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I am a native English speaker (born and raised in the US). In school -- over a decade ago -- I took six semesters of French courses, and I've done some immersiv

I am a native English speaker (born and raised in the US). In school -- over a decade ago -- I took six semesters of French courses, and I've done some immersive trips to Quebec (which admittedly is a different dialect, but at least helps a bit). Last week I was in Paris. Even with a refresh on grammar and vocabulary, I struggled a lot to communicate in French. The most difficult thing, for me, is the sentence structure. I have enough vocabulary and grammar to choose the words I want, but I have a lot of trouble putting them in the correct order. And this is not a rare thing; it shows up in all sorts of simple sentences. For example, in English I might ask "Where is (X)" or "Is this street (X)". In French, I need to flip those around to "(X), where is it" or "Here, this is (X)?" The sign to hang on the door of the hotel room would, in English, say "Please do not disturb" -- in French, it says "Thanks of not to disturb". All of those words are, of course, easily recognizable, but the structure is completely alien to an English speaker (especially the way French uses infinitives in so many situations where English does not, giving rise to stereotypes of French speakers attempting English and always saying "Please to tell me..." and such). I suspect that it would take me many months or perhaps even years of immersion and full-time speaking and thinking in French to get to the point of being able to construct most sentences in "natural French" structure on the first try.

rakoo 12y ago
> For example, in English I might ask "Where is (X)" or "Is this street (X)". In French, I need to flip those around to "(X), where is it" or "Here, this is (X), yes?" I don't know where you got your French lessons but you've been mislead. Both "Where is (X)" and "Is this street (X)" translated directly are more correct than your alternatives: "Ou est (X)" "Est-ce que c'est la rue (X)" > "Thanks of not to disturb" Rather, "Thanks for not disturbing", which has the advantage of being understable in English: "Merci de ne pas déranger"
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  "(X), où est-ce"/"Ici, c'est la rue (X)"/etc. is the form I've consistently heard from native French speakers. And the point was not to say that the French is un-understandable, but that the structure and the use of infinitive form is alien to an English speaker. It does not naturally occur to an English speaker to use infinitives the way they're often used in French.
m-r-r 12y ago
> I suspect that it would take me many months or perhaps even years of immersion and full-time speaking and thinking in French to get to the point of being able to construct most sentences in "natural French" structure on the first try. If you have difficulty learning French, I suggest learning another language with a similar "structure", such as Esperanto. I'm a French native speaker, and I'm currently learning Esperanto. I find the two languages very similar in their way of constructing sentences, but the later one if a lot easier to learn: conjugation and agreement, in particular, are much simpler, and the absence of suppletion (a verb and its derivative always share the same root) helps greatly for memorizing the vocabulary.

rakoo 12y ago

> For example, in English I might ask "Where is (X)" or "Is this street (X)". In French, I need to flip those around to "(X), where is it" or "Here, this is (X), yes?" I don't know where you got your French lessons but you've been mislead. Both "Where is (X)" and "Is this street (X)" translated directly are more correct than your alternatives: "Ou est (X)" "Est-ce que c'est la rue (X)" > "Thanks of not to disturb" Rather, "Thanks for not disturbing", which has the advantage of being understable in English: "Merci de ne pas déranger"

ubernostrum 12y ago
"(X), où est-ce"/"Ici, c'est la rue (X)"/etc. is the form I've consistently heard from native French speakers. And the point was not to say that the French is un-understandable, but that the structure and the use of infinitive form is alien to an English speaker. It does not naturally occur to an English speaker to use infinitives the way they're often used in French.

m-r-r 12y ago

> I suspect that it would take me many months or perhaps even years of immersion and full-time speaking and thinking in French to get to the point of being able to construct most sentences in "natural French" structure on the first try. If you have difficulty learning French, I suggest learning another language with a similar "structure", such as Esperanto. I'm a French native speaker, and I'm currently learning Esperanto. I find the two languages very similar in their way of constructing sentences, but the later one if a lot easier to learn: conjugation and agreement, in particular, are much simpler, and the absence of suppletion (a verb and its derivative always share the same root) helps greatly for memorizing the vocabulary.