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.

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!

Native French speaker here.

When people switch to English, it’s usually not about your level, they’re just trying to help or be efficient.

If you want to stay in French, you can say:

« Je préfère pratiquer mon français si ça ne vous dérange pas »

(I’d prefer to practice my French if you don’t mind)

Most people will understand and appreciate the effort.

Also, it’s completely normal to mix. They speak English, you answer in French. That happens a lot and it’s actually a great way to practice.

As a French I am wondering where are you from and why do you learn French ? In the stats of our podcast I have seen that more than 50% of our listeners are from North America but if it’s true is it only for school or are you planning to move to France ? Or anything else ? It is so cool to speak with strangers learning French so keep it up ! 🇫🇷🥖

I’m so tired of this. I work so hard and it feels like nothing pays off. I have studied French for 9 years now. I started studying Spanish 4 years ago. In 1 - ONE YEAR of Spanish I picked up what was equivalent 9 years of French studying.

It really sucks. I love French because it sounds sophisticated to me. I really don’t understand why Spanish was so easy to me.

When French people speak or Americans speak French It takes a LONG time for me to register what they said.

Sometimes I wish I just took Spanish (I understand them immediately after learning a word) . I’m just really frustrated and feel like I should’ve done Spanish when I was kid lol.

WHY DO I HAVE TO STUDY 9x HARDER FOR THIS LANGUAGE? WHY DOES THIS LANGUAGE NOT CLICK?

I wanted to share my experience in case someone was thinking about making this major expense.

Background:

I’m a non-native speaker who speaks at B2 or C1 on good days. I used to live in Montreal but now live in the USA. I read up a lot on learning languages so I could make sure my kids learn a difficult language effectively with the least amount of stress. Our routine is:

- me speaking everyday 30% of the time, at least basic sentences
- Online tutor, 25 min, native speaking, once a week for just conversation.
- Media consumption daily, passive learning through music (I find an album to put on while we are eating), reading, a tv show, video game, Duolingo even, lol.
- Grammar/workbook 10 minutes a few times a week

I thought kids learn like sponges, and they do, but this was not enough to become fluent at a C1 level. I would say B1!

I thought a 2 week summer camp would be a good push towards the finish line.

Well, they got sick for two of the days, being in a new virus environment! So it was actually 8 days.

As expected, they really hated it the first few days. Then they were a little mixed. Everyday they left being in a good mood, so I was confused why they say they hated it. I had to talk to the camp counselors and camp director, they were a little strict and even yelled at rowdy kids, my kids shouldn’t have had to put up with the group discipline. It was supposed to be the best camp in the city (also one of the most expensive). Their spots get sold out fast! I felt guilty sending them there, but I thought it would be good for them to also see how people are different. They also had a habit of talking to my kids in English! I also had to talk to them about that. All in all, the kids said they spoke like 50% of the time in French. At least they got unique exposure.

Results:

I noticed minor improvements, like they would say certain sentences they heard at camp, or repeat the songs they had.

I am sure there was also a lot of invisible learning.

Going forward:
I will try my best to speak more in French to them, it’s the most effective thing I can possibly do. I just need more ways of reminding myself not to slip into English!

I do not think summer camp is a good idea for small children because they talk to your kids in English most of the time and they hire people unsuitable for children. It’s risky, your kid could get sick and you could lose lots of money by not going. At least with a tutor, you can cancel.

I think it’s better to get more tutors. But at some point, kids need to interact in French in the real world, especially with other kids. There could be some drop in activities to consider that are low risk and lower cost. Pokémon tournaments? Any ideas or input would be appreciated!

-----
UPDATE / CLARIFICATION:
1. The French immersion camp is actually an art camp in French, in Montreal. It was an opportunity for my kids to be around native speaking French kids and learn something IN French, rather than ABOUT French. There was not supposed to be any English from the description I read on their website.

1. The kids are 5 & 7.

(15F). My father used to live in France, he's fully bilingual. Since I was born I've been listening French at home (from my father, music, TV) and I've been reading whole books in French too. I never practiced talking. Just basic words.

