Bonjour ! J'ai brièvement discuté aujourd'hui avec une Française près de la Mosquée Bleue (Sultanahmet). Elle m'a demandé de me présenter avant de partir en direction d'Üsküdar. Malheureusement, j'ai oublié de lui demander ses coordonnées et je le regrette beaucoup. Si tu te reconnais ou si vous connaissez une amie qui correspond à cette description, envoyez-moi un message privé ! J'aimerais beaucoup qu'on reprenne notre discussion."

Hi I'm an acting student in foreign country and I was trying to learn this 1900s passage:

Il ne faut pas faire du bruit,
la Sophie est dormée déjà. Vous êtes un ours.

Je vous prie, pardonnez-moi, Marie, mais vous avez des manières un peu grossières.

Il paraît que mon Bobik déjà ne dort pas.

does any of you know how the grammar structure is different from regular french, and how I could get any voice recording of native person speaking this? I asked all my friends but they said they weren't good enough :(

i may soon be starting my first job ever as customer service agent in french language targeting mainly canadian market , the account is mainly on food delivery.

want to hear some advices , preferences . You guys Are free to share anything that would be helpful to ease my start at this job

my french level is between B1 and B2 and i will earn 300 euros per month

Bonjour!

I want to learn french, I am at the bottom of the barrel currently. I speak english and Arabic and am have decided to self-study french. I can give about 3 hours a day for the next couple of months, some days even more and I would like to reach B1 level by January or February.

I have found a couple of resources so far, for a textbook I am looking at assimil, https://www.assimil.com/fr/sans-peine/1671-french-9782700571240.html

however I have heard that it lacks a grammar foundation which is very important for any language, so my question is, should I find another textbook or should I pair this textbook with another textbook more detailed in grammar?

I know that this is not an easy question and has multiple different answers and that is completely fine with me. I want to see all different perspectives.

Bonjour! I'd love to hear some honest opinions from native French speakers about a Japanese girl's name.

The name is Konatsu, which means "little summer" in Japanese. It's pronounced "Ko-na-tsu," with a clear "tsu" sound at the end.

I recently came across the French word c\nnasse*, and it made me wonder how similar the two might sound to French speakers.

A few questions:

• Does "Konatsu" immediately make you think of "c*nnasse"?
• Is the "tsu" sound difficult for French speakers to pronounce? Would you naturally say "su" instead?
• If you met a Japanese girl named Konatsu, would you find the name awkward or funny, or would it sound perfectly fine?
• Do you think she'd be better off using a nickname in France? If so, I'd love to hear your suggestions!

I'm more interested in your gut reaction than whether the two words are technically pronounced differently.

Please be honest, even if the answer isn't what I'd like to hear!

Merci beaucoup!

Edit: Thank you all so much for your kind and thoughtful responses!

I've received so many helpful perspectives, and I really appreciate everyone's honesty. It's been incredibly useful to learn how this Japanese name comes across to French speakers, how it relates to the French word, and what I might need to be mindful of in the future.

I love traveling, I'm deeply interested in different cultures, and connecting with people around the world means a lot to me. So this was something I genuinely cared about.

I'd love to reply to each of you individually, but first I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone! 😊

#1: Is Canadian or French pronunciation easier with voice training? (MTF)

#2: How do I learn Quebec French specifically?

J’ai un niveau C1-C2 et je ne connais aucun des mots de ce quiz, à part « empirer » et « éclaircir ». Combien d’entre vous connaissent les mots proposés dans ce quiz ?

https://youtu.be/Kn5GUXlQBX0

je viens de mater le daim de quentin dupieux et je suis 100% sûr que j'ai entendu un personnage dire " voulez du sucre ?" (au lieu de " vous voulez "). j'ai regardé aussi un épisode de lupin et le protagoniste dit " vmavez sous-estimé " à un certain moment.

est-ce que c'est quelque chose de formalisé dans le langage informel ?

Bonsoir à tous,

Petite interrogation de prononciation après un atelier de convo littéraire en biblio.

On parlait du roman de Kawabata, "Les Belles Endormies".

Quand j'ai lu ce titre en faisant la liaison :

/lɛ bɛl‿z‿ɑ̃dɔʁmi/

les 2 bibliothécaires (qui animaient l'échange) ont tout de suite répété après moi, sans la liaison :

/lɛ bɛl ɑ̃dɔʁmi/

ce qui m'a donné l'impression de m'être trompé.

