I believe French pronunciation is the most challenging part. Because French pronunciation is so unique, no matter which language you know, even if you're a native in a different Romance language, you have no shortcuts in learning French pronunciation.
Snobbish grammarians can ruin any language but English and French seem to have the worst reputation for them. There is a sense that certain people are constantly judging your grammar and pronunciation in some cultures, whereas other cultures are thrilled that you are trying to use their language. As a native English speaker I can sadly confirm this is true in English, many people do judge each other and non native speakers by their grammar. As far as French, I don’t know, maybe it’s just a stereotype I picked up somewhere. And, of course, it’s not every English speaker. But it’s too many of them for my taste.
Obnoxious self-proclaimed 'grammarians' are one thing; Proper language teaching and acquisition is necessary. Because I cannot stand people who get pissy when they can't speak distinctly and make it *my* fault they can't utilize the fucking language they refused to learn in 4th grade English class 🤬
I absolutely love French. My problem is with the nineteenth-century attitude of the French state towards linguistic diversity within France. The Jacobin, unversalist superiority complex. The constitutional provisions are an outrage. Even the name "regional languages" says it all. This summer, in the latest twist in this sorry tale, the Constitutional Court overturned Molac's linguistic immersion law which could have helped Breton and Basque a lot. Meanwhile, the French establishment throws a hissy fit every time they feel French is threatened by English. Who do these people think they are?
Silent letters is an understatement. You can barely find a single french word without silent letters. sometimes half the word is completely silent. But the worst part is that silent letters can become pronounced if it blends into the next word. like 'ils ont' gets pronounced like 'il sont'. Homophones are thus very common, even certain strings of words can sound like completely different strings of words. How words are stressed can also change depending on their position in the sentence, sometimes parts of words get barely pronounced while sometimes they do get pronounced (for example 're' at the end of words will often just turn into an incredibly faint 'r' sound, but sometimes a full 're' is said). And the crap ton of slang used all the time. This all results in spoken french being impossible to understand, as you won't understand the jumbled mess that just came out of their mouth and it's impossible to google either because you have no idea how it could possibly be correctly spelled. It's just pure madness. Speaking becomes impossible too because a non-native speaker will never ever be able to emulate this.
Hahaha I'm sorry French has treated you so badly. It does get easier with practice (lots of it). I do know foreigners who have reached very high levels of comprehension, including understand slang. It is possible!! Good luck.
Can't say I hate French but I do find it's ugly...particularly don't like the noise people make when not actually speaking...as though they're reserving the space. Also find it unwieldy; can't say things very directly...perhaps there's a shortage of nouns so you're required to describe things? No problem with gender, spelling, grammar (including the subjunctive), pronunciation: I've accepted that as a native English speaker, I'm never going to sound perfect...but I'm not pretending to be French!
In social studies it was posited that "French" is such a loose term in the sense that it's *very old* and quite the centuries in the making hodgepodge of regional dialect, elite dialects, separatists, religious sects as to not have really adhered to any hard and fast rules. Much in the way English evolved, but French over a much longer time. France itself has lived many lives.
Haitian Creole is much better than French. The spelling (& orthography) is simpler and more practical! For example.... mamè (my mother) monpè (my father), itilizatè (user), repiblik (republic), Etazini (USA)
The French language is a joke! Bizarre numbers (70, 80 and 90), Jurassic grammar and spelling! Some French people have been calling for an urgent spelling reform. Honorable mention to Switzerland and Belgium. Both pronounce the numbers mentioned above correctly.
My experience of learning French in High School was very bad, but fortunately did not change my attitude about the language. Of course, I can definitely understand how it might poison your views.
In my opinion, it is obvious that languages are highly complex systems because they must reflect the complexity of our thoughts. It is also normal that either there are declensions in a language or there is a strict word order plus prepositions. It is hard to imagine a comprehensible language in which you put words (always in the same form) at random and without any connections between them. It would be a kind of guessing game rather than a tool to communicate in a precise way. That is why, if you are looking for simplicity in languages, sooner or later you will be disappointed.
spanish is so much easier to learn than french it's not even funny. sure they speak just as fast but at least they pronounce everything and the spelling actually makes sense. and spanish speaking people are universially regarded as some of the nicest people in the world (except chileans for some reason).