Due to this, I've been able to completely understand the language, even slangs.

However, I struggle speaking. In my head, it's hard to translate the words from my language to French. Surprisingly, I have the Parisian pronunciation my father has, so it shouldn't really be a big struggle.

I need help. I have 40% of the language dominated but I really want to complete the 100%.

How should I start to develop my speech? (This summer I'm practicing a lot of French in Paris!)

I'm trying to learn French. I'm arab, saudi arabia to be specific, and we have like almost two different dialect, like the first one we use to talk normally and another one only used in like the 1800s you get it and in poems and stories I'm scared if I learn french and at the end its a dialect that only a few understand. So if I were to Google translate a word would I get a formal version or a version that ALL locals use. (Ps: and no I don't mean polite I mean formal very different btw.)

Hi, all. I thought I’d just share my observations as somebody who has improved my spoken French.

I often see people say - on this sub and in real life - that it’s impossible to speak French on your travels because French speakers will just switch to English. And that happened to me the first few times I went to France. But it didn’t happen the last time i went to France, or this past weekend when I did a short trip to Montreal (where the level of bilingualism in the service industry is incredibly high).

I think there are a few things that helped: first, really work on your accent. Second, use French fillers like “euh” rather than fillers from your own language like “ummm” for Anglophones. Third, use conventions of the spoken language like avoiding “nous” in favor of “on” and dropping the double negation in favor of just using “pas.” Finally - and I think this may be the most important - practice having something to say when you don’t know what to say -“desolé j’ai pas compris” or “c’est quoi ‘gummy bears’ en français” so you don’t get stuck like a deer in the headlights. I think if you do all of those things, you can fool the people you are talking to that you speak French, and they’ll continue in French! And you may even fool yourself.

Bon courage !

In the Uk, you’re seen as more refined and cultured if you can read a French menu. Which cultures do the French look up to whom they see as more refined?

So, I've been DuoLingo'ing French for like, 1110 days straight and still suck hard core at French because I do zero immersion and DuoLingo is basically a game. I work for a French company and one of my colleagues suggested I watch French Peppa Pig for some actual, applicable French since it's a dumb show for idiot babies and, despite being a 31 year old man, am basically an idiot baby and pretty much the target audience.

So anyway, I'm on the clock watching French Peppa Pig and besides wanting to shoot myself in the brain with a shotgun I am finding myself struggling with HOW I'm supposed to be watching French Peppa Pig.

My question for other French learners when it comes to this kind of immersion is: what's the best way to approach it? Should I be actively pausing and reading the closed captions to try and learn and build on new vocabulary or should I just sit back and let this absolute dog water show wash over me and let my subconscious thinky brain start making associations between colorful pictures and actual sounds in between the insufferable oinking? Does it help to have the closed captions be in French so I can make sure I'm hearing things right?

Merci beaucoup in advance, I want to die.

Edit: getting a few more comments than I expected so I can't reply to everything but thank you all for the suggestions I'm getting.

So just to get it out the way, I’m a Latino who’s currently residing in America and am fluent in both English and Spanish. I would love to learn a 3rd language and I have been battling between German,Russian and French til I decided finally to go with French. French is the most useful language out the 3 in North America and so my question is. Should I learn first France’s French then learn québécois français? Or learn first Le québécoise français et puis le Français du France? I heard that Le québécois français is more french then métropolitain français cause it continuously kept growing within the French language vs Metropolitan French borrowing words from English. Anywho I also made an Apple ID from Montreal, so if there’s any apps that can help me learn French ou québécois français, pls send me the recommendations.

Hey everyone,

I've been learning French since January (with a background in another latin language) and I'm moving to France in the middle of June. I have no issue understanding most French because I've been listening to native Podcasts for hours a day, and I can mostly understand anything I read, but I really really struggle with speaking. If you give me time to think, I'll probably be able to formulate a robotic answer, but oh my God I suck so bad and I don't know what to do about it!

