Why You Can't Understand Spoken French

You think you know French… until you hear it spoken. Learn some “rules” of real spoken French, using a real interview.
💾 Read, save and/or print the full written lesson here (free): www.commeunefrancaise.com/blo...
🎓 Join my Everyday French crash course (free): www.commeunefrancaise.com/wel...
I hear it from my students all the time: they think that they know French… until they hear a real French person speak! That’s because spoken French is almost a completely different language from the written French you learned in school. We do a lot of “strange” things when speaking, making it difficult to understand.
Today, I’m going to break down a real French interview between French online media Konbini and Olivier Véran, our new Health Minister, to show you some of the most common unwritten “rules” of spoken French. With this knowledge, you’ll get a little better at understanding real spoken French. Enjoy!
Take care and stay safe.
😘 from Grenoble, France.
Géraldine

[@Commeunefrancaise]

💾 Read, save and/or print the full written lesson here (free): www.commeunefrancaise.com/blog/understanding-spoken-french

[@Fiddler1990]

Thank you Géraldine !

[@hyb1907]

Thanks a lot!

[@10tenman10]

I once told an acquaintance "j'en sais rien". Then I remembered his name was Jean so I then said "pardon, je n'en sais rien" to be polite.

[@johnconnor2039]

C etait jean neige ?

[@cybrown3369]

J'en peux plus 😂

[@ownerofshop844]

hahaha! i get it

[@Neoteny374]

Mom used to say she had three boys named Jean...j'en voulait, j'en ai eu, et j'en veut plus. 😄😁😆

[@Armyan8300]

Jean Neymar !

[@arthurharel9950]

I'm french and find these so entertaining. Makes me want to learn my own language all over again.

[@mateomarcosluke2521]

Hahaha.

[@TCt83067695]

Damon and Jo taught us years ago to drop the ne. Thumbs up if you get that reference 😉

[@husnahasanah1925]

Drop that ne ne ne!!!

[@subscriberephemere2328]

@@husnahasanah1925 peak culture ✌✌

[@lalegende2746]

I literally binge watched Comme Une Française and DamonandJo in order to help with French

[@jcortese3300]

The only way I ever found to get over this hump is to force-feed myself a language constantly. Watch videos on KZbin, listen to podcasts 100% of the time. It's the only thing that works, and only after months and months. Getting off of the formal classroom language and into the real world as fast as possible is all that works.

[@mynameisdub6232]

J Cortese I think I’m ready to go to this route lol

[@lisadioguardi5742]

I found something recently that I think would have helped me understand a lot earlier. There's an audiobook radio station, audiobooks are notoriously slow but the conversation between hosts speeds up. Alternating fast and slow speech seems like a good way to improve without getting frustrated and tuning out. If anyone wants to try it, here's the link: radio.garden/listen/la-radio-du-livre-audio/NtlmiU4r

[@ellie2829]

What types of things did you listen to? Any recommendations?

[@magentaMegi]

Then you have to force yourself to speak, even while making silly mistakes😂

[@autreUS4]

Can someone recommend good French shows and youtubers? Most things I watch on Netflix are boring besides the circle France, and I’m not interested in typical KZbin gaming channels

[@charleshamilton9274]

This was very clearly needed. Too many, myself included, arrived in France with our “textbook French” and immediately sounded like idiots to the average Joe on the streets of Paris. I imagine French speakers face the same dilemma; they arrive in the USA and we cringe at their clumsy attempts to speak 21st-century colloquial American/English. Note to French teachers everywhere: For the love of God, mention early in the teaching process the easy, informal, conversational French we will desperately need once we land at Charles de Gaulle.

[@autreUS4]

Charles Hamilton same, you don’t how many times I’ve heard “j’aime la pizza”

[@renovation-maison]

Foreigners don't sound like fools to the average Joe on the streets of Paris. Non-native speakers DO sound like fools if they try to speak like native speakers. Native speakers of a language dont't expect foreigners to speak like a native!

[@BigfistJP]

In my view, learning a foreign language in a typical American school leaves one ill prepared to speak it in a foreign country. I believe a lot of internet courses offer better instruction. I took both Rocket French and Rocket German and have conversed in both France and Germany without issues. What trips most of us (Americans) up is the speed of the language, which is difficult for non native speakers to keep up with. But my experience in both countries is that the natives will slow their pace down considerably to allow you to understand them. In France especially, but also in Germany, the local people appreciate the attempt to speak their language.

