NE..pas" when I speak. I understand kids and teenagers tend to forget the "NE", but a formal discussion between adults use "ne..pas" even if some times the "ne" is replaced by "n' " for the sake of pronunciation ease. "Non; je n'vais pas au restaurant ce soir."

[@tututishtosh]

@@MCSTNDTCAFAG Also, someone said that the simple past is used in journalism, but I listen to all the news on TV5Monde, as well as read Le Figaro, and the simple past is never used, it is always the passé composé.

[@MCSTNDTCAFAG]

@@tututishtosh Yes tishtosh it's usage is fairly rare even for journalism nowadays. It's more of a "books" thing as it is the perfect tens for story telling since it has kind of a "flash back" effect that brings the reader in the middle of a past action as if he was witness of that past action: "Soudain, le cycliste chuta par terre". It's use in journalism was a lot more common before internet and the modern mean of communication. Typically when journalists where "telling stories" like the black and white WWII news you had in theaters before the movie. Perfect tens for Grim tales if you want your kids to shiver as they are right in front of the witch while listening to the tale but still will sleep tight at the end of the story coming back to the present! ;-)

[@Earbly]

Thanks for all the work you put into these videos. I learned French in elementary due to living in Canada, and picked it back up in the past few years. Thanks for the history and have a good one!

[@otaku2310]

I am from Switzerland and my mother tongue is french and i saw absolutely no differences between the french you presented and the one i use. Mais à part les québécois et leur accent qui peut parfois être un peu difficile à suivre quand ils parlent vite , j’ai jamais eu de problème pour suivre une discussion avec un autre francophone d’un autre pays :-) super video

[@leneanderthalien]

Oui, entre le français de France et le français Valaisan il n'y a que des différences très minimes, (ex: "soixante-dix" vs "septante") et en tant que français, je trouve objectivement que certaines expressions "non françaises" sont plus logiques ou plus "françaises" que celles de la métropole...

[@chironlionel6770]

Exact... ce sont surtout les québecois qui sont un peu dur à suivre parfois....

[@alaquebecoise658]

C'est dû au fait que nous avons conservé beaucoup de mots de l'ancien français -- mots que vous n'utilisez plus ou presque pas, ou encore dans un sens différent (ex.: ragoûtant) -- ainsi qu'une prononciation «royale» : par exemple, «Le Rouè, c'est mouè» Pour se protéger, notre langue s'est développée en vase clos... Le français parlé au Québec : petite histoire d'un discrédit : 27 minutes kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6OteKGZmNR4fZY&frags=pl%2Cwn

[@callumburgess04]

N’oubliez pas « tabarnak » et « câlice »

[@benjamintremblay760]

Je suis québécois !

[@frankwu7790]

I’m french and I’m really impressed with your video! 100% correct.

[@DomiPordeus]

My native language is Brazilian Portuguese and the most difficult aspect of the French language for me is the huge difference between pronunciation compared to the writing forms

[@c.moriarty1178]

As an anglophone second-language speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, I've found pronunciation to be one of the hardest challenges for me. It's logical and makes sense, but Brazilians just don't understand me sometimes haha. I love Portuguese, though, and view French as its infinitely more difficult cousin, pronunciation-wise

[@SandlotRider]

It the same for the French kids when they learn to write. They've got to dissociate the language they speak and the language they write. It's a mess thanks to the Académie Française who keeps stifling any sort of progress. They're a real pain in the ass, these old farts 😅

[@kirthgersen3968]

In fact pronouciation in French is all about knowing the rules. Once knowing the rules, there is no room for interpretation how to pronounce any word you don't even know the meaning. As a French, I find it much more difficult to get the right prononciation in English, as there are no such rules, as far as I know.

[@WhitesAreGone]

@@kirthgersen3968 the same applies for Polish. I believe Polish has this negative stereotype of being very toough language though compared to French it's pretty on the same level

[@kirthgersen3968]

@@WhitesAreGone to my experience Polish gets all these declensions (like German or Latin) that complexifies a lot it’s grammar, doesn’t it?

[@carlgurfield]

Super vidéo, je parle couramment Français et pourtant je l'ai regardé jusqu'au bout, c'est vraiment très intéressant ! Continue comme ça :)

[@marco_evertus]

As someone who's learning french I found this video very very interesting.

[@hide904]

Moi aussi. :D

[@allthe1]

What method / app are you using to learn french? Just curious

[@marco_evertus]

iTalkie

[@marco_evertus]

well it is what it is.

[@Odinsday]

Do you know an app that is useful for learning french?

[@Genevieve003]

Just a little mistake : ''license'' in french is ''licence'' :) I really love this video! Étant historienne et amoureuse de la langue française, merci! D'une québécoise!

[@Langfocus]

Yes, you're right!

[@roodlyemmanuel4320]

Geneviève Deschênes lisans=licence =license in my language

[@technicalboy-zb4lu]

Enchanté

[@technicalboy-zb4lu]

I livre un Paris . i Aldo Barth ùn paris

[@technicalboy-zb4lu]

I livre un Paris . i Aldo Barth ùn paris

[@KamiKazeKat]

[English] Allright.. I'm a French Native.. Your video was verry complete and correct, you also learned me some things about my own country's history. Realy appreciate it! And every part of our language been respected and explained. I might not be wrong to say: "Passé composé" and gender side of French is the most difficult to learn when you are a foreign.. I should say aswell that learn english from France is most easier than reverse... SO, i send you a lot of support for learn this wonderfull Molière language! :) For anwser back to your Vidéo question: There is a lot of "Dialecte" stay used in our differents countries (some words ofc). But Yes, your video been right, we all got French as general language. That means we can easely understand what anyone else saying. Depends where you comes from.. but there is like 3 death languages in France: Occitan (in my district) Latin basics, and Breton (this one is currently used on Bretagne. even if they speak french before all) after all, i want to say... French and Quebec doesn't have the same accent or same words origins they're usually using... so there is sometimes misunderstood in proverbs generally. For those guys who wanna train French :) [Français] Alors, Je suis un Français natif... Ta vidéo était vraiment complète et correcte, tu m'as par ailleurs appris quelques petites trucs à propos de l'histoire de mon propre pays. J'ai vraiment apprécié ça! Et chaque partie de notre langue à été respecté et expliqué. Je ne devrais pas me tromper en disant (que): "Passé composé" et les parties du genre en Français sont les choses les plus difficiles à apprendre lorsque tu es un étrangé.. Je devrais dire aussi que apprendre l'anglais depuis la France est bien plus facile que l'inverse ... Donc je vous envoie plein de soutient pour apprendre cette magnifique langue de Molière! :) pour répondre à la question de ta vidéo: Il y a un tas de dialecte toujours usé dans d'autres pays (quelques mots bien-sûr). Mais oui, ta vidéo avais raison, nous avons tous le Français comme langue générale. Ça signifie que nous pouvons facilement comprendre ce que tous autre dit. ça dépend d'où tu viens... Mais il y a 3 langues mortes en France: Occitan (dans ma région) Les bases de Latins, et le Breton (Langue actuellement utilisé en Bretagne. même si ils parlent français avant tout) Après tout, je veux dire que... Français et Québécois n'ont pas les mêmes accent, ou les mêmes origines dans les mots qu'ils utilisent... Donc il y a parfois des incompréhension. Surtout dans les dictions généralement! I wanna thank you guys to took times to read my point of view and this looong paragraph written in English and French aswell at 3 AM 50 lmao Je veux vous remercier les gars, pour le temps que vous avez pris pour lire mon point de vu dans ce loooong paragraph écrit en Englais et en Français aussi à 3 h 50 (du matin) KISS

[@marinsoletti6586]

In France, there is a constant war going on between people saying " _un pain au chocolat_ " and those saying " _une chocolatine_ ". They both mean "a chocolate croissant" but people in the south of France tend to say " _chocolatine_ " whereas in the north " _pain au chocolat_ " is more commonly used. That's right. As French people we argue on different ways of saying pastries names. How cliché.

[@Langfocus]

Lol

[@brigtzev3922]

We say chocolatine in Quebec

[@jaimelechoco9519]

Par contre chocolatine c'est que le sud ouest, je suis de Montpellier et tout le monde dit pain au chocolat.

[@affanruslandi2070]

Dalia Can I join to the group? I would also like to practice my french :)

[@michaelcigana5897]

Pain au chocolat- Canada

[@Rudolphhhhhh]

Excellent video, well explained. Just one mistake : the verb "assister" is not completely a "false friend". This word can mean "to assist" if it is used without the preposition "à" ("à" basically means "to"). For example, we can say "assister une population", which means "to assist a population". But when we say "assister à une réunion", it means "to attend a meeting". But the use of the verb "assister" is quite subtle : in some cases, we use for example "aider" (meaning "to help") instead of "assister", and vice-versa. And the word "assistant" has the same meaning both in French and English. In some other cases, many words that we consider as "false friends" are not completely "false friends", because sometimes it refers to an ancient meaning of the word in the past, or sometimes there is still an expression that uses the same "false friend" word with the same meaning as in English. For example, in many cases, the word "mercy" in English does not mean "merci" in French (same for "no mercy" which definitely does not mean "non merci" ("no thanks"), but "pas de pitié" in French XD), but we have the French expressions "sans merci" meaning "without mercy" in English, or "à la merci de quelqu'un" which means "at the mercy of someone". About your question, we have some differences between France and Belgium/Switzerland. For example, the numbers "70", "80" and "90" have different readings : - in France : "soixante-dix" (basically "sixty ten"), "quatre-vingt" (basically "four twenty") and "quatre-vingt-dix" (basically "four twenty ten"). - in Belgium : "septante", "octante", "nonante". So, in France, we say "cent quatre-vingt" (180), but in Belgium they say "cent octante". As a native from France, I think the reading of the numbers is more logical in Belgium than in France. About Québec, we have different words and expressions. In Québec, some expression are close to English. For example, in France, we say "lunettes" instead of "glasses", but in Québec they say "verres" (the word "verre" really means "glas" in French, in singular). I spent three days in Montréal, but I did not have any issues to understand people there. When I watch a movie from Québec (for example "Starbuck" or Denys Arcand's movies), I need to get used to their accent, but it is OK, I can understand them). And when I meet people from Québec in France or in another countries as tourists, I can understand them without problems. Of course, we have different accents and expressions between regions in France (north, Alsace in east near Germany, in South, Paris, Bretagne in west) and between countries (France, north Africa, Switzerland, Belgium, Québec, Antilles), but this is not a problem to understand each other.

