The Subjunctive tense in French. Let's slay the dragon !!

[@Mlydon888]

This is the BEST explanation of the subjunctive in both the English and French languages! Thank you!!! And yes, to the subject of Google hiding your channel, 100% correct in my opinion.

[@ouicommunicate]

I am honoured! Merci merci ! Yes, google has always hated me with a vengeance - no clue why !

[@deanoparsons]

Wow. This is one of the most helpful language lessons I have ever seen. I am learning by watching videos, reading, watching tv, listening to the radio, chatting with my french spouse and our friends and neighbours. I tried to learn through online french tutors but I found the immersive style of being taught, was all based upon learning by mistake. I would be asked what I understood in any scenario and was only taught when I got something wrong. I found this style to be the cause of increasing anxiety and so I started to minimise my participation. Obviously, that's counter productive! I recently passed my B1 DELF in french, but I don't have a good grasp of grammar; it has become a skill I develop intuitively. Your videos are incredibly helpful. Thanks for sharing them. Deano; an English man in Strasbourg, France.

[@ouicommunicate]

Hi Deano ! Wenn du in Straßburg wohnst, musst du auch Deutsch lernen ! You have double the job - you have to learn German also ! : ) Thanks for the comment. Do share the video if you have a chance. Ta. Ah you are B1 congratulations ! It's not so easy. There are many ways of teaching a language and it is an unregulated professional landscape. Every source of learning has their own formula and the learner themselves don't have the necessary critical info to step back and go "Hang on, how are nursery rhymes going to help me learn a language??" One method seems as good as any other. I don't personally agree with the immersive style for several reasons, the main ones being statistical and grammatical. The odds that you would hear a certain notion enough times and rationalize it are extremely low. I taught myself German following an analytical/rational approach (as in this video) and I teach French the same way. Just mentioning, my whole website is full of such videos with much more cleaner editing + PDF exercises. But I'll be aiming to put up more of these "impromptu" ones also. Thanks again I'm glad it helped you Deano!

[@deanoparsons]

@@ouicommunicate Many thanks. I will take a look at your web site. My neighbours, here in Strasbourg, speak Alsacien and French. I have a little German that helps me if needed, but French is all I need here. Thankfully. lol Best wishes. Deano.

[@davidwilliams9470]

Invaluable. If you are a native English speaker studying French, Chris is your man. Don't let the emphatic speaking style put you off. And watch to the end to harvest his gems of insight. David in Bordeaux

[@ouicommunicate]

haha! I love the emphatic speaking style. My wife tells me often about it !

[@davidwilliams9470]

Did I hear a thank you in your remark?

[@ouicommunicate]

@@davidwilliams9470 I just didn't say it loud enough. THANKS!! MERCI ! 😃

[@francoisleyrat8659]

There are traces of the subjunctive in English : they demanded that he go...

[@ouicommunicate]

Sure thing !

[@jeffsherman91]

If I were to use the subjunctive, people might think I was saying it wrong. Yeah, that's a joke because that WAS the subjunctive. And for some reason, British and American English tend to have it backwards from each other. Amusingly, I actually learned the subjunctive in school in French class before learning it in English. And get peeved when people don’t use it in English when they should.

[@ouicommunicate]

Ha ! Yes, I sometimes see it pop up here and there in more high brow media. As for people using it when speaking I would say it's quite rare. Thanks for watching !

[@gordonmilligan8847]

Things were getting a bit tense and moody there for a moment - I was hoping that he *row* (subj.) back on that, and luckily he did ;) Great explanations!

[@ouicommunicate]

Thank you ! I'm a slow starter 😀

[@bakarka]

Years ago I visited a couple of friends who were living in Paris (all of us recent American university grads) and we conversed in French over dinner when their Parisian neighbor joined us. After the neighbor left, my friends criticized me for using the subjunctive, saying that French people go out of their way to avoid using it. My friends had studied French for many years but I had only studied for one year (intensive university level). I wondered if they were correct, or just surprised that I knew how to use the subjunctive after only a year of French. It seems to me that (as you present in this video) many constructions require the subjunctive and there is no way around it. Do the French really avoid the subjunctive? I never went back to France to find out more.

[@ouicommunicate]

On the contrary. There is absolutely no hint at the subjunctive being "posh" in any way. It's a completely normal part of the language and not a stylistic choice. Every person of every social class uses it. It's not high brow or affected. I'm not sure why your friend thinks that people avoid it.

[@bakarka]

@@ouicommunicate OK, thanks for settling this long-standing question for me. My second language is Spanish which uses the subjunctive a great deal, and influenced my use of the French subjunctive, for better or worse.

[@rjh2772]

looking for a large American speaking community in the Occitanie Region

[@francoisleyrat8659]

Wrong approach to living in France, IMO. There are no real anglophone/expat bubbles in the country. Better try Dubai.

[@rjh2772]

@ well they are communities that have English-speaking people that I know as a fact, so I don’t know where you’re coming from

[@francoisleyrat8659]

@@rjh2772 they are not 'communities'. There are of course concentrations of 1st world foreigners in Paris and the larger cities. Unless you accept that Brits in Dordogne (shire) are a 'community'.

[@davidcoxinparis]

The video's title is inaccurate because the subjunctive is not a tense. It is a mood which has tenses.

[@ouicommunicate]

I love this !!! I specifically gave two humorous warnings that I don't want anyone commenting on how it's a "mood" - we're calling it a tense ! Doesn't matter, it's all part of the rich pattern of life. Thanks for stopping by ! : )