I was here on reddit and I was checking out a few french posts one of them said "y a-t-il un avantage à ce que cette langue ne soit pas enseignée dans votre L1?" Why is it "à ce que cette" and not just "à cette"?

How would I guess whether a verb is followed by à or de if I didn't already memorize it? I know there aren't any rules but are there any generalizations that can help?

As the title states, I would like to learn French for my girlfriend. she's fluent, and ao is the reat if her family. (That, and I want to go into paleontology. A foreign language is highly recommended, so I'm sure you can see why I picked French). I'm starting with Duolingo and a couple French dictionaries to help me out with vocabulary, but I know Duo isn't the best place to learn grammar a d scentence structure.

I know it won't be super easy, but I'm aiming to at least have a short and coherent conversation in French by the end of the year. Nothing fancy, and nothing too in depth. Just a small benchmark for myself, ya know?

Any suggestions on how I can learn grammar without spending money/spending bot a lot? Small tips to know? What I should focus on first, and what I should focus on most? Any help is appreciated! I hope you all have a lovely day :D

My note in class pls excuse my poor hand writing.

I am a french student and doing A2.2 + A2.3 from alliance français de delhi. And still I'm keep doing silly grammatical mistakes or keep forgetting about the tenses (that what ending should be add after the verb). And sometimes whenever I speak in the class, I can't able to find words to speak...and because of this I always feel so low and frustrated...I want to talk this as my career...what should I do so that I can speak almost fluently...

I’m at a point in learning French grammar where I have to first learn what the grammar rule is in English before I can even begin to relate it to French.

In english, I was never really taught grammar. I never thought about different past tenses or conditional tenses or subjunctive tenses and I can just know the conjugation by intuition. I even just learned that English also has a subjunctive.

Can I study French the same way? Read and listen until it sounds right? Or is it better to memorize every grammar rule/tense.

Hey everyone, I’m working on learning French for my career and would like to start listening to music that is French as a way to immerse myself in the language. Does anyone have any suggestions for artists to listen to? If it helps at all I currently listen to Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons, Bruno Mars, early 2000’s pop music so anything along those lines would be great

c'étaient aussi les salariés sans enfants qui se voyaient refuser leurs vacances si tout le service décidait de les prendre en même temps.

i am wondering why it is imperfect? isnt it a conditioanl sentence?

Coucou!

J'ai récémment installé l'application "Hello Talk" qui me permet de parler avec des gens français afin d'entrainer mon expression écrite. Je me familiarise avec de nouveaux mots d'argot, des raccourcis SMS, etc. Aujourd'hui, en parlant avec un garçon, j'ai rencontré une expression un peu inhabituelle—du moins, je ne l'ai jamais entendu utilisé. Ce graçon m'a demandé ce que je fais de beau. J'ai traduit cette question littéralément, me disant qu'elle voulait dire: "What are you doing that's beautiful?" Mais je suis sûre que cette traduction n'est pas juste. Pourriez-vous m'aider? Je connais l'expression "avoir beau" mais ce n'est pas pareil en tout cas. Sur Internet, les gens disent que c'est l'equivalent de demander "quoi de neuf" mais je voulais vérifier avec vous.

Merci beaucoup! Et s'il y a des erreurs dans mon message, corrigez-moi!

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For example how do you say 'I want to 'f' you

For example how do you say 'I want to 'f' you

«  y’as bien de ça 7/8 ans mais j’avais pas envie »

I searched up what this sentence meant and I found “ it’s definitely 7/8 years old but I didn’t want it”

Is that’s right and if so can someone explain why it’s set it this way.

Also why is there “as” behind the “y” instead of just “a”

Pls and thank you

From what I've read, the former means "to be (a bit) short on time" & the latter "to be on time".

My question is: can the latter mean both? Or does it need "un peu" in order to mean "short of"?

Thank you.

Hey all!