[@hori166]

80 is "quatre-vingts" but after that, there is no "s" but additionally, 81 is "quatre-vingt-un" with no "et."

[@abelladored9830]

But these days you should better not use "to assist" for "assister à". The french actor Gérard Depardieu was once in the U.S for an interview and said in french that when he was a teenager, "he witnessed a rape". (assister à un viol) but they translated it as "he assisted a rape". He received a lot of hate for that mistake

[@Coccinelf]

Just wanted to say that although we do say "verres" sometimes, "lunettes" is vaslty more used in Québec.

[@Rudolphhhhhh]

@@Coccinelf Ok. I said that, because I was in Québec two years ago and I met people who said "Je cherche mes verres" instead of "Je cherche mes lunettes". ^^

[@TheEstampe]

In Belgium, we say septante (70), quatre-vingt (80), nonante (90). Octante (80) is Swiss originally but it is no longer used; depending on the canton, you will hear huitante or quatre-vingt.

[@Miromesnil72]

Being a Spanish native speaker, I found French grammar pretty straight forward and easy, including verb conjugations. The challenge for me about French is that it is difficult to understand when someone is speaking. It is not like Spanish or Italian that you can write down what you hear without not necessarily understanding the meaning.

[@k_meleon]

The problem is that most French speakers(particularly in certain regions) don't pronounce the words completely. For example, we say "ché pas" instead of "je ne sais pas"

[@rosebloem4620]

Angel Alvarez watch French videos with Spanish subtitles on KZbin you'll be more familiar with the French pronunciation and you'll learn a lot of vocabulary and you'll also learn how to speak current French I mean French that teenagers and young adults speak. This will give you the chance to speak two French the current one so the one used by the young people and the one used by adults so the formel language. This is how I did to learn how to speak English and this helped me a lot to improve my English.

[@rosebloem4620]

Angel Alvarez I can recommend you some youtubers like silent gill (belgian girl) squeezie (French men from Paris) or joueur du grenier his first videos (a French men from the south of France) and for the different forms of French in france I can recommend you to listen to French rap and to French old songs from the twentieth century

[@rosebloem4620]

Angel Alvarez don’t care about the topic of the videos it’s just to have a French lesson

[@fzkxl9931]

@@k_meleon par exemple... P'emple

[@sonnyse7en]

Once again, well precise and very well explained. As a French native I can only approve of the accuracy of your work. Nice job

[@Zoa97]

In the Syrian arabic dialect we use many French words I learnt it some years ago but I really want to master it in the near future :) Merci pour la vidéo!

[@reynandr.w.279]

Having lived in many countries, I had to learn many languages. I studied German, French, Spanish, and English ( With Indonesian being my mother language ). Learning French is like learning how to cook, it's hard at first but when you finally understand it , you're gonna feel like a master. The journey itself will be confusing and weird sometimes but little bit little, you will realize the beauty of the French language. Don't be afraid to learn this language ! Trust me, you're gonna discover a whole new world of culture and language ( I'm only 14 :v ) Le Français est une langue magnifique, même si des fois ça peut être énervant. J'ai appris le Français Suisse ( Genevois ) et j'ai trouvé qu'il y a quelque différences entre le Français Suisse et le Français de France. Qu'est ce qu'il y a comme différences vous me demandez ? On dit "septante" au lieu de "soixante-dix", c'est la même chose pour "quatre-vingt-dix", on dit "nonante" ici :) Un grand salut de ma part pour les Francophones ici !

[@listening1951]

Tu parles très bien !

[@DavidChanrion]

nabil winarso quatre langues : quelle chance 😘

[@reynandr.w.279]

Riche-Art .Vague-Nerf Hahaha, merci ! Ça fait très longtemps que j'ai parlé à quelqu'un en Français XD

[@reynandr.w.279]

Riche-Art .Vague-Nerf J'ai pas vraiment de langue préférée. Elles sont tous très uniques et belles. Mais la langue la plus belle pour moi ce serait le Français XD

[@reynandr.w.279]

Riche-Art .Vague-Nerf MDR, la plupart de mes amis en Suisse détestaient aussi le Français, même si c'est leur langue maternelle. J'suis content de pas être le seul a vivre ça XD

[@MIKIEC71]

My wife is French and I struggle with the 'etre'/'avoir' past tense - I instinctively use 'avoir' even though there are occasions when this is incorrect. I also can't get to to grips with the future tenses so I default to 'aller', eg 'je vais', 'il va', etc., which might not be correct, but is understood. I find most French people will accept these mistakes as at least I'm trying, much like English people will forgive mistakes, as long as it's understandable. Non-native speakers making the effort is welcome in most countries. :)

[@DanielJohnNicholson]

MIKIEC71 the respective “aller” forms are quite acceptable, I think, because my school encourages it for casual contexts, but does say that it is preferable to use the proper future. Comme tu as dit, s’ils comprennent, c’est bien. (Pardon any dodgy French there, I’m still doing my GCSE!)

[@kaalbrak]

The main thing to do is to accept the mistakes when a non-native speaker makes one and to accept corrections when you did one. That is the better way to improve. :)

[@celdhhhggg]

Movement verbs for the whole body or soul (emotions or transformations of your being) use the auxiliary "être", the rest use "avoir". There is another way to look at it I believe: these verbs cannot logically take the passive form, whereas active verbs turned to passive are built just like the "passé composé" with "être"... Hope this helps! The logic and use of "passé composé" are exactly the same as in the German "Perfekt", so you can learn both at once :-).

[@athenamnerva6939]

french is more easy than english to future (english you have 2 tense and difference betaween them is not clear and you have void between them) nous allons manger (future aller) = nous mangerons (future simple) => you can always use future aller in place of future simple and vice versa the difference between them very simple , the difference is not tense/time difference but personnal perception (like is your personnal perception ,it is always true) for exemple : nous allons manger dans une heure = we will eat in one hour / i am going to eat in one hour ===> for you one hour is short time nous mangerons dans une heure = we will eat in one hour / i am going to eat in one hour ===> for you one hour is long time nous allons combattre dans 1000 ans = we will fight in 1000 years / we are going to fight in 1000 years ===> 1000 years is short time for you nous combatterons dans 1000 ans = " " ===> long time for you

[@redmondmacdonagh7557]

@@kaalbrak and to accept corrections when you MAKE one ;-), i.e. when you make a mistake.

[@Norev747]

I’m French and I learned so much about my own language. Thank you for this video it was great !

[@אלון-ת2ל]

les vidéos de ce mec sont incroyables

[@konigstephan]

Le visionnement de cette vidéo fera certainement prendre conscience à de nombreux francophones de naissance à quel point leur langue est... difficile, sinon capricieuse. Great job Paul for this video on the French language (finally)!

[@nominal6]

En se considérant chanceux de ne pas avoir à l'apprendre ! :) Lorsque je vois un étranger bien parler français : respect.

[@castillofring7936]

Je ne suis pas francophones de naissance pourtant j'ai n ai pas eu de grande difficultés à apprendre le Français.

[@shirou9790]

L'orthographe française est effectivement très difficile à maîtriser, même pour les locuteurs natifs...

[@trorisk]

@@nominal6 On les a apprises en primaire ^^ Et j'en ai chié.

[@marcmoulin7342]

@@shirou9790 mais alors que dire de l'orthographe de la langue anglaise?

[@marsoulan]

C'est brillant, remarquable ! The first part (history of the language) is exceptionally interesting. Every native French speaker should see this video once in his / her life.

[@AspiditesRamsayi]

Je suis d'accord avec toi la partie historique était très intéressante.

[@andrewdeakin7078]

Thanks, a very helpful summary of introductory French. You ask about difficulties. For me, as an Australian native English speaker, French pronounciation is very difficult. I have taken a few introductory French courses, all led by native French speakers, each of whom was visibly pained by my accent.

[@lucille6290]

Andrew Deakin Keep going, the accent part isn't that important! We always appreciate when people (especially English speakers) make an effort, and try and say a few words :) Bon courage, it's worth it!

[@95Bartlett]

As someone who has been learning French for around 8 months, I find that I still struggle the most with comprehending spoken French. I definitely need to supplement audio into my learning more often.

[@pitshard6079]

For the differences between France and Belgium/Switzerland: In France for numbers 70, 80 and 90 it's "soixante-dix", "quatre-vingt" and "quatre-vingt-dix" while in Belgium/Switzerland it's "septante", "octante"(Switzerland only) and "nonante". Also, Quebec has many different words. Example : -"Car": France=voiture / Québec=char -"Morning": France=Matin / Quebec=Avant-Midi -"Breakfast+lunch+dinner": France=petit-déjeuner+déjeuner+dinner / Quebec=Déjeuner+dinner+Souper -... And many others...

[@joaquinclavijo7052]

Omg, I've been learning french by myself since last december, and I have been waiting for this video since then! Merci beaucoup!