Funny to hear that as a native Spanish speaker who learned French. I really like French even though there are some things I dislike about it. I've also noticed this battle between Spanish and French learners. Both languages are similar and different in their own ways.
It sounds ugly only if the person has an ugly personality. For example my current french teacher at school is very arrogant and rude so her french sounds ugly. But my past french teacher was super supportive(she is from swiss french area) and thought of me as a genius so her french sounded great and same for my maths teacher (he is pure french).
i'm from Belgium on bouth the north side and the east side i'm Less the 1km from the Dutch border so french was, euh, from french ! > "obligatory" something like that first french only second french come to mind = hautain as in they sh*t on everything the one wordt that DOS have a translation in every language = poupon
Some Brits mock the French but for the most part, it’s lighthearted banter. Yes, the French do come across like they take themselves too seriously at times, but the french language is beautiful nonetheless. As a Brit myself, France feels like my second home when I have visited 💕🇫🇷
@@tomrains7899 Leo is a great teacher and cute too but I’m a total beginner and his videos are for people at the intermediate level in Portuguese. Thank you for the recommendation
when you watch an american series or film that's dubbed in french, incredibly often they will dub an entire sentence where in the english version maybe one word was spoken.
Because when you are fored to learn French for 10 years and then you are left with nothing but a beginner level and a wast of time altough you could've learnt a languages you actually liked you will be scared for life.
Man, I just hate how permanently it molested English into the mess it is now and how it sounds. I may be wrong, but it also sounds like a very nasally, papery language. Best I can explain is that it has a lot of soft sounds (like "sh" and the soft J sound) that sound like someone is speaking through their nose and refusing to use their mouth any more than absolutely required I always thought I'd like the Romance languages, but I've found that I absolutely love the Germanic languages. So, when I keep learning how nice (imo) Old English sounded and that almost every element I take personal issue with somehow managed to trace back to Norman French, it's a tad annoying. Compared to the solid beauty of Classical Latin, I'm still willing to swear that French was created by aliens with a grudge against the Roman legacy, and I don't even believe in aliens That being said, I find French history to be very interesting. I've bullied the language more than any other American I know, but I've also defended the dumb stereotypes (French being cowards in the World Wars being the biggest one) more than most I know. While culture and language do shape each other, it's definitely possible to separate one from the other when giving praise and... wrath
I hate the French language because it’s not spelled the way it’s pronounced. Because of that one thing, I never know how I’m supposed to say something.
For me French is hated because for the past there are a lottt of sort of past: « passé simple », « passé antérieur », « plus que parfait » or the futur: « future simple » or « futur antérieur » that are complicated for Everybody (French too), there are a lot of accents (not French accent) like “è” “é” “ê” and these accents can be used for the letter « a », I’m French and it is very complicated for the spelling: le château: if we separate the word: le chat eau: in English it is: le cat water ;-;
Spanish has all of those and I can't see many people hating the language. Also while passé simple isn't used in modern French, it's still used in modern Spanish. Nobody uses future antérieur in either language. Accents are very helpful for pronunciation but why do they still keep ê and è when both of them are pronounced the same way? They should drop ê
I know German, French, Russian and Hindi. All these four languages have gender. Book is neutral in German (das Buch), masculin in French (le livre), female in Russian (моя книга) and also female in hindi (मेरी पुस्तक - merī pustak ). House is neutral in German (das Haus), female in French (la maison), masculin in Russian (мой дом) and also masculin in Hindi (मेरा घर - merā ghar). Work is female in German (die Arbeit), masculin in French (le travail), female in Russian (моя работа) and masculin in Hindi (मेरा काम - merā kām) etcera
Indeed, it's very difficult to feel self-assured at the beginning when you're learning French exactly because there's many pronunciations that are SO FUCKING CLOSE. For example: it took me 3 years (6 months in France) to realize that "vent" and "vin" (wind and wine) don't pronounce the same! Also, in Latin languages in general and even a bit in English, conjugations and plurals vc singulars normally don't pronounce the same when it writes differently, but the contradiction here is: in French, very often it will, and there'll be specific cases where it won't. And I didn't feel self assured at the beginning because it made so difficult for me to understand contexts in general! (Are we talking about a specific girl, or about girls in general? Was that the verb to be or to have?) But finally, I think that for me, the best way of learning stuff is practice. Some people get away with it just studying a lot and then applying what they already know, but in my personal case it's quite difficult with ADHD, which gave me a lot of frustration in life for years before reaching my current level. At the same time, it feels super easier when I've a lot of interest . Ex: if it's an informal conversation or a really cool movie, I really want to learn the maximum as I can and give my best because I'll release a lot of dopamine and it'll get easier. (Ps: it's a personal case and doesn't apply to every ADHD, neither it's a good reference to give a full diagnose. If you're reading this comment and are struggling with mental health, seek for professional help)