[@HalOBrien]

Average Jean, surely. {ducks}

[@She-wolf3636]

@@BigfistJP in my case, I learned in Canada, so my accent was totally different. I got some... interesting comments when I went to France.

[@gaston.]

merci Géraldine, these lessons are most practical and valued for getting to that goal of conversing in French.

[@mizzmusicthief]

I love how you slowed his speech down for us, isolating the consonant abbreviations he did. Merci comme toujours pour votre aide avec la français!

[@aela8060]

Le français* :P

[@nidan4970]

Je suis français et je comprend que sa doit être difficile pour vous de l’apprendre 😂

[@jairdamian9245]

I knew it! I knew it!. :O You, French people, tend to eat, not only letters but, entire words!! I often feel very frustrated because when I see videos or listen to some audios and I get to have available subtitles, I noticed that very often some letters and even complete words in those subtitles are not even pronounced and I got to the point of thinking that I was too slow to get 'em words accurately since it did not make any sense to me. But now, you have given an answer to that question of mine. I guess I need to try and be not so... "grammatical" all the time. : /

[@jeffw1267]

My dad used to travel to France a lot and he said the way to pronounce French words was to leave off the last four letters of each word. He was only partly joking..

[@unotwotriquatre]

Well, I do that in my native language (Portuguese), and that is done A LOT in English too; it was a pain in the ass for me to get used to spoken English. It's probably safe to say that all languages are like that, we don't have to pronounce every single letter to make ourselves understood.

[@leviosadream2454]

Actually, that difference between spoken and written French comes from the fact that writing is kind of a standardized thing in France. Someone writing contracted words would be seen as dumb (as they are no rules for contracting words in French). So casual French and writing/story-like French are kinda different (event with the tenses we use, like for past subjunctive, that we only use at writing) 😊

[@eleonorer.6861]

You should not come in Quebec, with French-Canadians... But in fact, this tendancy is in each language to some extent... The written langage and the oral, coloquial language tend to vary from each a other a lot...

[@_jeff65_]

@@eleonorer.6861 Yup we took it to the next level in Quebec! But I think English wins in shortening words. Worcestershire is pronounced Wosteshir...

[@gill426]

He also swallowed the "a"s though, the phrase "Je pense que ça aurait été tendu." Was kinda shortened to "J'pense qu'c'aurait été tendu." I really love the way you explain it though, great video, I subscribed to your channel. :) I love French very, very much, I'm German myself but I speak it fairly well and when I was in France it was basically "understand or get reckt", so I figured out my way through the swallowed vowels and consonants and often words. 🙈😉 I kinda really like it now. 😊

[@lugano1999]

An excellent breakdown. The big issue is that French, although a Romance language has a Celtic phonology thus it has a unique place in the Romance language world in that regard.

[@gauthapandith]

yeah, not all of us want to become language experts , even those who speak mother tongue fluently re not language experts, make no mistake !

[@sunfirefire45]

It makes sense that they would omit 'ne'. When I am in a conversation I feel like I drag my sentence out and then that makes me forget the rest of what I want to say for a minute.

[@tmhc72_gtg22c]

I knew someone who took a French immersion course at Middlebury College in Vermont. In the course, they taught French the way it really is spoken by native speakers. He showed me textbooks from the course that had the real way to pronounce things in French, which was extremely different from the way I was taught to pronounce French. The phrase I remember seeing in one of his textbooks is that "Je ne sais pas" is pronounced chépa.

[@mickaelcoulon5604]

when we saiy it i think we said like : j'sais pas and it soud a little bit like a "ch"

[@mickaelcoulon5604]

sound

[@eobrien1]

Thanks for this video, Géraldine! I think it’s very important for French learners to realize that this way of speaking is so common and very natural in everyday French, and that getting comfortable with it is so important because you’re going to hear things just like this most of the time. I am a high school French teacher and am always trying to show little things like this, and have a few phrases I use in class with students to show this (I use ‘chais pas’ a lot) but I will of course still show the formal/correct way written. I think it’s important to know both. You articulate things so well, like in this, and I LOVE your example of using a current, quick, news clip. Merci, c’est génial!