[@tiagoloprete]

I (Brazilian) realised that there are many common stuff only between Portuguese and French grammar. Similarities between French and Portuguese that don't happen in other romance languages (using spanish and italian as examle): - In Portuguese, we use Ç almost exactly how they use it in French. - Both languages have nasal vowels, and in both languages the nasal vowels are before the N (in Portuguese we have nasal vowels before the M too) - Our S between vowels is pronounced as a Z and our SS as an S, just like in French - All of the accents of French exist in Portuguese as well (except the "tréma", which existed in Portuguese but was abolished in the "2009's Orthographic agreement")

[@pnjijy]

wow, I never knew that, it's kinda crazy because the only kind of link between France and Portugal is that they were celts a super long time ago ! Nice comment ! btw I'm french

[@marcmoulin7342]

It seems as if you were of Geman descent...

[@xenotypos]

@@pnjijy The first possibility is indeed that it'd be an ancient celtic link, the second possibility that it'd be something that totally happened by chance. But I was thinking of a third possibility: I heard that the short invasion during Napoleonic times had a long lasting impact on Portugal, in terms of soft power. So I wonder if it could have also influenced some rules in the grammar a bit. But maybe it's a little bit of those three reasons ahah.

[@pnjijy]

@@xenotypos oh yes, nice ! I didn't think of that

[@pnjijy]

@@marcmoulin7342 "a super long time ago"

[@walabter1887]

C'est amusant de voir sa langue maternelle expliquée par un étranger! Super vidéo! (il y a même des trucs que je savais pas...)

[@JadKanounji]

je ne* savais pas :P

[@walabter1887]

@@JadKanounjioui certes.. mais vous pinaillez camarade xD

[@fr8606]

@@JadKanounji *que chavais pas x)

[@trungnguyenhuu7157]

Hey, growth up and speak English. 😅

[@walabter1887]

@@trungnguyenhuu7157 its fun to see someone else explaining your native language!

[@valerielaurence]

I've noticed that in Québec, we tend to transform the English langage to fit our own. EX: to Focus / Focusser, Fucké (which means «weirdo» or «fucked up»), To deal/ Dealer, To check/ Checker («Eh check that out!» «Eh, check ça!») Sometimes, we simply translate it word-by-word to form new expressions only use by us (that I know of). Ex: Take a walk/ prendre une marche. Give me a break/ Donnes-moi un break, It makes sense/ Ça fait du sens, You're not game to .../ T'es pas game de... We also used english words to form new expressions or to express something with no equivalent in our langage. «C'est fancy» (pronounced «fancé») «C'est ma toune!» (which means «it's my jam» Toune= tune), «Je suis in» or «Je suis down» (I'm in / I'm down), C'est un player (He's a Don Juan)/ C'est un gamer (videogames) So we could easily say : Eh, donnes-moi un break et arrête de faire ta fancy, il faut juste que tu te focusses et que t'apprennes à dealer avec ça.C'est pas de ma faute si c'est un fucké. (Give me a break and stop being so fancy. You just need to focus and to learn how to deal with it. It ain't my fault if he's such a weirdo) I guess it's because we are literally surrounded by the English langage. I love it about ourselves, how we don't conform and just transform it to fit our own langage and to create something unique :)

[@armoricain]

Sorry, Valérie Laurence, as a "purist", reading your comment "pains" me (nothing personal, mind you)! Aïe yaïe yaïe, le français va down le drain very vite! But maybe I shouldn't criticize so fast because as a native Breton, I would use Breton words instead of the equivalent French words when I was still living in Brittany...oh, well! But I still cringe at the use of "airbag" instead of "coussin gonflable" or "low-cost" instead of "à bas prix", although I don't mind using "Email" instead of "courriel", and of course I've always said "Bon weekend!" and always will, or "parking"...

[@LeCombat86]

I'm from Quebec too and I used to speak like that. Then I spent a year in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Now I'm proud to parler français proprement. Les anglicismes enlaidissent notre belle langue.

[@jeremieherard2166]

Surtout, gardez votre accent, il est trop adorable :)

[@slimboyfat9409]

LeCombat86 I always find it laughable when French speakers decry the limited number of English words entering French in modern times given the vast amount of French that entered English 700 to 1,000 years ago and again a lot of modern French words in the last 2/300 years such as terms used in cookery,ballet,politics etc. 250 years ago when French was the prestige language and language of diplomacy across much of Europe ,French speakers were happy enough to let their words drift in the opposite direction.

[@slimboyfat9409]

Oh and I do understand,a little ,from afar ,some of the vitriol that has existed between speakers of French and English in Canada.

[@GabriElDorado]

Les Français comprennent bien les francophones dans l'ensemble ( sauf les québécois mdr ), seuls les accents et les expressions peuvent altérer notre compréhension. Ceci dit, en France, presque chaque région à son propre accent. Moi par exemple j'habite dans le Nord j'ai fatalement l'accent Ch'ti. Vidéo extraordinairement complète! Bravo!

[@nehylen5738]

Not always guaranteed! As a French native speaker myself, I fondly remember the day when I got fiber optics installed 11 years ago, which came with provisional free rights to some specific TV channels: congolese telenovelas, in French, were fairly clear to my best friend's ear (part of his family being from there), and mostly cryptic to mine. I understood about half of it, only. Oh! And watching this video I migh've had an epiphany over our French double negation («ne pas»), which is different both from Germanic & Romance languages. Learning German these days, it just dawned on me that «je ne le pense pas» ([yo] no lo pienso (sp)/ Ich denke es nicht (de)/ I do not think so (en) ), feels like adding "nicht". As if it were some: " [yo] no lo pienso [nicht]" in germanized spanish. I wonder whether I'm onto something there? I somewhat disagree with the equivalence made with the sentence in the video over "she went for a walk to the park yesterday". While «elle s'est promenée au parc hier» is correct, a more litteral translation would be «elle est allée se promener au parc hier», which is structurally much closer to the English sentence, and just as natural-sounding to the French ear as the other sentence. A tidbit on so-called "French" AZERTY keyboards: as it stands neither version of AZERTY keyboards allows for proper French typing, and the worst version of them all is, of course, the language's mother country's (FR-fr).As a result, most French people believe that cedilla-ed/accented/coalesced characters should be put into caps without said cedillas/accents, and they're 100% wrong (=> Ç,É, È, Æ, Œ). It's not even possible to type standard coalesced characters (æ & œ), or French quotes («») by default. We have a bloody Académie Française to define some Frenchmost words barely seeing any use, yet no means to express ourselves properly in our common endeavours due to this. Those characters I'm able to type thanks to a custom Windows keyboard driver (with some alt+XXX knowledge, were that to fail me). Finally, I'd much prefer, as a Frenchman with very standard Parisian French as my main means of expression, if we adopted some superior (imho) words from our fellow quebeckers/swiss/belgian/southern French: «courriel», «chocolatine», «huitante» sound either prettier, or much more natural than «mél/mail [official Académie spelling/colloquial]», «pain au chocolat», «quatre-vingt». If I used those in my current life, I'd be perceived as quite the weirdo, or get mocked outright!

[@trorisk]

Il faut dire que la grammaire québécoise s'est rapprochée de la grammaire anglaise. Alors que la grammaire du français d'Afrique et spécifiquement d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Sénégal, Bénin, Burkina Faso, etc) est elle très pure, si tu écoutes un journaliste béninois il fait beaucoup moins de faute de grammaire qu'un journaliste parisien.

[@mr51406]

Pas tout à fait. La *grammaire* québécoise est identique. C’est la *prononciation* de certaines voyelles qui diffère et ça a un gros impact. Les consonnes sont prononcées pareil, sauf ti/tu, di/du prononcés ts- et de-. Ce que ne font pas les Acadiens. Évidemment il y a des mots spécifiques à chaque pays, comme la géographie et le gouvernement. Pour ce qui est de la « pureté » il est toujours drôle de voir les Français et les Canadiens s’accuser chacun d’être plein d’anglicismes. On en fait autant, mais:1) c’est jamais les mêmes - sauf job, mais job est féminin au Québec et masculin en France! Au Québec on va parquer dans le stationnement. En France on va stationner dans le parking. 2) les Français font des anglicismes pour avoir l’air branché, les Québécois font des anglicismes pour ne pas avoir l’air snob. Ne faites jamais d’anglicismes dans le milieu culturel ici, vous aurez l’air complètement prétentieux; faites toujours des anglicismes chez le garagiste, sinon il va penser doubler votre facture. 😁⭐️☮️❤️🇨🇦⚜️🇫🇷

[@trorisk]

​@@mr51406 Se sont peut être plus des tournures de phrases que la grammaire à proprement parler, même si ça transforme la grammaire aussi. Je reprends les exemples donnés par langfocus. "Avoir du fun" (to have fun) pour "s'amuser", "ça fait du sens"(it's make sense) pour "ça a du sens". Et d'autres qui me viennent en tête: Avec l'utilisation de "bon matin"(good morning) plutot que "bonjour", "être dans le trouble" (get in trouble) "avoir des difficultés", "bienvenu"(your welcome) etc.

[@francoisbasquin6974]

Professr Frank Et en plus, ça évolue forcément, car il y a beaucoup de Français au Québec, qui apportent des tournures de phrases, et prennent le vocabulaire. Et je suis bien placé pour en parler... :) J’entends de plus en plus utiliser l’expression “c’est l’fun” en France.

