Learn the Rules, Live the Language

Sometimes, I wonder how long it will take before I learn most of the French grammar I will need.  Just when I think I have a handle on some grammar topic, it seems that soon after there is a lesson something like, "oh, by the way, in this situation the verb agrees with the subject but not in this other situation." Another area of French grammar adds to my doubts: the French subjunctive.

The subjunctive mood in French profoundly changed the way I looked at the language. The subjunctive mood expresses subjectivity, doubt, or unlikelihood. The conditional, which describes a condition or a possibility, is not the same. English does have the subjunctive mood but it's rarely used and has been side-stepped in preference for using the passive voice and conditional statements. One could say that French subjunctive can even be used subjectively, that is: sometimes you use it and sometimes you don't. Several French people have told me they avoid the subjunctive tense because it is so difficult.  

On the positive side I've found plenty of resources to help me. Try Laura K. Lawless's "subjunctivator" at http://french.about.com/library/verb/bl-subjunctivator.htm  Or, to find a landslide of information on this topic search for "french subjunctive" on the Internet. When speaking in French, for me it's best to lean on expressions I absolutely know. The word espérer (to hope) works well using the indicative tenses (although there are exceptions) so I try to stay with "J'espére que..."

One would presume that our ancestors would gift us with an invariable language. But then who could predict the over-running of England in 1066 by the French or, upon its creation, the European Union declaring English as its official language?  When languages run into each other there is definitely impact on both languages.

In my first year of French studies, we studied dialogues in which French people made statements such as "Je suis cool..." My head hurt for a while until I realized the French used the term "cool" to express that one has a  laid-back or relaxed personality. In American English, declaring that you are cool makes it clear that you are definitely not cool. We use this term to make the claim that something or someone is beyond excellent and they are cool enough to play the role of never acknowledging that "fact."

.After living in France in the early 80s, it's sometimes difficult for me to grasp that even the French have embraced English for practical reasons, especially in commerce. One of the admirable qualities of French culture is the pursuit of retaining the "French-ness" of the language and this tenant was very evident (and still is) in everyday life. The French Academy enforces standards of French but language migration is inevitable. In matters of language usage, people rarely restrict themselves to what they've been taught in school. 

As has historically always happened, languages mix and morph and real people use what is useful to them at the time. If it's not confusing enough to find English words in French (that usually don't mean exactly the same thing in English), I recently read a discussion of some of the differences between French and Quebecois. The Old World and New World keep drifting apart geologically and linguistically, despite all the technologies allowing us to interact almost instantly.

The French are recognizing the necessity of using English at times. Sometimes in Europe I overhear people talking and, because of their accents, wonder where they are from... and then I work out that they speak what I call Euro-English. Most of the time when you hear someone else's accent it reveals their origins. Euro-English is an exception. These are people for whom English is a second language but they are extremely fluent. France has not been left out of this trend.

I recently saw a placard in Parisian bookstore window offering books and materials to teach one's child English. One afternoon, while I read a book and waited for my husband at a street side table, I overheard a mother at the neighboring table. She asked her preschool aged girl to recite the English she'd learned that day. The little girl sang a song in English and her mother gave her kudos. Shouldn't preschoolers learn the subjunctive mood early, too? Well, she has 13 years of French schooling to look forward to and that should set her straight.

Grammatical Cobwebs

If you hate grammar you may think this entry is beside the point learning French. In fact, if you don't like grammar, but want to learn French, I can attest to the fact that it's possible to learn French by ear. But if reading French is a goal, understand that there is probably no language in which it is more essential to grasp its grammar.

My basic English grammar from junior high school is all very vague to me after muddling it up with other language study. I have been exposed to two very different systems studying Latin and German. My Latin teacher once said that, while it may not be the preferred approach, one could write a Latin sentence in any word order and it was still comprehensible. This is not true of French, nor English for that matter.

Conjugating verbs (as in an earlier form of English) is now no longer as necessary. We like to regularize as many verbs as possible. However, remnants of an older system are found in our irregular verbs. An example is the verb 'to go': I go, he goes, you go, we go, you go, they go. In this case only third person singular retains a conjugated ending. We mostly dropped these old forms from our speech and our written language while French retains them primarily in the written word.

French utilizes the Latin and Germanic systems in one language.  Latin generally uses no pronouns just mostly suffixes to convey both number and tense. German, like English, primarily relies upon pronouns to do the heavy lifting with first, second, and third person. Yet, if you listen to French, one can't help but notice that in the spoken French, one just simply does not pronounce many of the endings of verbs that one sees in the written French. Why? Because it is very cumbersome. Understanding the spoken French does not require retention of all those archaic endings. But for whatever reason, the French retain them in the written word.

While French and English have similarities, there are great differences. We learn about dependent and independent clauses but, while it is clear that French uses this concept vigorously, that terminology doesn't match up with their rules about when to choose que versus qui. Our relative pronouns (who, whom, which, that) serve multiple uses. But this flexibility gives English an undesirable ambiguity.