[@ellie2829]

I wish I had had a teacher like you! All I was taught was formal french that nobody speaks!

[@aliens7719]

Ellie that’s wrong darling, there isn’t a big difference between everyday french and formal French, if you do speak French you’ll notice that je sais pas et je ne sais pas are the same thing, it’s like formal and informal English I do not know and I don’t know. C’est mon interprétation personnelle, je suis pa français et on m’a jamais appris qu’il y a une différence entre le français de tout les jours et le français littéraire.

[@gauthapandith]

I disagree, when I first spoke English , even now , I do not think native speakers would not understand me , I have to repeat many a times , do I care ? Of course not !

[@uptoncriddington6939]

He also has a slight lisp which makes him even harder to understand when he revs up.

[@pylchott9864]

I'm South African and a Northern Sotho speaker. The "swallowing" or "eating" of the *e* also occurs in my language if the *e* produces the vowel made by the *i* in the English word "big." Also, we have the notorious French R sound (which we write with a G) though we also have the Spanish R too (tapped or trilled), so that's cool as most languages have one or the other but rarely both. One other thing is that while in English they say "I'm 20," the French will say *"j'ai 20 ans"* and we will say *"Ke na le mengwaga ye 20"* and it literally translates to "I have 20 years" just as it does in French. Finding such parallels in these completely unrelated languages makes French a lot less unnatural, and reminds me that I sometimes might need to put aside my Anglo-centric mindset when dealing with other languages.

[@drjp4212]

Brazilian Portuguese speaker. We also have both R's, and the "campagne" regions in Brazil also have the English "R". Thus, Portuguese has three types of "R's". Eu tenho vinto anos -> J'ai vingt ans -> I have twenty years, too. Specially that province accent, it tends to eat word terminations and, sometimes, merging or simply dropping some words.

[@Plethorality]

That was really interesting. Thank you.

[@cindimahtaj6455]

🇿🇦

[@magentaMegi]

Thw differences between standard French grammar that's taught in schools are so different than colloquial language that is used every day by native speakers.

[@blueturquoisett8448]

This is exactly what I thought when I don't understand the spoken. It's not as formal as we learnt.

[@Laurent69ftm]

But they never told you that the "ne" is often dropped?

[@Anna-ou7or]

@@Laurent69ftm I studied french at school for 6 years and in that time... no. 😂 Spoken French is so difficult to understand because it is so fast and then they go and make it even more difficult. 🤣

[@magentaMegi]

@@Anna-ou7or yeah, why not? I got this from watching French films, but my exams tended to be full of irregular verbs and other useless stuff.

[@wallj8720]

yeh i took like 7 years of french from middle school to college and I only really started understanding spoken french after just watching lots of french youtubers like cyprien and some french shows/films, so its become pretty easy, but they don't teach you how to understand colloquial french in school

[@Joshua-dl3ns]

@@Laurent69ftm entering my 4th year in French and this is the first time hearing about this.. I have never ever heard about "ne" being dropped

[@Swimmer47]

J'habite en France depuis six ans mais je ne parle pas très bien le français. C'est très frustrant.

[@TCt83067695]

Mais votre écriture est très bien

[@drjp4212]

La langue est pour communication, elle n'est pas pour appréciation social. Si tu peux la parler et l'entendre, c'est plus qu'assez.

[@ramisamman5674]

Please don't remind 8 years in Germany

[@andrewfletcher1341]

Courage ,cher ami ,si vous voulez pratiquer gratuitement avec moi ,pas de problème

[@souhridyobose4362]

Chsai, non?

[@J8n3eyr3]

Thank you! I can now better understand what is being said vs what is being translated into the subtitles. I couldn't figure out how I wasn't hearing some phrases. Turns out those words were never there to be heard!

[@junquette3000]

I don't know how the YT algorithms brought me here, but I will definitely stay. You had me at the title. Subscribed!

[@Neyobe]

This is so helpful! Merci beaucoup

[@helioliskfire5954]

There was one speech where he spoke very slowly because I think that was when he made an announcement about how the COVID-19 situation was worsening.

