Some questions about learning French

[SM11]

Hi RubiksKid !

Yep that's right, there's a pretty big difference between written French and spoken French. Obviously that's true for any language, but as a native French, I feel like it's even more true for the French language.

I personally don't think you should first focus on written French, and then on spoken French, especially if you want to be proficient at both.

You should give equal importance to speaking, listening, writting and reading.

Of course at the beginning you will have to acquire the basics of the language, so you will be more studying the grammar and conjugation then anything else.

But if you want to speak French fluently one day, the sooner you start to speak, the better.

If you start focusing on written French, you will spend hours and hours learning stuff you'll never use when you speak. You will make a lot of efforts to put words in the right written order which is sometimes completely different than the spoken order of the words. Let me give you a few examples:

To ask questions, let's say you want to ask "Do you speak English?"

Written French: "Parlez-vous anglais ?" (inverting the subject and the verb).
Spoken French: "Vous parlez anglais ?" (raising the intonation).

There are many colloquial words and expressions French people use every day that you'd love to know from the beginning.

un clope, du fric, un mec, un pote, bosser, bouffer, putain, être paumé... Those are just a few examples of vocabulary you'll never see in a book, but you'll hear them all the time in France

The negation is usually formed with "ne ... pas" in written French, but nobody say the "ne" when they speak ; The "nous" which means "we" is also rarely used when French people speak, most people just use "on"... (We're going to the swimming pool > On va à la piscine (and not "Nous allons à la piscine") ).

Anyway, there are many differences, and honestly I wouldn't suggest you to take any big companies course like Rosetta Stone or Rocket French if you want to really speak French like a real French person. If you just want to learn written French, sure go for it, they're certainly pretty good for that, but know that when you'll have to speak with a French native, you'll just sound like a book to him.

I think it's important for you to know your priorities:

If you want to learn French, I'm pretty sure you're prority is first to speak the language fluently right? Rather than write it fluently. Like you're not planning to write books in French, or dissertation or whatever...

If I'm wrong, than yes, put a lot of efforts in written French.

If I'm right, if you think that you'll just have to write sometimes messages in French, have conversation in French on facebook with friends or family... then I think the best would be to use a course with a lot of everyday life dialogues (modern spoken French) with their written transcription an audio recordings.

It doesn't mean you won't practice your written French at all, because with the transcription you can learn also how to write. And this should be enough for you to write messages, letters, postcards... Try to do some exercises that make you write in French from time to time, and you should be all set with that.

And of course, if you can find a conversation partner as soon as possible, that would be the ideal for you.

I hope I could help you a bit!

Simon