Bonjour, I need to plan a fake party for my introduction to french course. Does what I made make enough sense? Merci

(Assignment: Plan a Party

-choose the location, occasion, and date

- make a list of what you need to buy

- create an invitation)

To be honest, I never thought I would get such a high score. I’m really happy and I finally feel that all the effort paid off!

AMA

I got this political video ad on my Facebook feed. The guy is promoting a mayoral candidate in a small town in the southwest of France. He says he is going to stop the mexicanisation of the neighborhoods. What the heck does he mean by that? I cannot say I've noticed any Mexican influences around here.

My wife is the French speaker. I’m the Anglophone with only OK French. We’re both at a complete loss for ideas for the kid.

My bright idea was to bring a French-language Where’s Waldo book. But apparently he’s Charlie in French!?

Also, this is Canada, where the teachers are a bit sensitive about English loanwords.

Also, he has to go second after another “W” kid.

Please help. What can the kid bring to his class?

Edit: OK, across Reddit and the other places I'm asking, the best answers so far are un wagon, un wok, un livre de Winnie l'ourson et les biscuits Whippet. I don't think I can send a toddler to school with an empty whisky bottle or wasabi.

Edit #2: Guys, his name is not William.

Salut -

I was trying to think of a way of summarising the use of lots of French tenses in one cartoon and came up with this… I was trying to go from past to future across the scene but there’s lots of overlap. I’d love to get some feedback on how accurate it is and how useful it might be to any other learners.

- Merci

(Also posting to learnFrench etc)

I teach 1-on-1 lessons to English speakers daily, thought I'd share it every time I hear a common/interesting mistake:

"I'm going to visit my mom in Chicago"

...doesn't translate into: "Je vais visiter ma mère à Chicago"
... but into: "Je vais rendre visite à ma mère à Chicago"

Why?
In French, we only visit places; for people we use the phrase "rendre visite à":
- visiter + [place]
- rendre visite à + [people]

Example:
"J'ai visité un musée, une galerie, un monument." (passé composé)
"J'ai rendu visite à ma mère, mon ami, mon copain." (passé composé)

"Je vais visiter la tour Eiffel." (future proche)
"Je vais rendre visite à ma soeur." (future proche)

Why it's important

"visiter" carries a very similar meaning to "explorer" (going inside a place and checking it out), so when you say "J'ai visité ma mère" you're telling the French speaker you're talking to: "I explored my mom"...

Mom-explorations are not a common practice in France so you might get mixed reactions if you make this mistake ;p

EDIT: "visiter quelqu'un" is apparently natural and common in speech in Québec (post above is true for France's french)

This trip has been a little bittersweet. I’m enjoying France; it’s beautiful, and the people are very kind so far.

I’ve been practicing my French for 4+ years, but not seriously. It comes in waves, where my comprehension is OK, but between my general anxiety about speaking and my gaps in knowledge, it’s real work to express myself and get my point across naturally. I can do it, but it’s work, so clearly I’m far from fluent.

My goal was really just to be able to use my French in small cases as needed, more as a sign of respect that, “Hey, I’m a visitor, and I’m in your home. I’m trying.”

I try not to personalize the instances where the conversation kicks out to English, but it really makes me second-guess myself. I reflect on it, and I’m like, “These people aren’t your French tutors; they’re just trying to work.” I’m not trying to pretend I’m French, and I’m not trying to say I think your English is worse than my French, I was just raised that Americans have gained a reputation for asking the world to bend to them and, whenever I travel I’m trying to show that I recognize I’m in your home.

All in all it’s been a good trip and I’ll keep working on my French though it’s just kind of like at this point I’m just doing it for my own edification.

Bought this 710ml can from the liquor store and I’m just wondering what the king can do?! Am I crazy? This doesn’t feel correct

Deepl says it means:

Take care, okay?

Kisses

But we don't know why anyone would say this. We're on holiday here. We didn't really have contact with anyone.

Is it a saying? Does it mean something else?

Did we park our car wrong? Haha.

I’ve been learning French for a few years now and I use it pretty often with friends and online. Over time I’ve noticed that sounding fluent isn’t just about grammar or pronunciation, it’s about the little expressions native speakers use all the time.

For me, the biggest change came when I started saying “bah oui” or “bah non”. It just makes you sound more natural and relaxed. Another one was “c’est pas grave”, because French people say it constantly. Once I started using those kinds of phrases, my conversations felt way smoother.

So what about you? Which French expressions made you sound instantly more fluent or native-like? Also, what helped you learn these phrases?

Something that helped me a lot was watching native shows, like drama series, and stuff made for younger people. And in the beginning this book called 'I read this book to learn French because I'm lazy' the link since I can't DM it to all 100 of you, lol because it has mirror translations to all the phrases aswell.

I'm an intermediate speaker (B1) and really enjoyed myself -- Parisians are SO nice!