[@karmakanic]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video. I had been very diligent about my daily French practice up until recently, when I suddenly listened to a bunch of full-speed French and got very discouraged. Living in New York right now under 8pm curfew, with constant helicopter noise overhead, under quarantine, having to wear a mask, unable to travel...yeah that probably didn't help. Anyway, I feel a renewed energy to jump back into it thanks to this video. Thank you!

[@Commeunefrancaise]

Thanks Paul! Take care :) (- Arthur, pour Comme une Française)

[@makeyourself1988]

I really struggle with this. Your videos are incredible. Merci beaucoup :)

[@sanjj_1]

super helpful!! do a series with more of exactly this!!

[@charlesciaravino]

Merci pour cette video! C'est très informatif!

[@rauldempaire5330]

Merci Beaucoup Geraldine, in my opinion you're one of the best KZbinr's instructor en francais. Es como si usted adivinara cuales son las necesidades del estudiante!😊

[@almatoledo1608]

I believe it is the speed and tempo, because I understand everything you say. Merci!

[@atransstar]

This was a very helpful video & explains alot of why I am having trouble understanding spoken French. Merci!

[@messyjessy9]

Merci pour la vidéo! C’est une très bonne idée!

[@mikkiduf]

Thank you for understanding the difficulties I’ve had understanding French tv shows and movies!!!!

[@ABC_Guest]

For the phrase "je pense que ça aurait été tendu" I slowed it down to 1/4 speed, and what I heard phonetically was something like "j'pense que c'aurait étendu" - I always have trouble with parsing out words when I listen to French so I enjoyed the video, even though I expect to still struggle with this for a while.

[@Laurent69ftm]

No it's pronounced "CH'pense que ç'aurait été tendu".

[@rickharriss]

A big issue is when we speak our native language we don't make spaces between the words. Because of that a foreigner finds it hard to separate the words even if they know the vocabulary. I travelled widely in Europe for my job and was told many times that my English (i am from UK) was very clear and easy to understand, why? Because when talking to people who do not speak totally fluent English I make an effort to put a slight space between the words. It gives them a much better chance to hear them and understand.

[@anyonecangarden-Alexa]

Thank you Geraldine!. Really helpful.

[@heybye77]

Amazing video, thank you!

[@james-p]

C'est un super video, merci!

[@TheAlmightyAss]

Merci pour cette!

[@SnowflakeTea]

very helpful thank you

[@peterescalante1207]

Thanks so much for your lessons! What I'm starting to understand is that grammatical rules are general guidelines that provide a loose framework of the language but it is important to grasp the flow of the conversational style and follow it much like you would when you get a feel for the wind and the water when you are sailing. Merci beaucoup!

[@elisabethrichard]

It's really just that the grammar of spoken French has evolved (as it is expected to) while the grammar of written French pretty much won't budge, and both are getting more and more disconnected. This happens in a lot of language (if not most, and if not all), but compared to some other languages, this gap seems to be pretty big in French.

[@supergillou6596]

Vous avez une parfaite maîtrise du français et vous avez très bien expliqué en anglais. Ce qui est navrant, c'est de voir qu'un ministre de la république s'exprime aussi mal dans sa langue maternelle et emploie le langage populaire, alors qu'il représente l'élite de la nation. En plus il est médecin, donc nous avons la certitude qu'il a fait des études universitaires. Il donne comme image de la France à l'étranger, l'image d'un pays et d'un peuple assez peu éduqué, assez vulgaire et ordinaire.

[@DavidMichaelCommer]

My French teachers taught us that "Je ne sais pas" often is spoken as "Je'n sais pas" or "Je sais pas," but they never taught us "Chay pas," and hearing that, I'm thinking "chez pas" and wondering whose house the person is talking about.

[@tenga3tango]

I love your new look, it looks more academic, thanks

[@user-ou9kv5cz2c]

When I started learning French and listening to native speakers here in France, I often heard, what I though was, the word 'ski'. Crikey, they talk about skiing alot. Until the day it dawned on me that they're actually saying 'ce qui'.

[@Zamalandre]

Bravo, Géraldine ! Je suis français mais j’ai étudié des langues étrangères et c’est exactement le genre de vidéos qu’on recherche quand on veut apprendre la langue parlée, peu importe la langue étudiée. C’est du super travail, comme d’habitude, et je rajouterais que c’est drôle de voir que ces expression si communes pour nous mais qui semblent incompréhensibles de prime abord pour les étrangers ! Je ne me rendais pas compte à ce point que ça pouvait poser problème pour quelqu’un qui apprend notre langue !

