I have started using this website, https://www.duolingo.com/, it's quite good, to learn French. The grammatical structuring and syntax is not too difficult because I took Spanish in highschool and there is some overlap.

However, I'm having major difficulties with pronunciation. When I listen to the recordings, the words sound all blurred together. I am wondering if anyone who has self-learned a language can provide advice on how they mastered the speaking component?

Thanks.

Chaosu

Poland404 Posts

February 02 2014 20:00 GMT

From what I understand you have problems with both pronunciation and hearing. There are three solutions that I know of:
1. Find an audio course, where you will be listening to just one word (alternatively find some speaking engine and throw words there).
2. Talk to someone who is speaking French. There are multiple sites that offer exchange of language teaching, I'm sure many people in France are looking for English.
3. Watch cartoons for kids (possibly with subtitles). After few hours you should start recognizing easy words and phrases (I was watching the genius which is in Korean and after season and a half I can spot a bunch of words - if I had Korean subtitles on top of that I'm sure I would be starting to learn the basics by now).

Aeromi

France14455 Posts

February 02 2014 20:00 GMT

Your link is incorrect, here is the good one : https://www.duolingo.com/

I hope you'll suceed to learn the greatest language in the world.

If you want some help just PM me. ^^
Au revoir.

Kevin_Sorbo

Canada3217 Posts

February 02 2014 20:15 GMT

what is your level/ what are your expectations?

we can play some games over skype if you want.

Quebec native here though. not exactly ze french accent one might expect. I live in the eastern time zone btw.

Tobberoth

Sweden6375 Posts

February 02 2014 20:15 GMT

No worries, this is completely natural. Your brain is not used to the phonemes and allophones etc in French, making it hard for you to distinguish. The solution is simple: You have to get used to it. Listen to a TON of french. It's great if some of it is french you understand a bit of, but generally, you just need to expose yourself to a ton of it. Have french radio or french TV on in the background, listen to french music. It shouldn't be hard to find french movies etc. You don't even need to listen to it actively, just have it on in the background all the time. Your brain will get better and better at handling it, which will improve your hearing a ton, and when you can hear it better, you can mimic it better, which will help your pronunciation.

Meepman

Canada610 Posts

February 02 2014 20:59 GMT

You're facing some very common problems; to anybody who doesn't speak it, French just sounds like vague, yet somehow condescending mumbling.
The only only only way to fix that is to immerse yourself. Find all the French resources you can (music, tv, books, hell, maybe to start put a movie on in French with English subtitles and then work up) and spend as much time surrounded by that mumbling as you can.
After a while, when you know enough of the basic skills, it's probably just going to click all at once; when you get discouraged think how awesome that'll be :D

arb

Noobville17920 Posts

February 02 2014 21:09 GMT

just learn how to say "I surrender", thats all you really need to know imo.

FO-nTTaX

Johto4875 Posts

February 02 2014 23:32 GMT

I learned french once, because parts of my family only speak french. Since i can read phonetics from learning some other languages (including English), and based on this, it wasn't too hard to get the pronunciation mostly right. For me, it was harder to learn the vocabulary, since it's sometimes pretty different from other languages...

Spaylz

Japan1743 Posts

February 02 2014 23:38 GMT

On February 03 2014 05:59 Meepman wrote:
You're facing some very common problems; to anybody who doesn't speak it, French just sounds like vague, yet somehow condescending mumbling.
The only only only way to fix that is to immerse yourself. Find all the French resources you can (music, tv, books, hell, maybe to start put a movie on in French with English subtitles and then work up) and spend as much time surrounded by that mumbling as you can.
After a while, when you know enough of the basic skills, it's probably just going to click all at once; when you get discouraged think how awesome that'll be :D

You sir, have my made my day.

@OP,

I'm from France, and I'm currently working as a translator, so I can help as well.