[@chassless]

i'm lebanese and french is my mother tongue. i was born in montreal but moved to lebanon very early in my childhood. i have learned french as a first language through all of my school years. compared to parisian or french from france, the lebanese variety of french is influenced by arabic in some ways, mainly the accent and the exaggerated musical tonality of sentences, the sentence structure is sometimes affected and the lebanese have a tendency of using some arabicisms. for example, a french person would say "monte" whereas a lebanese person would say "monte en haut" which is grammatically redundant in french, but not in arabic. lebanese arabic features a more 'academic' set of vocabulary which is sometimes considered old school by native french people (because of the limited exposure of the lebanese to the ever changing parisian slang).

[@symij]

Même en France on fait souvent des pléonasmes comme monter en haut mais c'est vrai que certains s'offusque à cela.

[@LazierSophie]

Votre commentaire sur le français du Liban est très intéressant. Merci beaucoup. Your comment regarding French spoken in Lebanon is very interesting.

[@chassless]

Lazier mon plaisir!

[@adjetyann2095]

@@symij En effet. Chez nous, parfois d'autres disent . (je suis de Côte d'Ivoire 🇨🇮

[@Joecool292]

@Langfocus: As a native french speaker from Quebec: Most differences is about pronunciation, vocabulary and slang. We don't have the same swears here than in France (most of our swears are derived from Catholic furniture like a chalice (Câlisse) or a tabernacle (Tabarnak). For the vocabulary, we use way less anglicism that France does: we'll refer to "le stationnement", pas "le parking". But the most distinctive difference is the pronunciation and the accent: since we were isolated from France early in our history, in the aftermath of the 7 years war (capitulation de Québec en 1759), our pronunciation today is closer to the one from the 18th century than the one in France. We have a more relaxed jaw when we pronounce vowels, for example. That's pretty much it.

[@simonestreeter1518]

You do diphthongs in vowels too, don't you? And now, this video explains the reason, maybe. Fascinant.

[@Coccinelf]

@@simonestreeter1518 Not at all. "Eau" is still "O".

[@Alisson-tl3ci]

*I'm brazilian and i speak and like the french languege* i speak little french *et pour tous les françaises ou gens qui parlent le français, je vous aime tous*

[@ertac7459]

Thanks hahaha your’r welcome in the France ;)

[@sake171]

*Vous aime tous

[@ertac7459]

Whisperr ha il n’est pas français, ses fautes sont pardonnables ;)

[@sake171]

@@ertac7459 oui bien sur, j'essaye juste de l'aider

[@monsieurpythagore1223]

Merci et pas que français belge .... et je vous aime tous

[@haunterpotts]

The whole liaison feature is pretty dope and keeps you thinking when you're speaking

[@Tiqerboy]

That was one thing missing from his video. How silent letters get pronounced ils vont (you don't pronounce the 's') ils ont (there you do pronounce the 's' and it almost becomes one word in speech) In both those cases the latter 't' is silent, but it gets pronounced if the next word start with a vowel: Ils vont å la ferme. Ils ont une vache

[@hassenvenero5126]

I'm Peruvian and I'm currently studying French and I must admit that before studying it I wasn't really interested in the language but now I love it and the fact that I have to put effort in learning all the gramatical rules is actually really pleasant. Alors, merci pour cette vidéo ! (I hope that last sentence was correct hahaha)

[@ZelRaat]

It's actually "Alors, merci pour cette vidéo!" ^^

[@gjergjkastrioti6308]

presque correcte, (on dit cette* vidéo, parce que vidéo est féminin et "ce" s'accorde avec "vidéo") ;)

[@hassenvenero5126]

GaelleMat Merci beaucoup pour l'information!! J'ai pensé que vidéo a été un mot masculin

[@PotatoToon]

vidéo is a feminine word that means you will add ''te'' at the end , if a word is feminine you have to make sure everything related to that word is feminine as mentionned in an example in the video at 12:55''

[@hassenvenero5126]

Gjergj Kastrioti c'est vrai (hahaha in french. I don't know how to say that in French because "h" is mute I think) Je suis un idiot!

[@eugenerozhkov2646]

Content is pure gold! I just started to learn French. I can't write in French or speak, but I understand everything you've said! Vid is like a review, or forecast of what logic I have to understand in order to improve my French.

[@dianasofia5075]

Writing in French is challenging indeed. I still have trouble with it, but as I have noticed, so do French themselves.

[@rafeo4461]

Yes, especially since the beginning of the SMS era. It was really quicker and cheaper to write phonetically.

[@david05GD]

Yes we do, I used to say that even french can't master this language

[@jamesbatras8886]

@@rafeo4461'SMS era'?

[@rafeo4461]

@@jamesbatras8886 "text messaging age".

[@bretttapoyo7681]

Yes indeed😂

[@spaceseer_]

A language that doesn't need an introduction. *introduces it*

[@maxiet-ix5pd]

Zulfeqar Noori ??

[@NoFakeDextrodex]

Fuck da police

[@Maxhbt]

Prétérition

[@Chris-wj4ze]

OMG massive ownage

[@silviopereira7258]

I'm a brazillian and i'm lerning french since this year and i notice how is similar with english and also portuguese , the pronunce it's really fun to learn.

[@xenotypos]

The similarity with English is mainly due to the Norman invasion in England, even if the prestige of the french language in the 17th/18th/19th centuries influenced it a lot too. Regarding Portugues, I guess it's because of the language family.

[@jacobunderwood4160]

Silvio Pereira c très bien

[@scootabean]

Back to this video. 3:20 is extremely helpful because I've always wondered why french was so different (there are some similarities, cognates) than the other romance languages. That explains it all. I love your videos so much.

[@itsguidry8125]

one of the most challenging things about french for me was probably the object pronouns, and i dealt with that problem by trying to create as many sentences as i could that use object pronouns over and over every day. it's now my favorite feature of the language.

[@benjaminmelese3545]

J'apprends le Francais, et je pense que c'est difficile à suivre les francophones quand ils parlent. Ils parlent trop vite!

[@Raisonnance.]

Hahah nous pensons pareil quand nous apprenons l'Espagnol ou l'anglais mais tu verras, avec de l'entraînement tu y arriveras !

[@buenasera4296]

Petit conseil : prépare toi quand tu entendras les différents accents de chaque région ( atlas.limsi.fr/ )

[@flunker8902]

One of the hardest things when you have a conversation with a french speaker is the total absence of word stress, which makes the differenciation of phonemes so hard. The only solution is to be brave enough to ask interlocutor to repeat slowly, as many times as you need to get all the words of the sentence

[@starink3879]

@@Raisonnance. D'ailleurs, fais gaffe avec 'y' qui est encore une particularité régionale

[@Wazkaty]

@@flunker8902 Ahaha we have the same problem sometimes, even if we're french 😂 about one word, or a - new- specific expression

[@tonydelariva7163]

Simply put, French is just a very cool-sounding language. I listen to pop-music in French and sounds so great, I've even bought music by some French artists even though I don't understand anything but the title and the few words I can either pick out and Google Translate, or just look up the lyrics in English. Some languages just sound beautiful and French is one of them.

[@Agoateeman]

Agreed, I have a lot of pop French music from different road trips in France many years go. Some of it is very good. Too bad it doesn't make it's way over to the US!

[@turtle19_]

any artist recommendations?

[@tonydelariva7163]

@Turtle 19 Yeah one pop artist I discovered and just became a real fan of-her name is K-Reen. I speak Spanish and can pick out a few words here and there...but only a few.

[@Agoateeman]

@@turtle19_ Yes, now mind you they go back to the late 1980s. But, here you are: Jeanne Mas, Niagara, Les Rits Mitsoukos, Jackie Quartz, Indochine, Coryne Charby, Caroline Loeb, Raft, France Gal, Muriel Dacq, L'Affaire Louis Trio, Desireless, Mylene Farmer (Canadian actually), Francoise Feldman, Patricia Kaas, and my all time favorite Jil Caplan! Sorry, that I don't have anything more contemporary as I have not been back there very often.

[@turtle19_]

@@tonydelariva7163 Thanks

[@jackperson3626]

Thanks!

[@markbenedekalmasi8059]

I have learned French for 7 years in total. What was particularly interesting is that, as opposed to English, German, Dutch and Danish, French was quite easy to make progress and have that feeling of success in the beginning. Then later it just skyrocketed with those infamous tenses and it felt like climbing a hill that just keeps getting steeper. Amazing language and culture though, I’m happy I did it and can still remember most of it, even though I haven’t used French for a long time.

[@ChachouLP]

As a French I'm happy you did it 💪 Greetings from Paris :)

[@alegoncalves472]

I love that all the hard things of French are practically equally in my mother language, Spanish, so it's really familiar to me.

