r/French

I think I've reached a strange point where my grammar is okay. I can make sentences, conjugate most things, and handle tenses well. But when I try to say something, I just don't know the word. I know exactly how to say what I want to say, but I keep using the same 500 words over and over. It's annoying because the grammar isn't the problem anymore; it's the words. I've used flashcards, but after a week, I forget everything. Reading helps a little, but it takes a long time. It's nice to watch things in French, but I don't really learn new words; I just passively understand.

For those of you who were able to move past the intermediate plateau in your vocabulary, what worked? Did it just happen over time, or did you do something special?

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!

I'm working on a duet in a musical between two girls dreaming of their future. One character knows French, the other doesn't. One of them dreams of traveling to Paris for college studies.

The song is going to be the musical's fun number, so I thought it would be cute to have the non French speaker hideously butcher the pronunciation of place names throughout Paris and have the character who knows French correct her.

So for this thread I'm looking for ideas. What are some of the wildest, funniest or dumbest mispronunciations you've ever heard from an English speaker, particularly an American, for any of the locations in the city?

EDIT: I need to know exactly how they mispronounce it as I'm more often or not going to place the mispronounced word at line's end so that it can rhyme with other lines.

For French speakers, does it sound unnatural when I mix up such prepositions? For example:saying ''I live in Japan.'' like ''J'habite dans Japon.'', not ''J'habite au Japon.''? Or saying ''I finished reading a book.'' like ''J'ai fini à lire un livre.", not "J'ai fini de lire un livre."? If I use a wrong preposition, then does it sound so unnatural that you guys don't get the meaning?

I just learned the phrase "il s'est fait arnaqué" and trying to understand the set up of it is racking my brain as an English speaker. In the English, its "he got scammed" as in "someone scammed him" I thought the set up would be similar to "someone hit him/he got hit" (il a été frappé) or "someone attacked him/ he got attacked" (il a été attaqué). Can someone explain why this literally translates to "he made himself scammed"?

peut on parler de datif/nominatif/accusatif en français? des exemples??

I want to watch Disney movies and then search the words they say. One problem is that the subtitles don't ever match exactly what they say.

The characters will say something like

"J'aime le fromage sur la lune mais je suis en colère"

But the subtitles will say some like

"Le fromage sur la lune me plaît, pourtant je suis fâché."

So annoying. My phone has automatic subtitles, but there's two problems. 1 They arent perfect either but they are much more accurate. And 2, when i pause the video, the subtitles disappear, so i either have to type the word out as fast as a i can or write it down without pausing.

la semaine dernier j'etais en train de parler au telephone (en francais, mais j'habite en angleterre) avec un de mes amis quand quelqu’un m’a arrêtée pour me demander si j’étais française.

je lui ai dit que non, je ne suis pas française, mais que j’ai étudié la langue au lycée.

apres quelques minutes de conversation, j'ai expliqué un peu plus en disant que je ne parle pas couramment, mais mes amis et moi parlons en français pour ensurer de ne pas perdre le niveau que nous avons appris quand nous étions plus jeune.

il n'as pas compris le mot «couramment» quand je l'ai utilisé.

peut-être que c'était une faute avec mon pronunciation, où que le français n'était pas son language maternelle non plus mais je voudrais vous demander s'il y an un autre expression que les français utilisent? est-ce un exemple de langage scolaire qui n'est plus encore utilisé et qui n’est pas courant en français?

désolée s'il y a des fautes!

Salut tout le monde,

I'm watching Stranger Things en français, and after one of the bad guys knocks on the door and no one answers, he says to his fellow bad guys, « La voix est libre »

1. that's just a typo for « La voie est libre », right?
2. idiomatic meaning? "The coast is clear"?

Long story short: My mother is french but stopped talking the language when I was around 3 years old. I picked it up again around 6 with french lessons. But obviously never got fluent in french, just 'good'. Like I can understand and read a lot but anything beyond typical conversations at home is too hard. For example: I could not talk about my job right now because I don't have any vocabulary like that.

My question is where do I go from here? Language apps like duolingo are too easy. Books for adults are too hard. I've tried time and time again to stay on french tik tok but my fyp automatically defaults back to english/dutch. I speak with my mother on the phone in french but we live seperatly and don't have a lot to say to eachother... Any tips?

Dans les années 50 et 60, était-il plus courant de parler en patois en France ou dans les dialectes locaux en Italie ?

Hello guys, i might be so delusional but i heard few times that people pass b2 in 7-8months with almost full time studying…

I really wanna ask if that’s possible and if someone had done it before?

If you done that, how many hours you prepped,please?

I booking native speaking teacher 2 a week.

For rest studying on my own except first one month i had a private tutor.

Listening podcasts and reading massively helps??

Please advice your fastest take aways..

i will get tutor one month before the exam for exam structure preparation.

I’m around B1 now, and honestly the toughest thing so far has been “y” and “en”.

I understand what you're saying, but I still get confused or hesitate when I write real sentences.

I want to know what everyone else had the most trouble with and if it just 'clicked' for you or if you had to practise a lot.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1S9VQcFk7y/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Is it seen negatively or do they not care as long as an effort is made to speak the language?

I put this word in some translators and they all came out with blasé, but to me blasé is just … blasé in english lol. Like almost nonchalant, I don’t know if that’s a direct translation tho. Jaded in english feels a bit more negative, cynical and less chill than blasé does. it has a different undertone to me but i don’t know if it sounds like that to native speakers? do you think there is any better equivalent in french?