Hi Kevin, - I think in Germany the stereotype of French people is not so much that they are rude (I was very surprised to first hear this stereotype (in England I believe) a couple of years ago). The predominant stereotypes might be that they are a bit stuck up, but elegant (chic) and refined. When I started learning French at school (almost 28 years ago) it was a pleasure and I perceived it as a privilege. At the time the three types of German High School were still very much accepted: Hauptschule (where you didn´t get taught French at all), then Realschule (where basic French in my area was offered as an extracurricular course) and Gymnasium, where you could choose between French and Latin as a third language from 7th grade, id est around the age of 12. I just chose French because my main friends chose this and it was considered more useful and more fun than (dead old) Latin. Also, French is seen or heard as a BEAUTIFUL language, the language of romance and love etc. No one I know hates it :-) I´ve always been pleased with the choice I made back then and this language learning oppurtunity. And I´m so grateful that in today´s time and age I have such wonderful options for staying connected to French culture and language - like this channel of yours.
French is my second language. I love it and taught it for my entire career. Here in Canada, I assume the animosity is largely historical, from colonial times, expulsion of the Acadians, etc. Personally, I don’t have issues with the grammar (similar syntax to English), spelling, or pronunciation (if you learn French alphabet first, it’s pretty straightforward). Verb conjugation is tough for students, but I think it’s even worse in Spanish. ( I recall seeing a Sp verb chart once with about 14 conjugations compared to French’s 8. ). To me, the hardest thing about French is the passé simple. Poor kids finally learn to speak, then when they try to read, all the verbs look completely different! That just seems cruel to me. Does any other language have a separate verb tense just for writing?
In West Germany we have to learn French. I didn't like French in the school but the language is beautiful. I'm re-"learning" it now for almost three months through daily listening and reading of the transcripts of what I've listened to. To be honest I don't care about the grammar or articles, I just like listening to French and I notice how my comprehension is improving every day. That's all I care about for the moment.
I'm from Argentina and though we're forced to learn English just like everybody else, in my school we were forced to learn French for 3 years. I actually don't know why but I remember I used to hate French at the beginning because it was so confusing. Nowadays I love it and it's one of my favorite languages.
Good video. I am a native English speaker married a French wife. We even l8ved in Bordeaux for many years but I still can't get my head aro7nd this kanguage. I've taken so many classes but nothing sticks, it just takes me back to school and Drench classes whuch were dreadful, grammar, grammar and no spoken French. We now luve in Montreal where the Quebec givernment gas just passed a law fircing oeople to speaking French and like you say, forcing people against their will only puts up more resustance. My real problem is listening skills, I can speak and communicate ok but lustening and comprehension I switch off (father-in-law a but of arse).
Personally I don't like French , because it sounds ugly to my ears . I could never fathom the cliché about French being a charming language .
Well, at least your opinion is refreshing 😂
Italian is more romantic. This cliché is propaganda.
So in other words, you got dumped by a Frenchman, lol.
overly-complicated, unnecessarily-complicated cancer that isn't fun to learn
depends if you like precicisions on things
I believe French pronunciation is the most challenging part.
Because French pronunciation is so unique, no matter which language you know, even if you're a native in a different Romance language, you have no shortcuts in learning French pronunciation.
I can't put my hatred for the french language into words, even the dictionary ran out of words
oh but dont be so sure acually frenche ot plenty of ords for compaints !
Are you just saying that as a joke?
@@HermitKing731 nope I really hate this language
Everyone all over the world mocks the French
Mathematical Aberrations .... 70 80 90
Those who speak Spanish and Italian have access to Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Romanian, Corsican...
Snobbish grammarians can ruin any language but English and French seem to have the worst reputation for them. There is a sense that certain people are constantly judging your grammar and pronunciation in some cultures, whereas other cultures are thrilled that you are trying to use their language.
