This article explores the benefits of learning French beyond basic communication. It highlights the cultural immersion, English vocabulary enhancement and the appreciation for the French language's seriousness.
Le mot juste can be a portal into another world entirely – but make sure you know your chicken from your horseFast forward 40 years to another family holiday, this time in Paris with my own children. Holding my own this time (or so I thought) with theI took it as a small victory that the waiter laughed with me this time, not at me. And in my defence suchBut it was further proof that my grasp on the language hadn’t improved much in four decades.; the subjunctive I mostly don’t even attempt.
I can’t for the life of me get my tongue around the r in, I persist. I gave my French a red-hot go on that last trip to Paris, even managed a discussion of the pension age with a very forgiving cab driver. What I lacked in fluency, I made up for in enthusiasm and hand gestures.It’s satisfying when you can bridge the language divide but beyond the practicalities of communication there are other reasons not to give up French: 1. It opens the door to French culture, history, politics, film and literature. You can escape the Anglosphere for a bit – keep up with the latest political crisis in Paris, read a French novel, watch the French thriller Lupin on TV. And translation can only get you so far. It’s an art, not a science, so inevitably an interpretation; English translators can’t even agree on the famous first line of2. Learning French can help your English. It’s estimated about 40% of English words are derived from French; they crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror in 1066. Many are obvious (that’s why French Wordle isn’t as difficult as you might think) and in my conversation class we can often guess the French word based on the English. Others are less apparent – I only recently realised the connection between inevitable and3. The French take their language seriously – and that appeals to a longtime subeditor like m
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