[@chaos4living676]

Au Canada, quand les anglais parlent le francais, il confondent souvent le masculin du féminin. Une chaise devient un chaise et la porte devient le porte. Par contre, ils n'ont aucunes difficulté à manger les mots de négation parce qu'on ne l'utilise jamais en paroles, mais en écrits seulement. Un peu comme ils le font déjà avec le retrait du "not". Ils écrivent : I'm going to the grocerie store. ( je vais à l'épicerie ) Ils disent : I'm gonna go to the grocerie store.

[@chaos4living676]

Désolé mauvais exemple. Ils écrivent : This is not right. ( Ça ne va pas ) Ils vont dire : This isn't right. I did not slept with her ( je n'ai coucher avec elle ) = I didn't slept with her.

[@Anteater23]

More of this please

[@pizza9467]

I really really wanted to enrol to your online course géraldine. But unfortunately, i am a complete beginner so im gonna have to wait until i get a decent grasp of french language through binge-watching all your videos from years ago to the recent ones. I'll patiently learn them so i can experience your teaching at a more detailed level and of course to improve my french coz i really want to go to france since i was young (now im 25). :) Everytime i practice reading french words, your voice is what i hear mentally. Please keep being lovely to all your viewers! You dont know who you are inspiring from all parts of the globe. :)

[@gauthapandith]

YES, exposure and slow learning help a lot. I never learnt English in any formal manner. Never took any English lessons , just by self - learning. Same would work for French , the exposure is the KEY !

[@clover_20]

Merci Géraldine. À part comprendre un tel français, il me reste parler dans cette façon. Je kiffe trop ça surtout la vitesse de parler cette langue. Thanks again G.

[@michgreeno1]

This helps a lot, I watch French dramas and have often wondered why some words appear to be missing, I haven’t gone cold turkey on the subtitles yet but this will help.

[@MTMF.london]

I remember my French teacher (in College) giving me a good talking to when I tried to speak regular conversational French by dropping the "ne" in "Je ne sais pas"!

[@christopherbeckerdite4273]

Merci beaucoup de votre aide

[@positiveandstrong]

Formidable! Merci!

[@briantb5550]

Merci Beaucoup

[@jacquiposener7262]

Excelllent et merci!

[@robasszia2556]

Does she remind anyone else of Anne Hathaway?

[@LaRoche_]

Elle a un petit je-ne-sais-quoi en effet 😏

[@chadbridges4304]

She reminds me of liza minnelli.

[@joeconrad3828]

Absolutely. They could be sisters. Both beauties.

[@patriciapinheiro8540]

@@chadbridges4304 I paused the video just to look if someone else thought the same

[@SlimBarista]

I feel like a douche (btw, how come the English has bastardized such a beautiful French word?) for saying that, but I've always thought that Géraldine looks like the feminine version of Jimmy Fallon.

[@Jennifer-jn3qx]

I'm going to a wedding in France next summer, and I was already worried about not being able to speak to anyone with my very limited grasp of French. Now I know I'm screwed.

[@AdrianLopez-sc6zw]

Merci, bocup Geraldine,

[@okereokero]

Merci bien

[@anthonyduckworth9106]

super , merci bien 👍💖

[@bgriffiths1840]

This is why conversation and/or immersion is essential and learning from books for any language will never get you to conversational fluency. French is my second language but he’s extremely easy to understand. When I left university it might have been a struggle. After spending time in Quebec and France it all comes together.

[@xolang]

Merci beaucoup ! in my language there's a tendency to do the opposite, for example the word for France or French can be written as Prancis OR Perancis, with the latter adding a schwa (e) to avoid the consonant cluster "pr", which actually also happens in English, where you write and pronounce "battEr" instead of "battre", just as many other words originally ending in -tre/-dre/-pre, but end up being pronounced (and often also written) as -ter/-der/-per.

[@diomedes8791]

Greetings Geraldine - and thank you for making videos like this one (and all the others 😜) Whereas I am doing fairly well with written French, spoken casual French seems like an insurmountable barrier to me. Following your lucid explanations gives me hope that I may just crack the code to understanding spoken French someday. Merci Geraldine, et salutations de la Norvège!

