"You Speak French? About a 2..." Topic

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How Good Is Your French?

On a scale of 0 to 10, average response: 1.99.

Bien sûr, nous sommes Anglais!…Nous avons gagné la guerre de sept ans!

Three years in high school.
Most of the last year was devoted to the Irregular Verb Contest held at a nearby college.
On trips to Canada, it was useless.

I was able to puzzle out what Herkybird said.

I wonder just how fluent some of the Usual Suspects on Napoleonic Discussion are.

Oui, Herkybird – très triste, mais c'est ce que c'est

And as to Canada, the unique Quebec dialect makes it somewhat difficult to understand for someone taught in Parisian French; there are lexical differences

I live on the west coast of Canada so basically none at all.

Two years of high school French, most of that time spent checking the cleavage of the hot French teacher!

Un peu (2), visit Winnipeg a lot where there is still a large Franco-Manitoban community and I occasionally try out my French. There are plenty of French street names that my daughter in law challenges me to pronounce 'correctly' and my pronunciation is close enough.

Donnais-mois une Mai Ouest et une Pepsi, s'il vous plait.

Been cheating on this for more than half a century ;)

1.5 years of it in Jr. high school. Know my droit from my gauche,at least.

Better at Latin than French!!!

I agree with what Frederick said regarding the Quebec dialect versus Parisian. Same holds true for those of us who were raised on Castillian Spanish versus local/regional flavored dialects, such as Southwest, New York, Miami, etc.

True story

Took one semester in college to get a flavor. My language is Spanish, and several teachers accused me of speaking French with a Spanish accent. Probably true.

My spouse studied in Strasbourg but then went to Costa Rica and put a layer of Spanish on top of the French. She says i speak better French than she does. I think i just fake it better.

But unlike Spanish, I would not risk trying to work as a medical or court interpreter in French. More likely i would NEED an interpreter in those situations.

I like crepes, does that count?

street names that my daughter in law challenges me to pronounce 'correctly'

This is a sucker bet. Proper names are usually the worst with respect to 'proper' pronunciation in their own languages, with lots of local variation. And just plain old pronouncing the name for centuries with low levels of general population literacy and ignoring things like letters (I'm looking at you, Leicester …)

F'r'ex, if you live in or near Lima, Ohio you just have to memorize which of your friends also lives in L-EYE-mah and which lives in L-EE-mah – there is no system. Don't get me started on the Six Degrees of "Louisville" …

But it's OK, when you said you climbed Mt. Fuji, everyone knew what you really meant.

On a visit to Paris I managed to order a piece of cake using a phrase book. Also few phrases I picked up from my dad who was there during WW2 but I don't think they would be appropriate. That's my limit.