Background: I had gotten the B2 diploma ages ago, but haven’t practiced since then. Most of my grammar and spelling is gone now, however can still understand the basics. Reading is ok-ish.

Now, I live in a French speaking country. I speak English in my current job, but high French fluency would definitely increase my chances to find something else. Also, would help with everyday life.

I am starting an intensive A1-B1 group class in a couple weeks, I really want to make sure I get all the basics back and correct (especially grammar and spelling), and grow from there. I can and want to dedicate lots of my time in studying French.

Although I have tried many methods, I do like to follow books. Method books have always been the basis of language learning for me, and I supplement it with movies, apps etc.

In my classes we will be doing the Vite et Bien series by CLE and my professor also has their own material too.

I was tempted to get some books from the “progressive du français” series by CLE, although they have too many different ones: orthographie, civilization, grammaire, vocabulaire, conjugaison, litterature, phonétique, communication. Plus, multiple levels for each… I was thinking to pick only grammaire and orthographie for the beginning and maybe later on add vocabulaire, doing one chapter per week.

However, never worked with this series, so wouldn’t know what to expect or what is the best combination. “Conjugaison” for example should already be covered by the “grammaire” book. Looking at other publishing houses, there are many other attractive titles too, which makes it very difficult to make up my mind and pick the best book combo 😅 Any suggestion would be great!

Also: time commitment isn’t much of an issue, I am lucky that work is slow. And my aim would be (in the long term), to be as fluent as possible and be able to work fully in French. It would take a long time, but I am up for the challenge :)

Take German as an example. This language does have adjectives relating to every weekday:

(1) montäglich, (2) dienstäglich, (3) mittwöchlich, (4) donnerstäglich, (5) freitäglich, (6) samstäglich und (7) sonntäglich.

In French, the only adjective which relates to a weekday is « dominical ».

This adjective has two meanings:

(a) relatif au dimanche (b) qui provient du Seigneur

There are no similar adjectival constructions for the remaining days of the week in the French language.

This is the reason why I am proposing six neologisms, just for the fun of it.

(1) LUNDI could have {LUNÉDIEN} based on Latin LUNÆ DIES

(2) MARDI could have {MARTIDIEN} based on Latin MARTIS DIES

(3) MERCREDI could have {MERCURIDIEN} based on Latin MERCURII DIES

(4) JEUDI could have {JOVIDIEN} based on Latin JOVIS DIES

(5) VENDREDI could have {VÉNÉRIDIEN} based on Latin VENERIS DIES

(6) SAMEDI could have {SABBATIDIEN} based on Latin SABBATI DIES

As for the already existing « dominical », it comes from Latin DOMINICALIS, which in turn comes from DOMINICUS, which derives from DOMINUS.

Please note that the adjective « jovien » is found in the French lexicon, but it relates either to the Roman god Jupiter or to the eponymous planet.

A few examples:

« Je m’ennuie de nos soirées de poker vénéridiennes. »

« Le ramassage martidien des matières recyclables deviendra bihebdomadaire à compter du 1er janvier 2025 et il alternera avec celui des ordures. »

Anyway, I do not seriously see these neologisms being used in any possible future, but… something did happen with new pronouns ;-)

“Je le mets dans l’eau” (I put it in water)

Why l’eau and not de l’eau? This is not specific water?

I want to say that I’ve recently started to take on the challenge of learning Verlan, but I’m not sure how to articulate it properly (in spoken language). Can it be translated literally as “taking on the challenge”… I’ve never heard this turn of phrase I don’t think. I’ve only heard of completing a challenge or dealing with a challenging situation.

Thanks :)

Dans la dernière phrase << on vous la... >>, je crois la signifie << Une comedie romantique >>

In this case, the romantic comedy is of course a film which is masculine in french. Could the author have equally said << on vous le... >>. Is it common to an option for the pronoun when one thing can be referred to with terms with different genders?

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Hey!

Does anyone know what the virtual explore program is like? How long are classes what do you do?

Does anyone know which location offers a host family?