[@gaetanchenu5292]

Alright, so for the question as native French speaker that likes languages. *Differences between French dialects* There are few differences to be honnest. Between all French speaking dialects, we don't have differences. However we have words from our proper French regions (Belgian, Swiss, French, Québec, etc.) Therefore we use the same language with the same words, but we add some words that are from our region rarely, which is why it doesnt have much dialects. Some rare words can change, but they are extremely rare. The most current one is when there are the numbers 70 to 99. Everywhere except for Belgium and Switzerland (sometimes) use septante (70), octante (80) and nonante (90). When everywhere else, it's soixante-dix (70), quatre-vingts (80) and quatre-vingt-dix (90). Otherwise, the most difficult people to understand for French speakers are the the Québec people since they prononce some words as we were prononcing them before the French revolution. This is caused by the separation France and Québec had during British rule which Québec people kept the old way. *Most challenging thing in the language* French is an extremely difficult language once you begin to learn more than simple vocabulary. 1. For learners, pronouns are difficult because our pronouns system has some particularities such as the fact we have _unified thought_ , _detached thought_ or _unthought_ pronouns or else. Some pronouns can be like articles, so you have to keep an eye on that, etc. It's complex because it's hard but also pretty kind of different. For learners, plural can be challenging but also all the writting in French is hard since it's a language where what you say is not what you write at all! 2. The past participle. How to put the good gender and number is hard, mainly with the composed verb tenses ones. 3. Writting numbers. That is pretty complex too because you have to know where to put the _trait-d'union_ and when and which can be a number taking the plural. It's hard. 4. The plural of composed words is pretty hard too. 5. Some words' variations like how to write well the word _tout_ and its variations. Same for the word _même_ and its variations. 6. When does a word beginning by an "h" is like a vowel or a hard "h". Not forgetting it's always muted. Though it's an important notion for what we call in French the _élision_ of a word. (An example of élision is "de" to "d' ", "le/la" to "l' ", "se" to "s' ", etc. I hope that helped! Loved the vid though, it was really well explained

[@cedric2452]

the main difference is between the social classes la grosse différence c'est entre les classes sociales, comme en angleterre, le parlé des banlieues est beaucoup plus différent qu'un français et un suisse de même niveau social

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

improve your English, mate. This was hard to read

[@mautida9998]

Gaëtan Chenu I from Switzerland and I'v never heared octante that's huitante

[@singh_5381]

Gaëtan Chenu And in belgium we don't say octante for 80 we say "quatre-vingts"

[@davidleef1894]

You kidding? I'm a native English-speaker and his English is pretty much perfect

[@lynnieneal4273]

Thanks for the history of the French language! It's very interesting. Please make more of these videos on the French language. I thought it was great watching you explain how they write and talk. The sentences that you did, with examples were fantastic and will help people like me learn how to write in French, and somewhat say things in French, as I am a deaf viewer.

[@nuansd]

Finally! I've been waiting forever for this one.

[@vanweefrancis]

Some words about "ne ... pas". The problem was that "ne" (the original negation, like "not" in english) is a weak sound. "Je mange" vs "Je ne mange". It is really hard to listen the difference. So to reinforce, the speakers add another word. For exemple, Je ne marche pas (I don't walk even a single step, "pas" in french is a "footstep"). Another example, "Je ne mange mie" (I don't eat, event a small piece of crumb) or "Il ne pleut goutte" (It don't rain, even a single water drop). The "mie" from "Je ne mange mie" is not more used, but the "pas" from the originally "Je ne marche pas", remains and loose this original meaning and become "only" a part of the negation. To be honest, many of the french speakers have no idea about the origin of the "pas". But, to be complete, I have to say, that sometimes, we use only the "ne" form for the negation. But this is always in an elevated form of the language ("langage soutenu"), for exemple : "Oublier, je ne puis !" (Forget, I can't !). In normal conversion we said : "Je ne peux pas l'oublier", "Je ne l'oublierai pas", etc.

[@DecalageChope]

A l'oral on supprime de plus en plus ce "ne" pour ne garder que le "pas" : "je mange pas", "je marche pas", "il pleut pas"...

[@kaalbrak]

Très intéressant, seulement une chose à redire, le mot "pas" signifie toujours "a step". ^^ Par exemple : "Il marche d'un pas lent."

[@walkercatenaccio]

Further, currently the "ne" is fading out in common speech, and the "pas" is standing alone as the negative. This development is making French the first of the Romance and perhaps of the entire Indo-European family to lose the original negation in "ne".

[@Albatrosspro1]

Oh wow I always kind of thought that this was the origin of the "pas" -- "not a single step" -- as a French learner but I didn't really know. Thanks! And also, as of course you know, "mie" is gone maybe but you have "miette". But I didn't know about "je ne mange mie" or "il ne pleut goutte". :P

[@fs400ion]

Au Québec, «Je ne veux pas» devient «J'veux pas». «Je ne l'ai pas» = «J'l'ai pas»

[@besitzbelastet]

Did an English-speaker here say French spelling was impractical? Rough. Cough. Dough. Bough. Through. Though. All perfectly logical.

[@drogadepc]

Spelling is not the problem, pronounciation is

[@fuwameanssoft]

You forgot thorough

[@nathanielcrosby2426]

Pronounce the gh as a Scottish 'ch', like loch. Your vocal cords will thank you later.

[@quinquiry]

spelling in French AND English is hellish..

[@mage5890]

@@drogadepc Don't you know that those words are just horribly difficult to pronounce for us French??? 😱😱😠 The worst are *thoroughly* and *throughout* !!! Seriously, and then you speak about us ?? You just are devil in terms of pronunciation 😈😈☠☠☠🤣

[@NiksWickOfficial]

i was learning French back when i was doing my HSC for 2 years and ended up ignoring it and learning Russian because lets face it Russian is soooo good, and i left french for about a year and just started to learn and revisit it again to complete my goal of knowing 5 languages by the age of 20 (i am 19 and can Speak Greek as mother tongue, English, Russian and Swedish) this is my final piece of the puzzle and cannot wait to finish! i have 5 months before i am 20 and i already understood and remembered everything in this video and more! once i finish french i will go on to learn Spanish and Italian and hopefully Arabic while im finishing up my honours degree of Medical Science!! good luck to everyone learning any language!

[@MohammedKObeid]

Great video, Paul I will be honest with all you guys that I studied French on my own for 6 months and I can understand it very well in writing, reading, speaking and listening but not totally fluent but I can still understand it very well. And for me personally it's pronunciation and grammar as well as it's system of verb conjugations are really not as hard as people say. It just takes some time to get used to by exposing yourself to it a lot through things like music and books for example. But it's an amazing language, and France is just an amazing country with lots of different places to visit and has a fascinating history. Not to mention that French people are just SUPER AWESOME! But that's just my opinion. Please tell me what you guys think of what I said. Great video as usual, Paul Keep up the good work

[@kgirdngnudrga]

Now that it's been a year would you say you are fluent?

[@MohammedKObeid]

@@kgirdngnudrga tbh not yet...hopefully soon

[@dlt5602]

@@kgirdngnudrga 😂

[@sissi7746]

I’m a Linguist and a French native speaker from Quebec, Canada. I learned German as a second language then English as my third. Before my retirement, I used to teach spoken French to English native speakers as well as written French to Quebec native speakers who couldn’t write properly. Because of my work, I developed a special interest for helping one to deal successfully with French’s morpho-syntax particularities. That’s why I watched your video with great interest. Congratulations for a job very well done! Your presentation was honest and well documented. You did explain very well why French words are sometimes spelled with several vowels yet pronounced using one only. You picked relevant examples but you made sure to preserve French’s power of attraction for anyone considering learning it. I did appreciate your conclusion about French’s historical and cultural values. You obviously love and respect French. Thank you.

[@RadenYohanesGunawan]

U learnt German before English as a Canadian? 😂

[@imhummingbird8043]

"What aspects of French have you found challenging?" Listening. I am still a beginner, but I progressed a lot in reading and writing in French. I can read and write simple written-for-beginners paragraphs. But my listening comprehension is just abysmal. And I often wonder if I will ever be able to overcome this.

[@steve1reg]

They say for an English speaker, French is one of the easiest languages to learn on paper. But listening comprehension is difficult due to the linking of words together, so it is hard to hear each word as an individual concept. But as with everything, the more you practice, the better you will get.

[@TidusleFlemard]

my recomendation for progressing your audio comprehension is quite simple (and cheap), take a topic you like (video games for me) and search youtube (or any video hosting sites) for some video of it in french, bonus point if the author added english subtitles (some do to get more views). It might be harder than for me to find video tho, as internet is majorly english.

[@dammit_moon_moon]

@@imhummingbird8043 When learning a language, my best friend is Netflix. If you can access it, binge your favorite series again, switching both audio and subtitles to the language you learn. Earing and reading at the same time creates associations and will help you a lot!

[@Adri-242]

I am French and used to have a lot of trouble to understand spoken English, despite the fact that I was comfortable with reading/writing it. What really helped me and allowed me to improve myself : movies and netflix! (English voices with french subtitles). I guess this tip can work for every language! Good continuation and good luck!

[@TheWegeg]

Watch French TV to improve your oral comprehension. We don't make a lot of great TV shows but there are certainly a few, and we make pretty good films.

[@davidwise1302]

When I was still current with French, I found that it greatly helped my English spelling. Remembering how to spell the vowel before suffixes like "-nce" and "-ble" is difficult, since they're all reduced to a schwa so they all sound alike. But in the corresponding French words that are spelled the same, those vowel sounds retain their own sounds and do not get reduced. So all I had to do when trying to spell the English word was to say the French word in my head and I had the proper spelling. Like I said, that was when I was still current enough with French, which was about four decades ago.

[@Kikkerv11]

This works for -able and -ible, but not for -ance and -ence, which sound the same in French.

[@TinaCutri]

I remember being confused by false cognates when I was learning Spanish, like the word "asistir" meaning "to attend" (like in French). It's helpful to know both English and Spanish; it makes French a bit easier (a little, haha)

[@rodNantz]

Portuguese is very similar to both, but I still struggle with false cognates, "atender" in portuguese means the same that in English

[@justinbenny826]

tina posts stuff French easier than Spanish? Oh my gosh! I'm opposite hehe

[@marileerburt8384]

I think you're wrong. Asistir means to asist in english

[@johnr9763]

Y los que estan en el infierno? Para esto existe el trabajo. Le mot "travaille" o "trabajo" derive de "TRIBALLIUM", ce qui etait un instrument de torture ou supplice chez les romains. L'enfer c'est un enfer pour les vivants.

[@EduardoGarrido2188]

Los vivos solo saben que van a morir, los muertos no saben nada

[@bewareofpigeons]

My knowledge of French is standard academic and I often find it difficult to follow two native French speakers when they are conversing at normal speed. Regional variations are certainly not easy. I have no problem writing text messages, but if someone calls me then I have to concentrate really hard. But I have always loved the language ever since childhood. The key to success in aural comprehension, as in any language is developing listening skills. Glad I have discovered Langfocus.