Correct American English usage of relative pronouns is debated by scholars, editors, students, and teachers alike. It's been delightful exploring relative clause topics on the Internet for the last year. U.S. education teaches us to learn the currently accepted grammar... until time passes and one's next teacher inflicts the latest and greatest changes of the grammar and punctuation as well on his/her student. Many educated people avoid using dependent clauses (in English) because of the disagreement over which relative pronoun choice is appropriate.

Originally, I was taught  to separate a sequence with commas, 3 years later retaught to not use a comma before the 'and', then later in college I found the rule had reverted to using that extra comma. Sure, it is not the equivalent of the discipline of chemistry reversing the valence numbers (electron charge) on the periodic table, but it's close. (Yes, the periodic table was actually revised between my high school and college years.)

Yet, French grammar isn't that different from English in many ways. For comprehension, both depend heavily on word order. The adverbs, adjectives, and pronouns all use proximity in a sentence to do their work although the rules are slightly different. The tenses are pretty much the same (past, present, future). Prepositional use is extremely similar. So far in my studies, I've found the greatest difference is that the French uses the subjunctive where we have almost totally abandoned it. And French people often say they just avoid using the subjunctive form rather than misspeak.

French grammar is a subject that is necessary to study intensively to get right, even for native speakers. French academic studies contrast starkly with American English. We get a dash of grammar here and there in our schooling. Yet, while it's useful for us to understand our grammar, grammar is easy enough that, even without studying it much, one can learn to read and write reasonably well. 

Enjoy French from the Very Beginning

I know that I don’t have to be an expert in a language in order to appreciate and use it. But I acquired that knowledge long before I became interested in French. After suffering through a year of Latin in high school, I changed my  foreign language studies to German. I had no idea how to study a foreign language when I was in Latin classes. But in switching to German, I discovered that Latin had given me a pretty good start.

One bateau mouche.

I studied German in high school and at college. After reaching a level of study fit for reading literature only, I left German behind (I thought). As it happened, the first time I was able to speak my German to actual German-speaking people was on a bateau mouche floating down the Seine. I sat next to two middle-aged German ladies who did not speak English. So, I tried out my German by asking them if they understood me. They did and told me I was doing well. What a relief for me! I always worried that I would never be able to be understood if German was needed. Maybe coming from the Midwest and from a family of largely German immigrants helped me to sound really German. My teachers were native speakers but each with a very different accent.

As luck would have it, after I married, my husband traveled to Germany frequently to teach classes in Fortran and other computer topics. So twice I traveled with him to Münich and did touristy things while he worked. The German in southern Germany is definitely different than the standard Hochdeutsch used in schools there and taught in schools here. They understood me on the street, but there was no assurance that I understood them.

I even studied German at the Berlitz School in Marienplatz while I was there. It must have been at that point that I left behind any hope of ever remembering enough vocabulary to make progress. Like English, German has many compound words. Different from English, the compound words often meant something entirely different than the words that composed it. I couldn't wrap my head around that.

Marienplatz, Munich, Germany

My experiences learning French have been quite different. Suddenly finding myself in France with no French, I felt like I had taken a high dive into a very deep pool. But my hunger drove me to learn as much French as I could just to eat. (Read my blog of Oct 28, 2011, "Sorting through French Study Options.") Instead of having the time to approach the language in an organized fashion, I learned everything by imitation of the people around me. I asked a lot of questions about the French from students and locals. I couldn't have a conversation but I was wonderful at ordering off of menus, asking for the location of toilets, calling for another beer or coffee at the outdoor cafés.

I have been enjoying interaction with French culture and French friends (even though I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on around me) right from the start.

French culture takes great pride the French language. Thus, every French person has been a very good instructor for me. A French waitress has matter-of-factly corrected me to say “un café” instead of “une café” when ordering coffee. People on the subway and in businesses have taken time to correct my pronunciation or vocabulary in a helpful manner. Amusingly, one young French fellow demanded to know why my group did not speak French in France. (He spoke to us in English.) I baffled him a bit, replying that I studied German and never expected to be in France! (That did seem to stump him.)

I know that if I put concentrated effort into learning French, I will increase my access to the French people. They will continue to educate me politely and voluntarily. For me, this my greatest incentive to learn French. Having willing participants is a necessity. I could never find that in German even in Germany. (The Germans were nice but always insisted on speaking English.)

I have yet to experience anything similar to this on-the-spot coaching in other countries. The Germans may cringe in pain while I’ve butchered the language, but outside of German classes, I’ve rarely been corrected or encouraged.  The Spanish were likely to just wait until we found an interpreter.

We Americans are so forgiving of the misuse of the English language that even our TV and radio personalities drop the “ly” off of their adjectives, abuse verbs, and confuse “good” for “well.” (e.g. “You done good honey.”) I have come to believe the American audience believes this is “folksy.” Unfortunately, most Americans do not take well to correction in their own language no matter how well intended.

A living language is never an isolated tool. It must always be attached to a living culture... even Latin. To be useful, a language must express what its people hold dear. Because the French are, well, the French... I will always enjoy the French language and culture as a total experience.