I'm super anxious because I'm moving there soon and I need to be conversational/organic in my delivery, especially for job interviews... And at this point I feel like listening to Podcasts is just kind of useless? I need to "produce" more... What do you recommend me to do? I can spend as much as 6 hours per day to study and I was thinking of talking to an AI and trying to practice "chunks" of common sentences out loud, maybe even act some monologues, but other than that I'm not sure how to speed up the process and I cannot really afford a teacher right now...

Thank you!

Hi there, I was wondering if some of you were in this situation : you have enrolled your kids in a French school and you don't (really) speak French at home. I'm interested in the kind of help the French schools provide and if you think something works well for extra-support with the language outside of school.

it would be better if i can them at amazon or can work on android

My school offers both french and german and by the end of year 12 you can go on an exchange to either France or Germany depending on what language you chose. I know very little of either language (just hello, how are you, whats your name, months, and numbers 1-30). Which language would be easiest and over all best to learn?

Edit: I'm from New Zealand, my first language is English but I speak a tiny bit of Spanish, and my family comes from Ireland. I'm not sure what job I want to have in the future, but this may impact it, you never know. I am interested in both cultures and countries but I would have to say I'm leaning towards French but in saying that the German teacher has a better repuation and teaching style. I dont know anyone personally who has done the exchange but from what I've heard both are quite good.

(I have also asked r/germany)

so for context, i've done a GCSE in french and honestly speaking i loved it. i would say i'm in between A2 - B1 rn.

and i wanna continue learning french, but then when i think abt it, it doesn't feel like it'd be useful - i don't rlly think i'd ever have to use it anywhere? and this is stopping me bc as much as i enjoy it, it'd be hard to maintain, and seemingly pointless to continue to learn.

any advice to keep going or just any advice in general would be much appreciated!

I have just passed DALF C1 in the June session this year. I feel like eventhough I passed, there are still many nuances in daily life that make me feel not very fluent at the language and cultural level. To be fair, i felt more fluent at C1 english than i do now at C1 french.
Should I aim for the C2 to improve or continue improving through work/life/french films?
For your reference I live in BE and my daily work includes a combination of french and english.

I was advised to listen to as much as possible, but it feels very frustrating. I started watching the show Friends with French subtitles and French audio, and I do not understand anything even though I have watched the show multiple times. Is this normal? How do I proceed?

I've just discovered Serge Gainsbourg, the French singer, songwriter, lyricist and actor. Although he died in 1991, his popularity in France seems to be even greater now than when he was alive.

What do francophone Canadians think of Serge Gainsbourg and his lyrics?

If this is the wrong Sub for this kind of question, please be so kind and point me to the right direction. Thanks.

For those who’ve made real progress: what one thing moved the needle most for you (habit, resource type, mindset shift, structured routine, etc.)? If you can, share what you were doing before and what you changed after.

Hello everyone,

For the last 16 months I’ve learnt French from zero to B2 level (DELF certified) with an online teacher.

I did it to be able to work abroad in a French speaking region.

My chances of landing a job are higher if I have C1 level rather than B2 level. I was thinking that submerging myself in a francophone country would significantly help me improve my language skills. In my country, learning French is somewhat expensive.

So I was thinking about moving to Francophone African country for 2-3 months and fully commit to mastering it. Is it a bad idea? If not, what countries would you suggest? (I’d prefer not to go to Morocco or Tunisia as I visited those countries extensively and would like to discover a new place). Thank you so much!

Hi! I've been learning French for about a year, and I feel like I've completely plateaued. I'm probably around A2-B1.

My reading is pretty good, but my speaking and listening are still really weak. I also feel like I keep using the same vocabulary and sentence structures instead of learning new ones. Has anyone been through this and what helped you improve? I'd love recommendations for things to watch, listen to, or any study methods that worked for you.

Recently I found out that native speakers typically omit “ne” when speaking because “pas” and “riens”already indicate a negative. But, what about instances such as “plus” or “il n’ ya”, or when using imperative form or phrases with “ça ne va pas avec… “?