As a native English speaker I can sadly confirm this is true in English, many people do judge each other and non native speakers by their grammar. As far as French, I don’t know, maybe it’s just a stereotype I picked up somewhere.
And, of course, it’s not every English speaker. But it’s too many of them for my taste.
In my experience it is the opposite. English natives in the USA are not like that at all, maybe in England.
Obnoxious self-proclaimed 'grammarians' are one thing; Proper language teaching and acquisition is necessary. Because I cannot stand people who get pissy when they can't speak distinctly and make it *my* fault they can't utilize the fucking language they refused to learn in 4th grade English class 🤬
I think it’s the people totally snob
I absolutely love French. My problem is with the nineteenth-century attitude of the French state towards linguistic diversity within France. The Jacobin, unversalist superiority complex. The constitutional provisions are an outrage. Even the name "regional languages" says it all. This summer, in the latest twist in this sorry tale, the Constitutional Court overturned Molac's linguistic immersion law which could have helped Breton and Basque a lot. Meanwhile, the French establishment throws a hissy fit every time they feel French is threatened by English. Who do these people think they are?
Silent letters is an understatement. You can barely find a single french word without silent letters. sometimes half the word is completely silent. But the worst part is that silent letters can become pronounced if it blends into the next word. like 'ils ont' gets pronounced like 'il sont'. Homophones are thus very common, even certain strings of words can sound like completely different strings of words. How words are stressed can also change depending on their position in the sentence, sometimes parts of words get barely pronounced while sometimes they do get pronounced (for example 're' at the end of words will often just turn into an incredibly faint 'r' sound, but sometimes a full 're' is said). And the crap ton of slang used all the time. This all results in spoken french being impossible to understand, as you won't understand the jumbled mess that just came out of their mouth and it's impossible to google either because you have no idea how it could possibly be correctly spelled. It's just pure madness. Speaking becomes impossible too because a non-native speaker will never ever be able to emulate this.
Hahaha I'm sorry French has treated you so badly. It does get easier with practice (lots of it). I do know foreigners who have reached very high levels of comprehension, including understand slang. It is possible!! Good luck.
Haitian Creole is better
Can't say I hate French but I do find it's ugly...particularly don't like the noise people make when not actually speaking...as though they're reserving the space.
Also find it unwieldy; can't say things very directly...perhaps there's a shortage of nouns so you're required to describe things?
No problem with gender, spelling, grammar (including the subjunctive), pronunciation: I've accepted that as a native English speaker, I'm never going to sound perfect...but I'm not pretending to be French!
In social studies it was posited that "French" is such a loose term in the sense that it's *very old* and quite the centuries in the making hodgepodge of regional dialect, elite dialects, separatists, religious sects as to not have really adhered to any hard and fast rules. Much in the way English evolved, but French over a much longer time. France itself has lived many lives.
Haitian Creole is much better than French. The spelling (& orthography) is simpler and more practical!
For example.... mamè (my mother) monpè (my father), itilizatè (user), repiblik (republic), Etazini (USA)
The French language is a joke! Bizarre numbers (70, 80 and 90), Jurassic grammar and spelling! Some French people have been calling for an urgent spelling reform.
Honorable mention to Switzerland and Belgium. Both pronounce the numbers mentioned above correctly.
My experience of learning French in High School was very bad, but fortunately did not change my attitude about the language. Of course, I can definitely understand how it might poison your views.
I prefer Spanish & Italian.... more easy languages !
Personally I don't like french. My favourite language Portuguese & Italian
Spelling in English and French is a sheer nightmare.
In my opinion, it is obvious that languages are highly complex systems because they must reflect the complexity of our thoughts. It is also normal that either there are declensions in a language or there is a strict word order plus prepositions. It is hard to imagine a comprehensible language in which you put words (always in the same form) at random and without any connections between them. It would be a kind of guessing game rather than a tool to communicate in a precise way. That is why, if you are looking for simplicity in languages, sooner or later you will be disappointed.
From what I’ve observed, there’s a strong correlation between French-bashing (and negativity in general) and being a Spanish learner.
Really? Could you elaborate on that?
I spend a lot of time on Twitter and whenever there’s negativity (which isn’t very often), the individual 9/10 has a Spanish flag in their bio.
spanish is so much easier to learn than french it's not even funny. sure they speak just as fast but at least they pronounce everything and the spelling actually makes sense. and spanish speaking people are universially regarded as some of the nicest people in the world (except chileans for some reason).