Pourtant, grammaticalement, "belles" est le nom et "endormies" l'adjectif (?). C'est donc une liaison facultative après un nom pluriel (?), et dans un échange sur un classique de la littérature, ça ne me semblait pas absurde du tout.

J'en ai parlé à mon prof aujourd'hui (parisien), et lui m'a dit qu'il préférait largement faire la liaison ici.

Du coup je serais curieux d'avoir vos avis, que vous soyez de France ou du Québec : vous dites quoi spontanément ?

Est-ce que faire cette liaison vous paraît fluide et élégant, ou alors complètement pompeux ?

Merci !

In anime there are like cat characters sometimes, like Felix Argyle in Re:Zero, and I was just wondering what they say in French. usually they say like "meow" instead of "no" and the like. Do they accentuate the "Nya" in "il n'y a pas" or something or do they not have any speaking quirks?

For context : ”Ouais faut qu’on cale ça j’ai envie de voir si tu vas me pecho ou pas”

Because I heard it means sex/hooking up but with the rest of the sentence it sounds kind of odd?

​

​Hey everyone!

I’ve been stuck at the A2-B1 plateau regarding my writing for a few months now.

​My listening and comprehension skills are much higher than my writing, but I face roadblocks:

​Synonyms and everyday expressions: I lack a rich vocabulary of native collocations and synonyms.

​Native sentence structures: When I want to say something, I end up translating it from English to French in my head, which doesn't always work out correctly. (English is not my native but I'm C1)

​Prepositions: I constantly struggle with the right prepositions.

​Tenses: Sometimes I mess up verb tenses as well.

​My question is: Has anyone managed to break out of this exact phase? 😅

​Also, are there any structured, gradual resources (textbooks, channels, or books) that focus specifically on grouping everyday expressions, idioms, and natural collocations?

​Any advice or recommendations would mean a lot! Thanks!

I’ve seen several applications list their deadline this way. If there’s no hour listed, and for example they put only « à soumettre avant le vendredi 16 octobre » without any other details, is it safe to assume that you can send it until midnight today? Or is it before today starts, e.g. midnight yesterday?

I was just looking at the list of French language tests that have the ALTE Q-Mark. DELF A2-B2 are not there anymore.

https://www.alte.org/Find-a-Language-Test

Perhaps it’s an anecdotal set of non-representative interactions, but I’ve noticed that people (florists, shopkeepers, clothing store clerks) seem to interpret “violet” as a very light shade of what English speakers call “purple”, and I’m wondering if there is a way that Francophones distinguish between the two (violet foncé v light purple)?

I understand that both terms can cover a wide range of colors, and that traditional purple is technically non-spectral, but it just made me curious.

Is this the general understand? That violet instinctively refers to the lighter shade without qualification? And if so, what’s the best way to refer to the darker shade?

Hey guys,

I’m going to Montpellier the next year, even though I’m still uncertain about the dates. I’m 19 yo and would like to be around younger people. Which is the best time of the year for finding them?

Also, do you think I should choose a hostel or student residence? I’m willing to go to parties and socialize.

I heard July is crowded with other students and tourists, but I’m concerned about the heat.

Finally, I’m between ILA (which seems an excellent school) and LSF, which I haven’t heard much. Which of those would you reccomend for my profile?

What is the difference between what I wrote and the actual answer. I though “n’ont” would be an appropriate contraction of “ne sont”

I'm assuming it's shit, but even then, I don't get it. For context, this is an athlete commenting under one of his teammates posts, it seems hes encouraging the other one.

Bonjour à tout. Sorry, my French is so rusty so I’ll continue in English if that’s ok?

I saw a caption on a video that read, « mat a folie il a rien fait ». It was showing a person being unfairly roughly handled by a gendarme.

I’ve no idea what ‘mat’ means here but the whole sentence comes across as something like, “Madness, he didn’t do anything.”

I used my dictionary and couldn’t find anything. Last resort, threw it into google translate (yes, I know I know!!) and got an interesting result. The first being, “He’s completely mad; he didn’t do anything,” which makes sense.

When I put just the first three words in, it returned, “Stunningly beautiful.” I know google translate is an awful tool but this was such a wildly different translation that it piqued my interest.