[@mickaelcoulon5604]

u still have struggle? I can help u if u want (i'm french)

[@gauthapandith]

I studied in English without knowing any rules of grammar, back then I could not understand Sesame Street show in TV( not a word!) . SO you will eventually get there , it is only a matter of time. Keep listening and your brain will tune into it eventually with no effort.

[@hamishmcmaniac3049]

You are just amazing with your explanation, so thank you so much ❤💛 XXXXXX

[@mjw12345]

Nice discovery, your YT site.

[@noaccount9985]

I don't know if you noticed but everytime we speak French our sounds are always precise and this point in particular makes sense a bit like on a piano paper like for a short melody

[@seekingthemiddleway4048]

Chépa = "dunno". One thing I've never understood is why "mind your own business" is "de quoi je me mêle" rather than "de quoi tu te mêles?"

[@AerielFerguson]

I'd like a video with more casual everyday words please

[@archanagollerkeri5621]

Love your channel. Can you please do a detailed video on the French R? The different ways to pronounce the alphabet and the context, if that matters. I find that this is a very common issue for French learners and that all the YT videos I've watched of the French R contradict one another, apart from giving all kinds of circus tricks and tips to nail the R.

[@philiplebet8363]

In Montréal and LaFayette, they trill the "r" as do the Italians and Spanish.

[@eiram649]

Ca restera un mystère pour moi... Le français est ma langue maternelle, et KZbin continue de me recommander des vidéos pour bien parler français... Et je continue de les regarder... Je suis la seule ? 😂

[@ruthnoemibendel]

Hahaha pareil pour moi! Mais perso je trouve ça super intéressant parce que je prends connaissance de la difficulté de la langue et de petites habitudes langagières dont je ne me rendais pas compte avant parce que j'ai grandi en parlant français.

[@f2lautus]

Pareil, dans mes recommandations sans trop savoir pourquoi. Je regarde pas vraiment les vidéos mais j'essaie de répondre aux questions dans les commentaires

[@ritanassif918]

Haha j’ai adoré la blague sur vos options de vacances et celles de M. Véran!

[@Commeunefrancaise]

Merci Rita! (- Arthur, pour Comme une Française)

[@rafiqkie]

First i saw britanny accent in news about all France regional accent, then i saw your clip & admit it's admire it! .. Hello from 🇲🇾

[@shmoelhamesry3301]

This is exactly what I have been looking for , for so long. How do you get what is written in the subtitles from what I just heard. Thanks a lot.

[@katherinemarsh784]

"Formidable" est un description je use tout le temps avant votre instruction. I don't sound like a text book. :) J'aime votre lessons. Je comprend spoken Francais. Quel temps je parle "Parle lentement s'il vous plait." :)

[@fahadshaheen2373]

Great dear as usual. I think the font type appearing on the screen is little bit difficult to read. Also appreciate talking a bit slower.

[@documentarylevi]

I needed this video . I'm learning french using duolingo for a few months and decided to watch a french twitch streamer to see how much i understand thinking i'd understand about 10-20% of what she is saying, only to be horrified to realise that i understand almost nothing. and then i started questioning my learning ability and duolingo, i almost wrote them an strongly worded email requesting harder lessons becuase apprently i've got no progress from months on the app lol, this video came at the right time.

[@rkoshar]

I think Duolingo is great for learning vocabulary and sentence structure, but it is definitely no replacement for exposure to naturally spoken French. I think to really progress you need a variety of stimuli in your target language. Take a class, watch tv and films, read and write, and most importantly, parler, parler, parler!

[@NazmusLabs]

Subscribed!

[@katherinemarsh784]

Geraldine :) Je travail aux film business. Dans le film business there are beaucoup physical actions which don't involve parlent. Beaucoup de votre mot dans les films are physical actions et n'est pas mots.

[@donaldmason7081]

Gerry j aime tes videos, merci probably some incorrect words but I am an old English Quebecer ( a tete correr) et je parle Francaise comme a vache Anglaise. Keep the video coming

[@philiplebet8363]

"tête carée", pas "correr"; quelque fois rendu "blocque carée". "Blocque" veut dire "tête" en Louisianne et Québec.