Funny to hear that as a native Spanish speaker who learned French. I really like French even though there are some things I dislike about it. I've also noticed this battle between Spanish and French learners. Both languages are similar and different in their own ways.
It sounds ugly only if the person has an ugly personality.
For example my current french teacher at school is very arrogant and rude so her french sounds ugly. But my past french teacher was super supportive(she is from swiss french area) and thought of me as a genius so her french sounded great and same for my maths teacher (he is pure french).
I must be an exception because my French sounds amazing even though I'm insufferable
They all have an ugly personality.
i'm from Belgium
on bouth the north side and the east side i'm Less the 1km from the Dutch border
so french was, euh, from french ! > "obligatory" something like that
first french only
second french come to mind = hautain
as in they sh*t on everything
the one wordt that DOS have a translation in every language = poupon
Some Brits mock the French but for the most part, it’s lighthearted banter.
Yes, the French do come across like they take themselves too seriously at times, but the french language is beautiful nonetheless.
As a Brit myself, France feels like my second home when I have visited 💕🇫🇷
I love the French language but please make videos on European Portuguese. Trust me , there is a need for it
I’m sure you’ll have heard of it already, but check out Portuguese With Leo if you’ve not.
It's in the back of my mind!! 😊
@@tomrains7899 Leo is a great teacher and cute too but I’m a total beginner and his videos are for people at the intermediate level in Portuguese. Thank you for the recommendation
I'm French and honestly i hate my natif langage
If number 6 is really true then English must be, by far, the most hated language!
A reason not to enjoy French: Compared to some other languages, it is not easy to tell where one word ends and another begins.
when you watch an american series or film that's dubbed in french, incredibly often they will dub an entire sentence where in the english version maybe one word was spoken.
Because when you are fored to learn French for 10 years and then you are left with nothing but a beginner level and a wast of time altough you could've learnt a languages you actually liked you will be scared for life.
Loool fair! 🤣
Man, I just hate how permanently it molested English into the mess it is now and how it sounds. I may be wrong, but it also sounds like a very nasally, papery language. Best I can explain is that it has a lot of soft sounds (like "sh" and the soft J sound) that sound like someone is speaking through their nose and refusing to use their mouth any more than absolutely required
I always thought I'd like the Romance languages, but I've found that I absolutely love the Germanic languages. So, when I keep learning how nice (imo) Old English sounded and that almost every element I take personal issue with somehow managed to trace back to Norman French, it's a tad annoying. Compared to the solid beauty of Classical Latin, I'm still willing to swear that French was created by aliens with a grudge against the Roman legacy, and I don't even believe in aliens
That being said, I find French history to be very interesting. I've bullied the language more than any other American I know, but I've also defended the dumb stereotypes (French being cowards in the World Wars being the biggest one) more than most I know. While culture and language do shape each other, it's definitely possible to separate one from the other when giving praise and... wrath
😂
I hate the French language because it’s not spelled the way it’s pronounced. Because of that one thing, I never know how I’m supposed to say something.
Yes, it is very complicated. Spanish and Italian are better.
For me French is hated because for the past there are a lottt of sort of past: « passé simple », « passé antérieur », « plus que parfait » or the futur: « future simple » or « futur antérieur » that are complicated for Everybody (French too), there are a lot of accents (not French accent) like “è” “é” “ê” and these accents can be used for the letter « a », I’m French and it is very complicated for the spelling: le château: if we separate the word: le chat eau: in English it is: le cat water ;-;
Spanish has all of those and I can't see many people hating the language. Also while passé simple isn't used in modern French, it's still used in modern Spanish. Nobody uses future antérieur in either language. Accents are very helpful for pronunciation but why do they still keep ê and è when both of them are pronounced the same way? They should drop ê
Futur antérieur is still commonly used in French. Passé simple isn't though, you're right.
I know German, French, Russian and Hindi. All these four languages have gender. Book is neutral in German (das Buch), masculin in French (le livre), female in Russian (моя книга) and also female in hindi (मेरी पुस्तक - merī pustak ). House is neutral in German (das Haus), female in French (la maison), masculin in Russian (мой дом) and also masculin in Hindi (मेरा घर - merā ghar). Work is female in German (die Arbeit), masculin in French (le travail), female in Russian (моя работа) and masculin in Hindi (मेरा काम - merā kām) etcera
I speak Spanish and guess what? It also has gender. Same as French. So English is the weird language here.