Would anyone mind explaining what « mat » means here and google’s suggestion for the first part of the sentence? Merci d’avance.

I’m a masters student in paris and I’ve gotten this feedback/comment at least 3 times at the end of a semester. It sounds nice but it was always from teachers in whose classes I wasn’t exactly in the top scorers or participants. I don’t know if it’s just a generic way to say goodbye and close out the semester or if it is the most professional way to give a lukewarm/low level compliment to students who weren’t really the best but also not the worst.

The first time was from a TA where I asked her why I had such a bad grade on the final assignment lol and she said basically I didn’t seem to understand the topic very well but she said keep going and thank you for your engagement throughout the semester (I had not participated even once). The second time was from a professor with whom I had like 10 or 11, after the exam I asked him if there was anything I could do to improve next time and he said I needed to work harder and explained my mistakes and then thanked me for my “engagement”, it sounded a bit like a nice way to soften the blow😅

And third time was this week, I emailed a teacher to say I enjoyed the subject she taught and she replied thanking me for my engagement (I don’t really think I was very engaged though haha).

I’m not sure if this is a common comment in academic/professional circles but I’ve gotten it a surprising amount of times now and I also see it a lot with my classmates. Usually with “good” students I think they are more specific like they will say thank you for your contributions, discussions, work, etc. To a native speaker would “merci pour votre engagement” basically sounds like a polite way to say someone did just ok or like the bare minimum?

I have to pass DELF with 65 points or higher to graduate. I've tried everything: wacthing french shows for all age groups, reading french books, hypnopedia, duolingo etc. etc. etc. It's driving me crazy. I do not enjoy the French language, I wanted to study Spanish but they wouldn't let me so now I can't graduate unless I pass DELF but I cannot write, speak or listen to the language at all. My reading comprehension is pretty good but thats it, and that's only because I gather context clues. I cannot form new sentences or understand what I'm listening to. All the exams I've passed so far I've passed thanks to memorization but I can't use that method anymore.

I can't understand it, so when I watch shows I need closed captions, but French people very rarely use CC and even when I do find it it beats the purpose bc I'm not supposed to be reading. I've tried reading training books but it gets boring immediately cause every sentence there are at least 2 words or phrases I have to look up. Duolingo is completely overrun with AI slop. Geniunely I don't know what to do anymore. Please, anyone who has a tactic, something that worked for them, something UNBORING... I beg of you, help me.

I've been learning for a bit and I saw this random guys youtube post, just wanted to verify if this is actually what a C1 level would sound like??

Introducing myself was never the problem. Giving a point of view and holding it for a few minutes was where I ran out of things to say.

​I tried a simple structure (opinion, reason, example, nuance, conclusion), but I never knew whether that was what actually works in the exam. For those who've taken B1, how did the three parts of the oral feel and which was hardest, how did you prepare for topics you hadn't seen, and was there a practice method that clearly made a difference?

Salut ! Je voudrais du feedback sur mon accent. Les gens me comprennent quand je parle, mais je veux améliorer quelques choses : j'ai de la peine à bien prononcer les différents sons de e (notamment savoir quand il faut dire é ou è), et les voyelles nasales en/an et in.

https://voca.ro/1bhGEbzPqNDz

Voici le texte que j'ai lu. Mon intonation est pas très naturelle pcq je me suis concentrée sur l'articulation mais bah.

Les neurosciences correspondent à l’étude du fonctionnement du système nerveux, depuis ses aspects les plus fondamentaux (biologiques et chimiques) jusqu’aux plus fonctionnels : la personnalité, les comportements, les pensées. Elles concernent des disciplines variées comme la psychologie, en particulier la psychologie cognitive qui explique les processus à l’œuvre dans le cerveau pour apprendre, mais aussi la neurologie, la chronobiologie, la philosophie, l’anthropologie ou encore l’informatique, qui propose des modélisations à partir des données collectées.

Merci !

I mainly watched YouTube videos for 9 months while learning from scratch, followed by 3 months of intensive studying of grammar and vocabulary. I thought I’d only reach A2–B1, but I was surprised by how much all that effort paid off. I had to take the test for visa renewal since it's my first time in France so I worked my butt off during the last 3 moths lol. If I can do it, so can you!