[@manuelhernandez589]

Hi. Nice video. But do you have more videos like this one or a dedicated course about this topic? I've been searching information in the internet but it seems that no one wants to teach these contractions at least for free

[@berndtnording4856]

Clearly a student of French should learn "correct" French, and also these "rules" of real spoken French, as they are necessary just to understand someone speaking French. But as an obvious foreigner that just barely gets by at a conversational level (with lots of mistakes thrown in), is it appropriate for me to try to adopt these "rules" at this stage??? Totally off topic, but since you live in Grenoble, do you ever go to le Coupe Icare that's held every year just a few kilometers from you? I was able to attend (for the fifth time) last year. It exemplifies many of the things I love about France, and I'm happy to say that every year I'm able to understand a bit more of what is said than the previous time. Sadly, it's definitely outside of my "vacation radius" this year. Your videos always put a smile on my face :-) Salut de Californie!

[@-kahmi-]

do as you want, yes it's good to be able to understand it but a foreigner trying to speak like that would probably sound weird to me

[@timothyfritsch8801]

hello everything cool how,s little guy doin umm do not worry prof umm fell way way behind so i replay your videos very slowly as i am trying to write also in french already filled 20 pages picking threw here and there as i guess i was doing it wrong looking at book and trying to write so i must restart,,alas your impact is incredible so wupee and thank,s

[@WahjoeGunawan]

Hallo Geraldine, love your channel, for practising French. Do you have any recommendation for listing casual daily French like this or books ? It is so different than I learn in Institute French. Merci beaucoup.

[@mickaelcoulon5604]

u could watch some videos in french about video game or anything, it can help u a lot

[@WalkerOwsley]

I have also heard « J’ai pas » instead « Je ne sais pas » in conversation. It confused me the first time I heard it!

[@Laurent69ftm]

It's not "j'ai pas" but "CHAIS PAS"! In fact we first drop the "ne", hence "je sais pas" but we also drop the "e" of "je", hence "j'sais pas", but we even transform the sound "j" into a "ch" (note that the French "ch" sounds "sh" in English), in some word combinations the "j" becomes "ch", hence "ch'sais pas", but in the process the initial "s" of "sais" is eaten by the "ch", hence the "CHAIS PAS"!! (But please note that the affirmative version of this phrase is pronounced "ch'sais", not "chais").

[@johnsonfernandez4999]

This is my problem also with learning french. Reading is easy to understand but when someone speaks in French I'm having hard time comprehending what is being said.

[@danielpra2850]

Bonne vidéo. Exactement, cela rend si difficile de regarder des films français ou la télévision

[@robertmorley3609]

I'm English and I don't understand English films or TV drama!

[@fredericmichel6287]

ok you compare the pronunciation between French and English so yes is true we use short expression or reduce the grammatical sentence but in English also example I will going to London and I 'll going to London right or I cannot do it / I can't do it Je suis francais donc oui nous aussi on reduit nos phrases bonne journee have a great day

[@pmac5934]

Wow . I have to keep listening to you .I spent loads of tie asking French friends to slow the fuck down . You help . Ta

[@sanketdandekar641]

J'ai tout compris

[@EH-pe2sv]

The minister talking and news shows on tv are somehow easier to follow. Try Skam France...I basically can’t understand anything, it seems like french kids/ados are speaking a different language. When they speak, it feels like something in their mouth and they don’t open their mouth to pronounce and they skip to pronounce so many sounds in one sentence, let alone the slang...very frustrating to try to keep it up and understand.

[@moodbeast]

How are you watching that show? Is it on Prime?

[@EH-pe2sv]

@@moodbeast on youtube, francetv slash. It is free to watch.

[@nicot6530]

Actually you're right when you say that French teenagers and young adults do not make enough efforts to be cleared understood... we're used to speak fast and with many contracted words because we are aware that we're not speaking to foreigners. Otherwise we tend to adapt our language to them don't worry and keep struggling because it's the only way to improve your skills.

[@EH-pe2sv]

@@nicot6530 Thanks for your reply. It amazes me that french kids are "mumbling " (according to american english standard) and they could still understand each other....and i am not even talking about the minorities speaking which normally have very strong accents, and this is not about the accent at all...so i have to play the video at speed of 0.5 to recognize that yeah they are really saying the sentences what the subtitle shows just they really skip the sounds so fast and select only a few sounds within one sentence.