Indeed, it's very difficult to feel self-assured at the beginning when you're learning French exactly because there's many pronunciations that are SO FUCKING CLOSE. For example: it took me 3 years (6 months in France) to realize that "vent" and "vin" (wind and wine) don't pronounce the same! Also, in Latin languages in general and even a bit in English, conjugations and plurals vc singulars normally don't pronounce the same when it writes differently, but the contradiction here is: in French, very often it will, and there'll be specific cases where it won't. And I didn't feel self assured at the beginning because it made so difficult for me to understand contexts in general! (Are we talking about a specific girl, or about girls in general? Was that the verb to be or to have?) But finally, I think that for me, the best way of learning stuff is practice. Some people get away with it just studying a lot and then applying what they already know, but in my personal case it's quite difficult with ADHD, which gave me a lot of frustration in life for years before reaching my current level. At the same time, it feels super easier when I've a lot of interest . Ex: if it's an informal conversation or a really cool movie, I really want to learn the maximum as I can and give my best because I'll release a lot of dopamine and it'll get easier. (Ps: it's a personal case and doesn't apply to every ADHD, neither it's a good reference to give a full diagnose. If you're reading this comment and are struggling with mental health, seek for professional help)
I think English comes close to French in spelling difficulty. Thank the gods for spell check.
Hi Kevin, - I think in Germany the stereotype of French people is not so much that they are rude (I was very surprised to first hear this stereotype (in England I believe) a couple of years ago). The predominant stereotypes might be that they are a bit stuck up, but elegant (chic) and refined.
When I started learning French at school (almost 28 years ago) it was a pleasure and I perceived it as a privilege. At the time the three types of German High School were still very much accepted:
Hauptschule (where you didn´t get taught French at all), then Realschule (where basic French in my area was offered as an extracurricular course) and Gymnasium, where you could choose between French and Latin as a third language from 7th grade, id est around the age of 12.
I just chose French because my main friends chose this and it was considered more useful and more fun than (dead old) Latin.
Also, French is seen or heard as a BEAUTIFUL language, the language of romance and love etc.
No one I know hates it :-)
I´ve always been pleased with the choice I made back then and this language learning oppurtunity.
And I´m so grateful that in today´s time and age I have such wonderful options for staying connected to French culture and language - like this channel of yours.
I'm glad! Thanks for the comment 😁
French is my second language. I love it and taught it for my entire career. Here in Canada, I assume the animosity is largely historical, from colonial times, expulsion of the Acadians, etc. Personally, I don’t have issues with the grammar (similar syntax to English), spelling, or pronunciation (if you learn French alphabet first, it’s pretty straightforward). Verb conjugation is tough for students, but I think it’s even worse in Spanish. ( I recall seeing a Sp verb chart once with about 14 conjugations compared to French’s 8. ). To me, the hardest thing about French is the passé simple. Poor kids finally learn to speak, then when they try to read, all the verbs look completely different! That just seems cruel to me. Does any other language have a separate verb tense just for writing?
I didn't know that: In which countries are people forced to study French when they'd like to learn another language?
Most countries who don't have French as a first language I would assume. For example it's the case in England
In West Germany we have to learn French. I didn't like French in the school but the language is beautiful. I'm re-"learning" it now for almost three months through daily listening and reading of the transcripts of what I've listened to. To be honest I don't care about the grammar or articles, I just like listening to French and I notice how my comprehension is improving every day. That's all I care about for the moment.
I'm from Argentina and though we're forced to learn English just like everybody else, in my school we were forced to learn French for 3 years. I actually don't know why but I remember I used to hate French at the beginning because it was so confusing. Nowadays I love it and it's one of my favorite languages.
Good video. I am a native English speaker married a French wife. We even l8ved in Bordeaux for many years but I still can't get my head aro7nd this kanguage. I've taken so many classes but nothing sticks, it just takes me back to school and Drench classes whuch were dreadful, grammar, grammar and no spoken French. We now luve in Montreal where the Quebec givernment gas just passed a law fircing oeople to speaking French and like you say, forcing people against their will only puts up more resustance. My real problem is listening skills, I can speak and communicate ok but lustening and comprehension I switch off (father-in-law a but of arse).