02-07-2012, 01:16 PM
French Language Lessons
Introduction to Studying French
About French
French is a Romance language, descended from Latin and closely related to Portuguese, Spanish,
Italian, and Romanian. It is the native tongue of over 77 million people and has an additional 68 million
non-native speakers. In medieval times and until the 19th century, it was often the language used in
diplomacy, culture, administration, royal courts across Europe and also in trade, thus appropriately
becoming the lingua franca of its time.
In modern terms, it is still significantly used as a diplomatic language, being an official language of the
United Nations, the Olympic Games, and the European Union. It is spoken in France, Belgium,
Switzerland, Luxemburg, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Haiti, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, the Congo,
Algeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Gabon, the Seychelles, Burundi, Chad, Rwanda, Djibouti,
Cameroon, Mauritius, and Canada (mostly in the province of Québec, where it is the primary language,
but it is also used in other parts of the country - notably New Brunswick, which is the only bilingual
province. All consumer product packages in Canada are required by law to have both English and
French labels).
Advice on Studying French
French tends to have a bad reputation amongst English speakers as hard to learn. While it is true that it
poses certain difficulties to native English-speakers, it may be noted that English is also considered to
be 'difficult', and yet we learnt it without the benefit of already knowing a language.
Learning any new language requires some commitment, generally long-term. Remember that, like any
skill, it requires a certain amount of effort. And if you do not practice your French regularly, it is highly
likely that you will begin to forget it. Try to make it a part of your schedule; even if it's not daily, at
least make it regular.
Remember that you are learning a new skill. Try to master the simple stuff before moving on to the
more complex. We all have to add and subtract before we can do calculus.
French is a complete language. While this course can teach you to read and write in French, this is only
half of the skills that make up fluency. A written document cannot teach much about listening to and
speaking French. You must train all of these skills, and they will reinforce one another. For listening
and speaking, finding a native speaker to help you once you have some skill will help you with these
skills.
Grammar: Gender of Nouns | Grammaire: Genre des Noms
In French, all nouns have a grammatical gender, that is, they are masculine or feminine for the
purposes of grammar only.
Most nouns that express entities with gender (people and animals) use both a feminine form and a
masculine form, for example, the two words for "actor" in French are acteur (m) and actrice (f).
The nouns that express entities without gender (e.g., objects and abstract concepts) have only one form.
This form can be masculine or feminine. For example, la voiture (the car) can only be feminine;
l'ordinateur (the computer) can only be masculine.
There are some nouns that express entities with gender for which there is only one form, which is used
regardless of the actual gender of the entity, for example, the word for person; personne; is always
feminine, even if the person is male, and the word for teacher; professeur; is always masculine even if
the teacher is female.