[@jez9999]

You're one step ahead of me then, I find it impossible. The French must be the fastest speakers on Earth, often to the point where words will get entirely dropped.

[@mariolotov4892]

The negative form in French is interesting because it is formed by two words : ne + something. In fact, the real negation part is the ne, which is why in litterature or poetry you'll sometime find sentences with nothing after it. The other word is only supposed to add some precision. But in the spoken language, negation is oftenly very obvious by the context, so in most cases, people just skip the ne. "Je n'ai pas mangé" becomes in spoken language "j'ai pas mangé". So in the end, both part can independently be taken out of the sentence, but you have to have one of them (or both).

[@geekdaddy5351]

Another fact about french : It is one of official Olympic's language. Every announce ( opening, closing, medal ceremony, ...) is: First in French Second in English Third in native language of the country where Olympics are. It's also official language of few sport as fencing sport.

[@Karlichou666]

What's most challenging when learning French as a kid? - A lot of kids use the German conditional syntax in stead of the regular French syntax ex : "Si ma mère serait là, je lui ferais des calins" (If my mother WOULD be here, I would give her hugs) which is quite correct in German : Wäre meine Mutter hier, würde ich sie umarmen" - The overuse of pronouns : CORRECT "Donne-le-moi" INCORRECT "Donne-moi-le" (Give it to me) ex : "Je ne le lui ai pas rappelé" (I didn't remind her about it) which is a nightmare to configure - Verbs or nouns which have two or three meanings. ex : brûler (burn / set fire), apprendre (learn / teach), sortir (get out/take out), comprendre (understand/contain). Those are verbs which are either transitive or intransitive... Other confusions : lait/laid (milk/ugly) serait/saurait (would be/would know) .... AND SO MANY !!!! - among young children and popular classes, the ordre between adjectives can be quite challenging ex : une petite maison ? une maison petite ? (a small house) Un bel homme ? Un homme beau ? (a handsome man) POETRY : La verte prairie / COLL : la prairie verte (the green meadow) Depending on noun/context : Une forte impression (a strong feeling) / Une place forte (a stronghold) - Guess of substantism. ex : Realism vs Reality vs Realness vs ... Loneliness : Solitarité ? Solitarisme ? Solitude. Positioning : Positionnage ? Positionnalité ? Positionnement. - There's a past tense we never use orally because it's too formal, but it's quite useful and broadly used in its written form... But almost nobody can remember what are the declination... Ex : I came, you came etc... -> Je vins, Tu vins, Il/Elle vint, Nous vînmes, Vous Vîntes, Ils/Elles Vinrent (Yes we love wines ^^) The same occurs when using the subjonctive tense, which has no equivalent in english, but we use it every in almost every sentence... Badly, a lot of people still make mistakes "Il faut que je vais ..." vs "Il faut que j'aille ..." (I must go ...) - Because we usually "l' " or "les" or "cet/cette" before the voyels in those words : "Les abysses" (deepseas) "L'algèbre", "L'algorithme", "Idylle" (idol),... we never know if those words are masculine or feminine. But who cares? - All their life, French people will always have doubts in regards of orthograph : Langage or Language ? Méditerannée or Méditerranée or Méditerrannée ? Apparemment or Apparament or Apparamment ? (apparently) Grammar and genderization is a nightmare : Let's say I'm a girl : "Je me suis lavéE" (I washed myself) "Je me suis lavé les cheveux" (I washed my hair) "Je me les suis lavéS" (I washed them)

[@jeandy4495]

C’est exactement ça.

[@ronaldoseven4865]

I am a Canadian from Ontario (my native home province in Canada), and the provincial government of Ontario had decided to build a first only Francophone university in my home province eh. French is not just spoken in Quebec, but also in parts of Ontario and New Brunswick. 600,000+ Ontario residents are francophones, but I speak English as my native language and learn French as a second language in elementary and secondary school. The only bilingual province that people speaks both English and French is New Brunswick (mostly in Moncton, New Brunswick). I visited downtown Toronto just a few days ago. I was shopping at the mall and there are some people speaking French. I am assuming they are Franco-Ontarians, Ontario (Canada's capital city) nor Quebec. Thank you for this French language video, Paul! You did an amazing job and the wait was worth it! Cheers!

[@jplatour596]

Nobody speaks French in Ontario. Quebec is the sole bilingual law system in Canada, thanks to its Civil Code. The rest of Canada is ruled by the English Common Law. The English language is the only one which connects bilingual Quebec with the rest of the country.

[@Wendyx2000]

I am French and I live in London, England. When I visited Canada, people assumed I meant London, Ontario :-D . Speaking both languages, I felt home everywhere and thoroughly enjoyed my trip.

[@jplatour596]

Only Quebec has a bilngual law system, its civilan law system. Anywhere else in Canada is ruled by the english Common law, and nothing else. Such is the Canadian constitution. Quebec is the keystone of Canadian unity, and only the english language connects the province with the rest of Canada. Quebeckers are proud of their bilingual heritage, exclusive within Canada.

[@jplatour596]

In Canada Quebec is sole bilingual law system, civilian. All the rest of Canada is English common law only.

[@juliemongeon97]

JP Latour I am a native French speaker from Ottawa. I also grew up in Kingston Ontario and I can assure you that people speak French in Ontario. C'est bizarre de voir comment certains québécois croient qu'ils sont les seuls à parler français au Canada. C'est totalement faux. Je suis canadienne-française et fière de l'être.

[@Zitronensindsauer]

I have so much respect for you! U put so much effort and time in this videos, you do a really unique and awesome job! Thx for doing this!

[@skellingold]

I just re-started learning French today since I dropped out in 2007 (I'm quarantine bored) and this video is everything! I always thought of French as a combination of Spanish grammar structure and the crazy non-phonetic mess of English, and after watching this video I see I've been right all along. I really needed this! Thank you!

[@mirpopolos6209]

English spelling is just a bit irregular. French has a basic rule : You never pronounce the last letter of a word. So if you have not seen the word written, you have no idea how to spell it. Good luck !

[@julien.s2002]

In the French part of Switzerland, the way we say some numbers is different, and it's a simpler form, here are some examples : Soixante-dix (70, literally "sixty-ten") 🇫🇷 Septante (70, seventy) 🇨🇭 Quatre-vingts (80, literally "four twenties") 🇫🇷 Huitante (80, eighty) 🇨🇭 In Geneva however, people tend to say "quatre-vingts", like the French do. Quatre-vingt-dix (90, literally "four twenties ten") 🇫🇷 Nonante (90, ninety) 🇨🇭

[@TachyBunker]

Mais les belges disent "octante" pour 80 🇧🇪

[@julien.s2002]

@@TachyBunker Vraiment ? Vous dites "octante" en Belgique ?

[@HereForTheBeer1987]

I LOVE "HUITANTE" AND "NONANTE"!! Makes total sense!!

[@supernt7852]

I've heard it's also the same in Walloonia, Belgium.

[@dtrlieja5852]

@@TachyBunker Pardon ? Je suis belge et personne n'a jamais dit octante en Belgique (ce qui pourtant, serait logique) mais quatre-vingt. Où avez-vous été chercher ça ? Par contre, on dit septante et nonante, ce qui est également logique.

[@Occitania26]

_Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the kings of France invaded and annexed Occitanie (the old kingdom of Aquitaine) to the south. The interbreeding of the Occitan and French population impacted on modern oral French which borrows much of its vocabulary from the "langue d'Òc" (Occitan language). Many popular and current French words, not referenced by linguists, are Occitan words (quésaco, tcharrer, tchapper, un naze, une bouffe, la gnaque, dégun, des craques...)_ *Original old French / "francitan" (southern words / expressions from the Occitan language)* personne / dégun (digus) tête / cap bois / bosquet bisou / poutou petit / pitchoun bavarder / tcharrer frais / frisquet châtaigne / castagne ça colle / ça pègue une gaffe / une couffe leu / loup mouche à miel / abeille pain au chocolat / chocolatine maigre / magret mélange / pastis salée / salade sucer / tchuquer tripoter / tchaoupiner se bâfrer / tchapper, bouffer périphérique / rocade tourner, tournant / virer, virage un blaireau / une tache, un tachon des balivernes / des craques plaisanterie / galéjade fêtard / festayre bolet / cèpe belle vue / belvédère bâtisse / bastide une ferme / un mas (une borde) dresser / quiller un soufflet / une bouffe un enfant / un drôle un ado / un gafet un jeune homme / un goujat avoir du mordant / avoir la gnaque la canicule / le cagnas (le cagnard) rapiécer / pédasser un âne / un naze une bosse / une bougne teigneux / tignous une chiure / une cagade tu fais chier ! / fas caga ! une charbonnée / une carbonnade brûler / cramer une égratignure / une estafilade râler / rouméguer un col / un port tasser / catcher qu'importe ! / raï ! fou / fada (fat) gosier / gargamelle mûr, mûre / madur, mature idiot, idiote / pèc, pègue dinde / piote côtelettes / coustélous le haricot / le mangetout, la moungette chiffon / peille pomme-de-pin / pigne ivre / pinté remue ! / boulègue ! Bon Dieu ! / Boudu ! noir / nègre lunettes / cluques rien du tout, pas grand chose / que tchi, que dalle une grotte / une tute zizi, biloute / kiki, quiquette Qu'est-ce ? (c'est quoi ?) / quésaco ? (qu'es aquò ?) Qu'est-ce qu'il y a ? / Qué ya ? pêcher / pesquer les brebis / les ouailles gazon / pelouse épater / espanter un coup / un patac beugler / bramer peuplier / piboul chênaie (dégradée) / garrigue saoul (rassasié) / sadoul (coufle) Salut ! / Adieu ! ... "Ours" and "amour" are two Occitan words passed into French in the Middle Ages even before Occitania was annexed by France.