Ring me up if you're interested.

goiflin

Canada1218 Posts

February 02 2014 23:41 GMT

#10

When I was learning French, I found that speaking with people was the best thing I could do to improve. If you don't live near any sort of French community, you can always find websites that are intended for people to speak to each other with the aim of improving their understanding/pronunciation. I don't remember any of them right now, but I'll poke around and see if I can find one again. You'd probably be teaching someone else English at the same time, but that would only really improve your understanding of how folks learn languages, and it'd augment your own ability to speak it at the same time.

And the whole sentences-blurring-together thing is really brought on by inexperience. Listen to it more often, keep practicing and you'll start to understand it better, but it takes time.

hp.Shell

United States2527 Posts

February 03 2014 05:21 GMT

#11

Languages learn themselves faster if you are observing someone. For example, say you were in a French-speaking area and you decided to spy close to a bread booth there, just to listen to the people talking. You might not know what they are saying, but perhaps the customer will say she wants two loaves, then the baker will ask "of what variety would you like them?" and the customer will respond with a name or two. Then as the baker is getting the bread ready, the customer may make some remark, perhaps commenting about the weather. The baker may reply. When it comes time to pay, the baker will say some numbers, and the final things they each say are "thank you," merci, or "bye," adieu.

You may try finding audio that you have the words to, and reading as the person is speaking the words. This should help a lot. I was always baffled by French pronunciation. That's why I'm learning Japanese and/or Korean!

Have fun.

WGT-Baal

France3307 Posts

February 03 2014 13:03 GMT

#12

hey! First of all, thank you for choosing French

I am learning Korean right now. I use books and online materials with recordings. It helps getting the "rhythm" of the language and the basic structure of the sentence.

For the writing part, French has an "interesting" grammar. Never wonder forever as to why a sentence is in a certain way. It just is that way, that's a fact. French has a lot of exceptions, some of them being really weird, accept it. There are a lot of French sentence structures that I would not be able to explain for the life of me.

Also French pronunciation is different from Spanish because not all the letters are spoken. It might also be weird at first (like why the hell do we need so many letter for a single sound?). Expose yourself to as much French as you can (if possible audio/video samples). I find music to be really good (especially if it is a song you like). Movies are good too as you will link the situation with the sentence. At some point though you will need someone to talk to. Do you know anybody that speaks French near you? (I assume you do, if not, what is your interest in learning the language?).

My last advice would be: don't be afraid to speak/write. You'll make mistakes, it's okay. That's how you improve. I have improved in English a lot thanks to internet grammar nazis correcting all of my mistakes. Don't take it personally when/if someone corrects you, that person is actually helping you.

Depending on how you work, you might want to set some sort of schedule and follow it. feel free to PM me

edit: format editing, to be clearer

enord

France258 Posts

February 03 2014 22:38 GMT

#13

moman has been streaming qte a lot recently and he speaks french (standard since he is french :^D ) on his stream, so maybe the sc environment would be of help, he is quite chatty and therefore you would hear a lot of vocabulary with propper pronounciation

plus he s fun and a good sc2 player

glhf, learning new languages while daunting at first is a real accomplishement / usefull in real life and on the internets

husniack

203 Posts

February 04 2014 00:05 GMT

#14

To everyone in here who offer me help, thank you. Currently, I am too much of a beginner so taking your help is waste of your time. But when I am a little bit more advanced, I certainly will!

Part of the reason I have chosen to learn French is since 12 years old, I have had crush on singer Alizze and listened to her songs. Also, it is romantic, beautiful language. I wish to one day take a girl to France and order her many foods.

Slowly, I am having some understanding of the random additional sounds, especially the "L." Chinese language, does this as well. Not with "L" sound, but with an "errr" sound.

Edit: Is there perhaps, French version website of teamliquid? Or Reddit? Where I can attempt to write on forum in french.

Darkren

Canada1841 Posts

February 04 2014 00:10 GMT

#15

try saying

Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches ou Archi-sèches!

or

Où niche la pie? La pie niche haut.
Où niche l'oie? L'oie niche bas.
Où niche l'hibou? L'hibou niche ni haut ni bas !

or

As-tu vu le ver vert allant vers le verre en verre vert

or the hardest one

Papier, panier, piano (multiple times)