With Jess' help, I've been trying to learn French over the past few days. For someone with Language skills very unused to the phonetics used in French, this is a somewhat daunting task. I've spent, at most, two hours attempting to learn. Here are some of my findings to date. Please keep in mind that I am presenting this information without consulting Jess and, therefore, many corrections may be required.
The first lesson I mastered has the following moral: French is fucked. Now English can be fairly daunting for someone who does not claim it as their mother tongue, however, French seems to be complicated for complexity's sake. For instance, French the written language and French the spoken language are two entirely different animals. In some cases, 50% or more of a word will contain letters that are silent, or are only pronounced when before another word beginning with a vowel. This is known as a liaison.
The information bandwidth of written French is much higher than that of spoken French. Take, for example, the following words: vert (green), vers (toward), verre (glass), ver (worm), and vair (squirrel fur). All of these words are pronounced exactly the same, which sounds something like the "vi" in "vice" coupled with a "er" from "her" cut abruptly short.
I began by learning some easy basics: animals, various nouns, and colors. The "eu" sound from bleu has given me a lot of trouble. Even listening to Jess say it over and over again, I was unable to duplicate it. I believe I've come reasonably close by producing a shortened version of the "er" in "her". If you're following along at home, don't actually pronounce the "r". Instead, lie to yourself. Tell yourself to pronounce it, and then, just as your lips and throat are about to make that last consonant ring into existence, karate chop yourself in the throat.
Some words are very difficult for me to pronounce. Some of the current bastards are bleu, brun, fenêtre, and cantaloupe. I think the four years of Spanish (read: the easiest language in the world) I have are confusing me, as all of my French sounds as though it is being produced by Tito Puente. [update: or as a gay British man, according to Jess]
In order to give you an introduction to the vast array of French words and phrases I am capable of, I offer you an abbreviated list as taught to me by Jess:
- I want some delicious kisses. Je veux de baisers délicieux.
- I'm sorry. Je suis un dick face.
- The brown cantaloupe walked. Le cantaloupe brun a marché.
Additionally I learned that when stating that you've walked the dog (J'ai marché le chien) you must be very careful to pronounce the last sound of chien (dog) very accurately. Being even the slightest bit lazy will result in a word sounding more like chier, which would be a very poor way of saying that you have to take a shit.
Stay tuned, more lessons will follow.
