The outlaws have had a small windfall and are offering to take the whole FamilyMC to Paris for a few days, including Eurodisney for the kids.

I did pass A Level French, but haven’t needed to speak it again in the intervening 27 years…..so what would be the best/cheapest option to get the basics back up and running? Seems a shame to waste the opportunity as I’ve been meaning to do it for a few years anyway.

A French au-pair, peutetre?

Just shout at people in English with a French accent.

French Oral 😐

*Backs out of thread and closes door quietly

Duolingo have a nice little free app for iOS (not sure about Android).

Or Coffee Break French free podcasts.

I’ll have a look for apps for my Windows phone – unlikely to be much, I expect

I’m sure my 10 year old son would find headfirst’s suggestion most educational

“GARSON!! GARSON!! je vewdraze un beir sieve oo plait. Merki!”

Duolingo is excellent.

possibly don’t bother? Consider sticking with please, thank you, excuse me, sorry and bill please. When I tried asking for stuff the french person either figured aha you speak french and rattled out a clarifying question I had no chance of comprehending or, seemingly, wilfully misunderstood my crap pronunciation.

When my gf lived in france for a year I made an effort but forgot I’m useless at languages (my primary one is a struggle TBH)
you of course may get on a lot better than I did.

edit maybe it was due to GF was staying in a french city rather than a tourist resort, on holiday I try to a few words of the lingo and the locals seem to appreciate the (very little) effort I put in.
But yes I’m still a bit ashamed at how crap we English seem to be at languages.

Improve your listening skills catching up on the news

France2 Info

Doesn’t help so much with speaking.

Duo lingo +1
Free podcast. News in Slow French. Good cos if you know what’s going on in the world then it’s quite easy to follow

Mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles

And

Voulez-vous revenir à ma place? Rebondissant rebondissant?

That’s all you should need.

Would you like to come back to my space? 😆

Identifiant comme une pipe

Earworms innit blud.

(vous devez utiliser ce ici)

The Michel Thomas French Course on CD.

My experience is with the Spanish one and it’s a joy.

You can shop around and find them cheaper than Amazon.

Every time I’ve been to France, even with people who speak reasonable French, the waiters treat you with utter contempt, they may treat everyone like that, but I personally think they try a little harder with an Englishman trying his best. Stick to the basics, most people will appreciate it and it breaks down any barriers. Except waiters obviously.

I’m useless with languages, I’ll try the very simple stuff, but then it’s a complete joke. I worked in Czech Republic on and off for two years. It was a running joke that I couldn’t grasp the language. It’s bloody hard mind.

Don’t bother. Many French people especially younger folk and those in public service jobs can at least understand English. What irritates them is the assumption that they understand so if you smile charmingly, greet them with a polite “Bonjour Monsieur/Madame” and then ask “Parlez-vous Anglais?” a fair few will be able to help you. A couple will just snap back at you in French but at least you’ll have tried.

Every time I’ve been to France, even with people who speak reasonable French, the waiters treat you with utter contempt,

Really? All the time I lived in France I never experienced that. There is a bit of a cultural disconnect, though, because a waiter in France is someone who is paid to make your meal more enjoyable, and not an underpaid food carrier.

The Michel Thomas CDs are great, they helped me a lot (for French)

Like most people say though, don’t bother..
I can speak French (not fluently) but when I’ve tried it in Paris the person would invariably screw their nose up at my pronunciation and switch to English very quickly..:-)

Je veux que tu me fasse une pipe.

I tried this on a beautiful french friend of a mate who had gone over to france to teach english after our Uni years. It didn’t get the desired result, but she was extremely complimentary on my correct use of the subjunctive tense.

May not be of huge use at Eurodisney (although some of the Princesses are hot. Ariel was fabulous when we went….)

The BBC has a language site, not bad at all for revision.
BBC French

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/

I’ve learned via experimentation that the best approach is to be incredibly awful- in fact, just above the point where they can’t you’re speaking French at all. This will cause them to appreciate your efforts, while simultaneously removing any risk that they speak French to you.

(the worst foreign language experience I ever have had, came when by some natural catastrophe I expressed myself in French succesfully well to earn a response in French, which I obligingly fumbled with sufficient skill enough to convince the barchap that I was German, a language in which I normally consider myself incompetent, but apparently competent enough that on this occasion I appeared Spanish to the confused Italian.)

The best case scenario here is that they think you’re retarded, and as a result are extra helpful, and possibly give you sweets.

Every time I’ve been to France Paris, even with people who speak reasonable French, the waiters treat you with utter contempt,

FTFY 😉

CountZero – Member
Every time I’ve been to France Paris, even with people who speak reasonable French, the waiters treat you with utter contempt,
FTFY

Biarritz actually. 😉

Another +1 for duo lingo. I’m using it to learn italian just now.

I find that if you immediately ask parisiens to “parlez-vous francais” they will rebuff you. However I was taught a phrase many years ago ‘je parlez un peau (?) francais’ which I believe is I only speak a little French. I use this after the greeting bonjour etc and most are then ok and try to help you with the lingo.

*opens thread*

no double entendre

*closes thread*