Curious to hear you out

Been studying for about 3months i am looking for French E-books i saw the pinned post with the b1 stories in google drive but honestly im quite sick of reading about "Claire arrivée en France" or the infinite storys at the cafe shop when it rains
I wanna read badass LoTR level stuff that don't put me to sleep or make me want to doom scroll on tiktok

For example:

« Je sais jouer du piano, je sais en jouer »

« Je sais jouer au foot, je sais y jouer »

I can’t get around to linking the verbs proposition to the usage of « y » and « en ». Is that how it would typically be used in everyday speech? Does it just sound wrong to a French speaker?

I recently wondered if, like in English, the French call mayonnaise “mayo.” If so, is it spelled the same way? Is it used commonly? Appreciate any insight!

Désolé pour le stupidité du photo

hi!!

I’ve been learning French for a while, and I’ve been trying to find some podcasts to listen to! my only problem is that I haven’t found any I like :/ in English, the only ones I really listen to are sort of like a few friends talking and telling personal stories! (I know these titles sound gross haha my apologies :)) like emergency intercom, cocteau twinks, talk nasty to me, etc.

if anyone has any recommendations I would love to hear them! thank you <3

OK. Here's the routine for the past several weeks:

0- Study anki deck with vocabulary from prior days.

1-Watch 3-6 minutes of Bojack Horseman. Audio: French. Subtitle: English.

Why English and not French? Because it's actually easier for me to grab the meaning in English and then map it to the French audio. If I read in French, I have to translate, and the mismatch between audio and subtitles is a trainwreck.

2-Create transcript of audio with Sonix.ai. Read transcript and create anki cards from words phrases I don't know.

3-Listen to audio while following along in the transcript.

4-Listen blind while rewinding to go over parts and try to pick up what's being said.

I've been doing this for about a month now. I notice I'm pretty good at understanding what I've studied, but I'm no better at understanding the new stuff--like, I feel like, at all.

Because the new material is still difficult, I wonder if I'm on the right track?

Some of the sentences can be long, and that's a challenge; reading them in isolation isn't too much of a challenge, but comprehension at full speed at first listen is probably too much to ask for. So maybe my audio decoding is fine, it's just the comprehension bit.

Any feedback? Should I be doing something else or in addition to?

I'm an A1/2 level looking to weave in more reading to my LL work. I'm deciding between two short story books: one by Dylane Moreau and one by Olly Richards.

Can anyone recommend which is better? Thanks!

Hi all,

I currently have a French level somewhere in the upper B2 range. I passed the DELF B2 last year, and have continued my personal studies as well as attending French classes locally since - I am planning to sit the DALF C1 later this year.

I'd like to use a two month break from work to learn French in France, but can't figure out which options are best for my level. The options I've been investigating are WWOOFING, various French schools, and perhaps less formal options such as couch surfing.

I plan to do specific C1 revision and classes after I return; the main goal of this trip would be to become comfortable in real world settings / experience speaking in a natural manner (rather than anything specifically exam oriented)

I would love to hear about your experiences with any of these, and any advice you guys have about learning French in France.

Thanks in advance!

Sentence 1: Tu ferais mieux de donner.

Sentence 2: Il vaut mieux donner.

Why is it "de" in the first sentence and just an infinitive in the second sentence?

Also why is it structured this way? Why can't we say "C'est mieux"?

So I thought that if you use the pronoun "en", you aren't supposed to state what "en" replaces. For example:

"J'ai de l'eau gazeuse. Tu en veux ?"

So I always thought it was an error to use "en" but also include the object that it replaces. Kinda like "J'y vais à la plage" - you aren't supposed to use "y" to replace where you're going (la plage) but also state the place anyways.

Is this correct or did I learn the rule incorrectly?

Btw, this post is piggy backing off of this post. I felt like a lot of the responses in that thread were generally unhelpful, and OP's question is not the same as my question, so I decided to repost a related question here.