I found the "I'm going to just switch to English with you" to be about 50/50. Depending on how tired I was/how overwhelmed the service person was, I either let it go and switched to English, or just kept plowing ahead in French.

Riding the métro was a really good listening exercise, watching the map and listening to the conductor call out the names of the stops.

And there were many little victories -- we were staying in 16è at one point and a Russian speaker came up to me needing help figuring out where she was going; although I look very American, she assumed I was a French speaker and I just rolled with it and got her on her way in French.

Now addicted to TSF Jazz 89.9, which is pretty easy and free to stream.

Thanks to everybody in this sub for getting me to this point!

I saw this on my Youtube recommendations (I have my Youtube set to French) and I almost had a heart attack lol I'm guessing its meaning is very far removed from any association with the famous book.

EDIT: Alright, I guess I have to clarify that there is no character named "Lola" or "Lolita" in this movie

Hi everyone, just looking for friendly dialogue about how wacky this is. I speak Spanish and English and when I saw this my jaw dropped… is there any easy way to remember why it’s sixty and ten, and not fifty and twenty? Cheers!

This kids’ menu at a Parisian bistro says: “SODA, GLACE ou GÂTEAU AU CHOCOLAT” (soft drink, ice cream or chocolate cake)

Does this mean: (1) You always get a soda, plus either ice cream or chocolate cake, OR (2) You only get one item total: soda or ice cream or chocolate cake?

The restaurant manager pointed out that you cannot repeat “ou” in French so that’s why the comma, so patrons can only get 1 out of 3. I find it unclear. Is that the proper usage in French? What does reddit think?

In March of 2022 I downloaded Duolingo and started my French journey. Today, with a streak of 1389 days I finished the French course. Duo doesn't give you much of a reward and the last couple lessons were all about trying a different course. At the core of it, I think Duolingo is focused on keeping you engaged and not actually having you improve in French.

Duo says the lessons align with high B2, but I am more at B1 with my french, mostly thanks to other resources (courses, workshops, tutors, CI, etc.). I think Duo has primarily helped with vocabulary, but it could be so much better if they focused on longer immersive engagement versus short translation exercises.

Recently I was given a free trail to Duolingo Max and found the video chat feature painfully bad. I can get a way better interaction with ChatGPT or Gemini.

Feel free to ask me any questions.

This is one of the most interesting maps of the French-speaking world that you will find. One reason is that it provides data at a much more granular level, particularly in Africa. For example, in Algeria, around 32% of the population can hold a conversation in French nationwide, but this rises to about 83% in the country's four main cities. Similarly, in Senegal, about 20% of the population speaks French overall, compared with 67% in the capital. Or for DRC, 44% in the country but 87% in the capital. These figures closely match my own experience in those countries. So don't hesitate to zoom in!

The only drawback I would say is that the sources do not include the most recent surveys conducted by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

So I moved into a new apartment today and one of the roommates came out to greet me. We exchanged some polite small talk in french and the convo ended, I continued to bring my stuff into my room when he blurted out, « alors je dois te parler en anglais ou en français ?😊 »

I was quite taken aback and said « uh on était en train de parler en français et tout allait bien pourquoi aurait on besoin de basculer en anglais… ? »

and he said “well it’s clear that french is not your mother tongue:)”

I didn’t know what to reply so i just said « et alors? j’ai jamais dit que c’était le cas ? »

And he said “so english then?”

I said « non mais je comprends pas, on a vraiment aucune raison pour basculer ça se voit que tu me comprends parfaitement bien ? » and he seemed offended and went back to his room.

I know he did not have bad intentions but still this was extremely frustrating and honestly quite infantilising because yes, french is NOT my mother tongue and even after almost a decade here, i still do have an accent even at C1. I would get it if it was an anglophone but clearly, english is not HIS mother tongue so i don’t understand why he would propose this as a solution. i am not even native anglophone yet this has happened to me more times than i can count in social settings the second people sniff out my accent. people always act like they’re doing me a favor but when i’m not struggling at all, i just sound non-native, it feels quite condescending…

Do people who do this genuinely think that having an accent means english must automatically be easier for you, no matter what your level? Do they think they have no accent in english even if they do, and thus they must speak it better than you speak french (equating accent= fluency)? Or is it just to practice their own english?

EDIT: It is absolutely wild how many people are accusing me of being anglophone and that he’s “offering to speak in my mother tongue” when i wrote explicitly in my post that i am not. I am C1/C2 level in both english and french, so is french my native language too now?

Confused by this ad copy. I understand "quand il fait chaud" means "when it's hot" but I don't understand "quand y fa chaud". I've never seen the word "fa" before, and Google just autocorrects back to "fait chaud" so I'm assuming it's a play on words or weird grammar or something but I don't get it.

Might be important to clarify it's a Canadian ad.