[@moodbeast]

@@EH-pe2sv Thank you. I've also tried to watch Bref (also available on KZbin). Both shows in terms of learning French are daunting and still entertaining.

[@user-ep4yk3td2u]

Aaaaaaaaand this is why I chose Russian over French. I will admire the language through the food. music, and cinema, but with subtitles. ;)

[@swifteh1780]

Salut Géraldine, I'm a recent subscriber to your channel - which is helping me to understand the French language better - so merci! Anyway, I have a recommendation that I think could be beneficial to many people learning the French language. Why do French people replace "encore" with "toujours"? I'm an English native who is married to a Spanish speaker, and yet we cannot understand why there is any need to change this around. Encore is still; Something that has not changed since the last time. Toujours is always; Something that has never changed at all, or something that is very, very common and/or repetitive. So the phrase: "Il est toujours la", could mean "He is still there", or it could mean "He is always there" (Actually it could also mean "he is still here" and "he is always here", but I'm not getting into the difference between "la" and "ici") If someone says to me: "Eh, tu es toujours au bar", I could get the impression that this person thinks I'm an alcoholic who is always drinking at a bar, when this is certainly not the case. So....what the fuck!? Aha. Why mix the two words, when they express two different things? And it's not only an English thing. In Espanol, "encore" is "todavia", and "toujours" is "siempre", yet in Espanyol, the two words are never interchanged. Do you know why this is? Could you make a video explaining why? Merci beaucoup, David Bis.

[@Laurent69ftm]

I don't know why this is, but it's correct, colloquial probably but correct.

[@gynyy8912]

Hey! I would say to that: There are many ways to say one thing in french. I would not overthink this because, well, native speakers don't. We don't ask why can we say this and that while this mean that, etc. We just know that, one sentence can mean several things, just like you showed in your example. So how do I know which one is what? Context, intonation. If I say with a discouraged tone: il est toujours au bar! Well, that means that he is always at the bar, each day. If a say: il est toujours au bar? With a question mark and a confused look, well, i am asking if he's still at the bar. I hope this helps!

[@billyk8397]

It’s soooo frustrating; I read a French text and understand it pretty much perfectly but if the same set of words is spoken I’m like wat lolol

[@bridgetleonard6702]

I remember anyone telling me to drop the ne but I do it anyways.

[@WilfNelson1]

Puis comment doit on apprendre ecouter si le francais est pas le meme? Let me know what mistakes I made in writing that, english keyboard so did my best

[@nabinabhattacharyya3362]

Bonsoir Géraldine, merci beaucoup pour votre vidéo. Je sais pas l'utilité de ‹ j'pourrai pas›.

[@mickaelcoulon5604]

it's like : " je ne pourrais pas"

[@cwebbwash3]

Geraldine, does the sticker on your laptop say "you are beautiful"? And if so, did you get that sticker when you went to Chicago?

[@supertamu1]

Bonjour. I wondered what you, or someone you know who has gotten a good grasp of a new language would say about trying to learn through apps such as Duolingo, Memrise, Busuu etc. as the primary way of practice?

[@f2lautus]

These apps are good for beginners, as a way to learn vocabulary and get acquainted with the language. It shouldn't be the primary learning tool though imo because they don't teach grammar rules. There are books and websites that are very useful, with detailed lessons on verbs, grammar, etc. You might also consider taking classes. And next step is reading, watching, listening to as much content as possible, getting a language buddy, going to the country (depending on what you can do/afford)

[@KokomaruTV]

Oui c'est vrai, toutes ces abréviations, que l'on fait au quotidien à l'oral, ne doivent pas être évidente pour les personnes apprenant le français.

[@zimmergameszimmerc6077]

Ich wieß im Deutsch sprechen nicht Französisch sprechen? (I think I Sade that right? ButI’am still learning German also)

[@deahsarnosse4446]

I feel stressed lol. Im just here wonderg how i will ever get to where i can understand at this level.

[@trangnguyen-tj7nb]

Me too 😭 how is your journey of learning french going

[@deahsarnosse4446]

@@trangnguyen-tj7nb its been ok so far. I just wish I had better motivation. How about you?