- Spoken French can be mastered in a few months to a year, depending on which level you are trying to achieve.
- Written French takes years and years of practice and practice. It is the best example I know of lifelong learning. The French themselves are generally aware that they will never quite master every single aspect of their native language – and they seem to be ok with that.
Use that attitude of being ok with not knowing it all
Why?
Spoken French has its own ways:
1. It’s basically floating, with a lot of vowels.
English has that do: see ‘What are you going to do tomorrow?’ changed into ‘Whad’ya’gonna’do’t’mo(r)ow?’
The hardest consonants (r, t) tend to disappear (‘going To’ -> ‘gonna’) or change to a softer version (t turns to d in ‘what’/’whad’).
Take the French equivalent:
“Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire demain?”
“Qu’est-ce’tu’va(e)’fai(r)’de’MAIN?’
Rather than trying to pronounce every syllable, it aims for quick communication (daily conversations in real life, or generally dialogues in French movies).
This is why you struggle to understand the content of French films or French songs.
Rather than trying to understand every syllable, I suggest you understand the rhythm of one whole sentence, like you would with a poem verse, or song lyrics.
A typical French short sentence goes:
– – x / – – x / – – x
1 2 3 / 1 2 3 / 1 2 3
J’ai mangé / les petites pommes / tout à l’heure
J’ai = 1 les = 1 /too/ = 1
man = 2 petites = 2 /ta/ = 2
gé = 3 pommes = 3 l’heure = 3
What this means for you is: saying the ‘3’ sounds with enough emphasis means a French speaker would be able to understand you without trying.
Also, this means that: you don’t need to understand every single syllable, mostly the ‘3’ sounds will be enough – because that’s what the French do (without realizing).
j?? (1) ?? (2) gé
You could even swallow this, and a French speaker will typically think:
j?? (1) = probably saying “j’…’ something – meaning ‘I’
?? (2) = no idea
gé = oh that has to be the gé sound from… j’ai mangé ? j’ai nagé ? (I swam)
These are the only two verbs I can think of that have two syllables, and whose second ending syllable is ‘gé’.
Your French friends will make a decision between j’ai mangé and j’ai nagé when they hear des pommes.
Assuming you are not talking about ‘swimming apples‘, it seems clear that you ate apples:
ate = gé from ‘mangé’
apples = the sound /pom/ does not refer to anything else than ‘apples”
All this without even trying. The brain processes information this way and proceeds to shortcuts to the language – in order to retain minimal information.
See that famous example for English when it comes to reading written language
From: http://readingenglishonlineblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/can-you-read-it.html
Bonne chance!