Foriegn Languages

oliB said:
Yes, Gymnasium is for the smart kids. You don't have to be rich to go there though, it's free. Starting with 5th or 7th grade (depends on the state, although the trend is to start with 5th grade), there are 3 different types of schools:

- "Gymnasium" is for clever kids like me ;) , you are done after 12th or 13th grade (again, it depends on the state). Although there's a transition going on right now, they're changing it to 12 years of school in every state. (AFAIK that is, I'm already out of school.) You're only eligible to go to University if you attended Gymnasium.
- "Realschule", students graduate after 10th grade
- "Hauptschule", students are done after only 9 years of school

Teachers recommend to which school each student should go, but ultimately the parents decide. Needless to say, there are plenty of people who start going to Gymnasium but never graduate. :roll:
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I was about to go to Gymnasium with two other girls but I left the country on the 27th of August.

I know Polish (mother tongue so I'll never forget), German (lived 4 years and went to grades 1 through 4), and am now stuck in Canada where I learned English.
 
ruuman said:
Cheers for all the replies,

So basically I shouldn't have been born in England is probably the best advice I've gleaned ;)

I like the idea of just learning a ton of words first, I think I'll start there. Any one recommend some good french TV that I can get on bittorrent?
I've never been a huge fan of french cinema, La Hain is about the only film I really like.

I'd like to spend some more time in a another country, at the moment though my job isn't flexible to get more than 1 week off at the best.
The main reason I want to learn french is I'm going snowboarding again in Jan, last year I just felt like a burk as I couldn't speak a word to anyone on the ski lifts.
Also me and a load of my mates are going to go to the Normandy landing memorials and I want to have a chat with the old resistance guys and various soldiers while I still have the chance.

cheers
Ruu
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"H" seemed like a pretty funny show (I saw a few eps while I was in Switzerland a few years ago), though it might be hard to search for torrents with just one letter. :unsure:
 
My mother tongue is French, so I had to learn english.

We have english classes starting at grade 3 here (it has been 10 years since then)

But what really helped me is video games. no really. played diablo 2 in english, almost 24/7 (lol). watched the simpsons in english, read on the internet in english. after that watch tv in english, listen to anything you can.

What's missing is my spoken english, and that you can only learn by speaking it... thats where immersion is really useful.

but again, english is more universal than french, there is more content, its easier to find stuff in english.

but dont despair, french is a beautiful language!

Bonne chance! :thumbsup:
 
swek said:
Not being from an English speaking country always helps. :mrgreen:

Sorry, but you're f****d. There's no language with a real world value you could ever learn. That's if you're not planing to move to another country.
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Not true. You could learn Spanish and move to California.
 
better not bother learning grammar or vocabulary at all...we did that all the time at school and it just plain sucked. my english marks were horrible until i found teh internets, english books and films...i've never learned any grammar but i guess it kinda works. ;)
(and if my grammar sucks then it is your fault because i learned it here! :lol: )
 
ryosuke said:
better not bother learning grammar or vocabulary at all...we did that all the time at school and it just plain sucked. my english marks were horrible until i found teh internets, english books and films...i've never learned any grammar but i guess it kinda works. ;)
(and if my grammar sucks then it is your fault because i learned it here! :lol: )
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its fine on t'internet coz everones grammar sucks.
 
Canadian laws dictate that students outside Quebec must take French lessons for years starting in junior school all the way to high school. After six years of French I know a couple of words but I cannot put sentences together (no one outside Quebec can speak French).

To be honest, I really don't like the French language. I don't like the fact that 'Renault' is pronounced "ren-oh" while the "ault" part is completely thrown away. It's strange that - at least from an English linguistics point of view - every French word is pronounced differently from its spelling. It's like you have to remember how a French speaker pronounces new words in order for you to know its proper pronunciation. I would have preferred to learn phonetic languages like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or any other Romance languages besides French.
 
JoeBlo1 said:
Canadian laws dictate that students outside Quebec must take French lessons for years starting in junior school all the way to high school. After six years of French I know a couple of words but I cannot put sentences together (no one outside Quebec can speak French).
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Not true, I've lived in Canada all my life and have never once set foot inside a French class. Out here in Alberta, it's up to the school to decide whether it's mandatory or not.

That being said, I did take Japanese for three years for fun. Tough language.
 
It may be different in Alberta but it's definitely mandatory in Ontario.
 
take french courses, CD's and books are useless to start learning from scratch.. you need a teacher to help you pronounce right, teach their culture because some things in languages are only understood when you understand someone's culture. I forgot all my french because I didn't wanna learn the quebec french here.. its wierd! :/ now it sucks.. no time to take any courses so can't even learn the quebec french and now I can barely count in french :cry: .
 
For English I started a course when I was 8, so I had about 8 years of classes.
For Chinese Mandarin I hired a private teacher, and have been getting classes for 2 years...luckily, chinese grammar is very easy compared to Portuguese.
 
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