[@brunopicaude3092]

Moi j'aimais bien l'expression "caler" ou "cambouler", qui n'a pas d'équivalent chez les français "du nord" et qui signifie "prendre quelqu'un à l'arrière de son vélo ou de sa mob'... bien que ce fût interdit !on se retrouvait à deux sur une seule selle, ou le second sur le porte-bagage). Je pense que les minots d'aujourd'hui ne l'emploient plus car ils roulent presque tous en scooter avec des selles deux places; plus besoin de cambouler. J'aimais bien aussi "resquiller" (entrer sans payer).

[@antoninvuillemin5286]

Merci beaucoup pour toutes ces informations !

[@jbs.]

This video is equivalent to three years of French instruction in an American high school.

[@learntocrochet1]

I was thinking the same thing!

[@jbs.]

nein.

[@SergioSanchez-og7ms]

Is this lenguaje difficult for you?

[@lauribl5057]

Meh Okay you are an envious, dutch is an useless language

[@bryanbridges2987]

jbs36 That is sadly true.

[@riporamor6581]

I'm studying french because of the diplomacy, UN, aid agencies and NGOs. I already speak fluently portuguese (mother language), spanish and english :) Nice video, thank u, I love your channel

[@anthonyclb2175]

Im french and your vidéo is soooo interesting!! I love it !

[@DaBezzzz]

Hardest thing to learn when learning French: LISTENING. They speak so fast, it's like oh yeah i know that word its translation is this and YOU'RE ALREADY HALFWAY THROUGH YOUR NEXT STORY HOW

[@williamshakespeare1573]

I'm French and that's what I think of spanish or italian. Their speed is unhuman.

[@allthe1]

That's a perk of romance languages in general. I don't recall where I got this info, but the ratio of syllables/information carried by a word group is very high in spanish, portuguese, french, etc. I think it has to do with consonant variety and consonant grouping. Romance languages are allergic to multiple consonants whereas languages of germanic origin, including english, are allergic to vowel grouping. And a lot of germanic consonant are nonexistant in french. Not many diphtongues and triphtonges in german or english. The brain glitch goes both ways! In my first years in english classes, our professor drilled us into shaping our mouths for this.

[@maelstrom57]

Vincent Lortie To be fair, English uses way more diphthongs than any Romance language I know-/aɪ/, /aʊ/, /eɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /oʊ/.. There's even the triphthong /aʊə/.

[@allthe1]

melv douc French is my native language, english my L2, and portuguese L3. I have some basic knowledge of german and italian pronunciation and variability. Between French and Portugese, I could count dozens of regional variations, but I will try and make an exaustive census of those I know to be recognized as official or widely used. On the Wiki on pronounciation of French vowels, I can only see these five diphtongs and one triphtong : /ɛj/, /aj/, /wa/, /wɛ̃/, /jɛ̃/, /waj/ But, as you may have guessed, that doesn’t cover all possible diphtongs and tripthongs. Let’s not get in to tripthongs, because my head will explode. Here are other diphtongs very much present in most french dialects, and are barely mentioned in the Wiki : /ja/, /jɛ/, /je/, /jɔ/, /wi/, /ɥi/, /uj/, /ij/, /œj/ Just off the top of my head, I can find even more diphtongs that are not just variations, but really seperate ways of pronouncing similar graphemes in different contexts : /wɑ/, /wɛ/, /we/, /wø/, /wɛ̃/, /wœ̃/, /jɑ/, /jø/, /jɛ̃/, /jœ̃/, /aw/. Now that’s very standard french. In Quebec where I live, there are a few regular diphthongizations : /aɛ̯/ as opposed to /ɛ/ in « faire » /ɑɔ̯/ as opposed to /ɔ/ in « fort » /ɑʊ̯/ as opposed to /ɑ/ in « tâte » /aœ̯/ as opposed to /œ/ in « peur » /øy̯/ as opposed to /ø/ in « feutre » /oʊ̯̯/ as opposed to /o/ in « côte » /ẽɪ̯̃/ or /ãɪ̯̃/ as opposed to /ɛ̃/ in « cinq » /õʊ̯̃/ as opposed to /ɔ̃/ in « bon » And that’s not the end of the story. Often, two diphtongs are combined in a single syllable to make what would be by definition a triphtong. But, as I mentioned before, let’s not get in to these, or we’ll go crazy. Now, briefly, portuguese : /ej/, /ow/ or its variant /ou/, /ẽj/ or /ẫj/, /õw/, /ẫw/, /ẫj/ or /ẫi/, /õj/ or /õi/, /wa/ or /ua/, /we/ or /ue/, /wi/ or /ui/, /wo/ or /uo/. Also, in portuguese, the triphtong combinations often appear just as I mentioned for french. So let's stop here. Maybe I took the better sample because both french and portuguese seem to have more vowel variation than any other romance language? Who knows. Anyone up for doing this in the germanic languages they know? I’m exausted.

[@peterschultz6361]

A suggestion (from one of my French teachers): Buy a French language DVD from Canada (so it will play on North American players) with subtitles "pour sourds et malentendants" (for the deaf and hearing-impaired). That usually (but not always) means that the subtitles will be the exact words spoken by the actors, not paraphrases. You can stop the player to replay and study the subtitles.

[@EXTREMELYCOOL]

Ive been learning French for about 2 years now in school and for me writing and listening to French is the hardest. I find it easy to read paragraphs of French because I already know most of the words and I can work out the rest through the context of the sentence. Speaking is a little better than writing because no pesky accents to remember lol. J’adore le France et Français.

[@timael.]

J'adore la France et le français*

[@mcjunior011]

Les vidéos ont qualité superior. Avec tes vidéos j'ai amélioré mon Anglais et j'ai appris beaucoup des choses sur les autres langues. Je suis en train de aprrendre français. Merci beaucoup

[@alanparker9608]

I am British, and I have been learning the French language at school for more than 4 years. I make a lot of progress.

[@marmac83]

"I'm making"*

[@BraceletGrolf]

As I french native speaker who has been studying the past 2 years in Switzerland and who has been hanging out with belgian guys recently, let me answer the last question : In Belgium and Switzerland there are many differences in the language, mainly the accent and the vocabulary. Let me list all that comes to my mind. In French, we say 90 : "quatre-vingt-dix" while belgian and swiss people tend to say "nonente" (I think you say it like that) which always spark debates as the french way is litterally saying 4*20 + 10 (which is the same for the following number 91 ... to 99) That is sometimes the same for 80, in France we say "quatre-vingt" while some part of switzerland tend to say "huitante". Which again sparks debate as the french way litterally says "4 20". And for 70 they say mostly "septante" rather then our "soixante-dix" (here 60 + 10). And then they have so many different words. For example in France we say mobile phone with "téléphone portable" or "mobile" or "portable" or just "téléphone" depending on the person you're talking with, but in recent years the other words have been fading away for the simple "téléphone" which is also the phone you have at home. In Switzerland they say "natel" after the name of a company who sold mobile phones (that's what I was told) and the belgian guy I talked to say "GSM" litterally after the technology. Then you also have different words for many different things, I sometimes have a hard time understanding some phrase of my belgian things because they use different words, I don't remember them aside that in france when we want to drink before a party we say that we are gonna organize a "before" litterally stolen from english and they say something different. Swiss people also sometimes say that a hair-dryer is a "foehn" after a wind in eastern switzerland in the region called "Valais" (I don't know if either of those words are spelled correctly sorry !) I also came across swiss people calling the thing to clear a board a "frottoir" while I personally say "brosse". And that's just the tip of the iceberg, so we completely understand each other, there are just a lot of words that may differ. Also keep in mind that those changes are not homogenic, for example I'd hear people saying "nonente" for 90 in france close to the border with Geneva and I've heard swiss people using french pronounciations, mostly ones who came from closer to the border. TL;DR : The differences are in the vocabulary but they usually know the french way of saying things so we understand each other. But that's the only differences I've seen. And for people learning french, we have a saying in France when we come about an exception, we say " C'est l'exception qui confirme la règle " which litterally means "It's this exception that makes the rule true". And it applies to the language, almost no rule universally applies to the language, sorry ! Edit : Small mistake that I saw in the video; "Assister" can be translated as "Assist" in english, in France it is sometimes said so. The job "Assistant" litterally means "the guy who assist", but you could also translate "Assister" with "To help out" I think.

[@lukediafrica9619]

Romain Yeah i understand exactly what you're talking about, i've been in switzerland as well (Canton de Vaud et de Genève) and it is true that there is some word who may differ but i think it's just a few, and it doesn't affect the communication between people from different, for example i'm able to understand all the French,Belgian,swiss expression.

[@PainterVierax]

Raised in the north of France, near Lille and as we had French and Belgian TV channels and we spent summer in south and west regions, I grew up with very different accent and cultures. Even in France, french dialects are sometimes very different in pronunciation and in vocabulary or expressions. So when I started to watch French north-American cultures such acadian and québécois it wasn't difficult to understand.

[@MrIntezerium]

I think you wanna say "Foehn" ? Like a "sèche-cheveux"(hair dryer) ? I'm swiss and "Foehn" designe the "sèche-cheveux" but also the hot wind, the meteorological effect. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn (Not in english, i hope you can understand what he say :) )

[@BraceletGrolf]

+InteZerium I'm french as I said so I can understand :) And yes that's what I was talking about when I was saying it's a wind in eastern switzerland :D I'll correct the spelling tho !

[@whatshisnamegain1]

Föhn is just the German word for hair-dryer (and also this special type of warm wind), so that's where it simply comes from :)

[@Jean-FrancoisBilodeau]

French is my first language. I never really realized how complex the language was ;) I'm from Montreal, Quebec, and I can tell you that there are definite differences between European French and Quebec French. I've often been told that thought Quebecois understand European French perfectly well, the inverse is not true.

[@Jean-FrancoisBilodeau]

Merci! I think a video on the origin and evolution on Quebec French (and all other French) might be fascinating!

[@marie-evecedras7067]

le Canada français s'est fait colonisé* (désolée, je ne pouvais pas résister :p). In my humble opinion, we cannot see Quebecois French as a united language. Depending on your age and/or where you from, you will speak differently. It can be hard for me to understand some others Quebecers from Saguenay or Gaspésie (I'm from Montreal). For example, my mother will say the t in the word "lit" makes it sound "lite" (and it isn't lite as english speakers intend it). Or she will say "moé" instead of "moi" or "ouais" instead of "oui". Bon, pour les expressions, je dois avouer que je ne comprend pas toujours les expressions françaises moi-même. Je pense que tant les Français et les Québécois peuvent se parler amplement sans que ça soit problématique. Disons que quand je reçois des Français, je ne leur dit pas de "se tirer une bûche".

[@marie-evecedras7067]

Désolée d'être en désaccord, mais en mon sens, le fait que nous avons autant de dialectes est la preuve que la langue n'est pas unie. Bien sûr, à l'écrit, la langue est la même pour tous grâce à l'Académie française. Toutefois, la langue à l'oral se présente sous plusieurs formes tant géographiquement qu'à travers les générations. C'est normal que la langue ne soit pas unie à travers le monde. La langue reflète la culture. Est-ce que nous pouvons dialoguer entre Québécois et Français sans trop de problèmes? Oui, évidemment. Toutefois, nous devons reconnaître que la langue (ici, je parle surtout de l'écrit) n'est pas un bloc monolithe. Elle est sensible à un endroit et à un temps.

[@ghenulo]

The same thing happens with native speakers of English. I sometimes explain some things and people just get amazed at the complexity of English that they just haven't noticed.

[@chrisbaier6252]

A woman I met from France told me she once worked with a woman from Quebec for a few days and she had a difficult time understanding her, so they communicated in English.

[@luiscruz5556]

this video is incredible, thank you so much for making it 😭

[@Langfocus]

My pleasure!

[@inabind416]

What aspects of French have I found challenging, you ask? In two words, my husband.

[@Langfocus]

lol

[@pasteljelly2234]

Subjunctive mood

[@erikcummings3125]

Really? I'd imagine it would actually be pretty easy given he'd bow out and surrender in every fight you get in with him

[@Iscore4]

Erik Cummings i spit out my water when i read that lol

[@paulfaulkner6299]

Sacre bleu!! lol

[@KraequhoS]

I'm native french speaker from Belgium. Honestly, no grammatical differences between any french from Belgium/France. They are all alike. The only noticable difference is the vocabulary, mainly between France and Belgium but inside each of them, it's quite the same. However, in my home town, there is one expression which is said but completely false : "Il fait mis/écrit". It means "it's written", the correct form should be "Il est écrit" but I don't know how/why we say it that way. French speakers from the towns nearby are often making fun of us about this.

[@lewante4538]

KraequhoS Wait. "Fait" from tge verb "faire" (to do, i don't remeber how it's spelled). You essentialy say "it did written"

[@juliemongeon97]

I am French-Canadian and I lived in Brussels for a year. One thing the Belgians say that was confusing for me is that the word "savoir" (to know) also means "pouvoir" (can). So let's say someone asks you if you can close the door please they might say "Est-ce que tu sais fermer la porte s'il te plait?" To which you might reply "yes I know how to close the door" 😂

[@Lidsu]

From wich town/region are you ? I'm from Brussels and I swear I never heard it !

[@gringologie9302]

KraequhoS Les wallons ont aussi tendance à inverser "savoir" et "pouvoir" ^^ la beauté de la francophonie. au sein même de la metropole, chaque région peut avoir ses détails linguistiques.

[@MaestroSangurasu]

Et l accent

[@b.entranceperium]

Honestly - been studying French for a year, and I think so far the hardest part of it is verb conjugation. Not necessarily how it's done, but memorizing just merely 5 tenses: passe compose, imparfait, futur, present, conditionnel etc can get challenging because there's so much information. Also, reported speech can be difficult... Overall, it's a beautiful language though, and I'm personally going to keep working at fluency even with no native speakers near me :) Merci pour votre aide! Bonne journée!

[@maoschanz4665]

I'm surprised your biggest issue is tenses... don't you have any problem dealing with groups of verbs ? (1st "most of *er", 2nd "verbs with *ir which do some "iss" endings", and 3rd "all other shits with dozens of differents endings")

[@b.entranceperium]

Just got introduced to verb groups, actually... I'm sure it will be difficult to memorize

[@robparke2323]

Dave B. Merci for your earlier correction of my attempt at Je vous emprie. I thought it was "I pray you." My "study" of French has been very patchy. I first studied French in an American school in Tehran. The teacher was Swiss so we learned to count "both ways." I lost track of conjugation of verbs when we got to the future pluperfect. I think some of the academic terms have changed over time. In Iran at that time (1950s) French was still the lingua franca. Merci was virtually a Farsi word as well as "mamnoun." Oddly, although my French is quite lousy I do have a decent accent thanks to my French speaking father was studied at Grenoble.

[@b.entranceperium]

Riche-Art .Vague-Nerf The US. Heading to France soon for q couple of weeks

[@shafiqaradi6534]

You explained french grammars to me better than most of the online french instructors, and in just one video! As a French learner, the answer to your question is I find using partitive articles a bit challenging, although I got a lot better at knowing how to use them lately, not to mention conjuring verbs in French, it's more challenging than in English, I know that not because I know English, but because when I learned English I faced no problems in learning how to conjure verbs.

[@PrinceVigilanteX]

As an American learning French, the hardest thing to learn for me is past tense. However, this is because I had just started learning it in highschool and am taking french again 8 years later. Another thing is the slang. The way you say something changes greatly due to the culture.

[@khaledjawish4751]

Yes the past tense is kind of difficult personally from my opinion, I have been learning french since I was 3 years old now I'm 13 and I'm still learning it and I speak it fluently and know it pretty decent. I hope you'll be able to overcome the obstacles and learn it in no time. Goodluck brother

[@adjetyann2095]

In French, like past tenses, we use commonly "le passé composé", "l'imparfait", and what we call "Plus-que-parfait", rarely "le passé simple"

[@odysseus231]

Great video! I'm a French native speaker myself, from around Paris so I wouldn't know much about regional variations However what I can say is that, compared to English at least, there is much more variation between the French spoken by young people, what might be called "street talk" even though it can be spoken at varying levels by young people of every social background For example, a few decades ago there emerged a new form of vocabulary amongst youngsters that consists of taking standard French words and flipping the syllables around : so "choper" (roughly pronounced shopé) which means "to catch" but is used to say kissed someone, becomes "pécho" (roughly pronounced pesho)

[@aldairmassardi4961]

I once watched a video in which Paul said the easiest language he had ever learned was French. To me it is the hardest! Its phonetics are impossible to reproduce and the spelling umpredictable not to mention the syntax. Though I can understand written French, I think I will never understand the spoken version. And yet, to my ears it is the most beautiful spoken language there is. :)

[@tuvlord]

To be precise, to assist can be translated to assister in many case: "I assist her" would be translated to "Je l'assiste" Note that the more used word for it is "aider", wich mean "help". "Assister" (in that case) is more formal, and used for stuff related to offical or company language in general. For example: "J'ai assisté le maire dans son travail" would be translated to "I assisted the mayor in his work". But yes, "Assiter" also mean "To intent", for example: "I assist the mayor speech" will be translated to "J'ai assisté au discours du maire". Great video btw !

[@TheRealTrimBrady]

We have to learn French in school in Canada. One of the most frustrating aspects of it is that, for most of us, languages have a 'half-life' of around the length of summer vacation in our minds. We usually have to relearn most of it as soon as we return to school.

[@PaulEIvory]

People in Belgium and Switzerland say "septante","octante" and "nonante" instead of "soixante-dix","quatre-vingts" and "quatre-vignts-dix".

[@shirou9790]

They say huitante in Switzerland, and quatre-vingts in Belgium (and in some parts of Switzerland)

[@CharlyBGoode]

@@shirou9790 I also like how you can hear them say "houit" instead of "huit" (8).

[@krakis51]

I'm from Switzerland and we never say "octante" ;) Some cantons say "quatre-vingts" and the other cantons who speak French say "huitante"

[@creepaze_]

I'm French and I think that it's more logical, "soixante-dix" is basically 60+10 whereas "septante" is the logical continuation of "soixante", etc. ^^

[@shaide5483]

Paul Those numbers are much easier

[@jennyalex38]

I’m a French native speaker and in the region of Lyon we don’t use the word « y » like the others french speakers. Normally « y » is use to talk about a place. Eg : J’y vais = I go there (in this sentence « y » means there) In the region of Lyon we use « y » to talk about a place but it can also replace the words le/la in some cases. Eg in standard french : Je le fais In Lyon french : J’y fais Which means I do it NB : the « y » can’t always replace the words le/la. Eg : I see the dog We can’t say : Je vois y chien ❌ We say : Je vois le chien We use « y » as an impersonal pronoun Sorry if it’s not clear that’s hard to explain even some french not from Lyon don’t understand when we use « y » 😅

[@louplibre9734]

Vous êtes tarpin perchés