Have you ever gone back to school to learn French?

I can order a jug of beer in any bar in Granby. I'm good to go.
 
My first language is french so I can't really understand your position 100%, but I can imagine it pretty well.

I will assume that while you were in french immersion you did average in your french classes.
If that's the case, taking up a french course or doing the Rosetta Stone books, I have a feeling that whatever you have "forgotten" should come back to you rather quickly as long as you have a good amount of dedication to speak french. You have a good upper hand in your journey, but you need to dig it back up.

There are many reasons to be multi-lingual in today's world and I totally agree that if you have an interest in french you go ahead and take some type of course to help you out.
Even simple things like watching TV on the french channel or listening to french AM radio in the backgroud will help you a lot more than you think.

If you're stuck on a word, or short sentence, Google Translate works really well.
I wouldn't depend on it for long sentences or paragraphs though, as many things will get lost in dialects.
 
rfid said:
Oui!!
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Nous devons avoir un 'Ride/Hookup' specifiquement ou on parles Français.

Dommage, partons du GTA, ça prendrai quelques heures a rendre en Québec. (Peut-être moins si le fameux 'Ninja 250r' est exclu du voyage?)
 
And back to the topic...

For Parisien vs. Canadien French, I'd try to get a balance of the two. A Parisien-specific course would probably be better for employability. However, knowing all the Passé Composé in the world won't help you order at Subway, or talk to people in bars or on the street. It guess it depends on the end goal.
 
honduhmatic said:
And back to the topic...

For Parisien vs. Canadien French, I'd try to get a balance of the two. A Parisien-specific course would probably be better for employability. However, knowing all the Passé Composé in the world won't help you order at Subway, or talk to people in bars or on the street. It guess it depends on the end goal.
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ughh all those passe compose things drove me nuts in school. I hate verbs, even when I was learning greek, too many ways to change a word
 
Thanks for giving me some leads, guys. I'm looking into all of them now and hopefully I'll have a schedule figured out before the summer ends. I'm also gonna start listening to french radio 'cause I can still understand it fairly well. Hopefully I can catch on a bit through that.

jeero said:
I will assume that while you were in french immersion you did average in your french classes.
If that's the case, taking up a french course or doing the Rosetta Stone books, I have a feeling that whatever you have "forgotten" should come back to you rather quickly as long as you have a good amount of dedication to speak french. You have a good upper hand in your journey, but you need to dig it back up.
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I did average, but I didn't actually learn anything. I used yahoo translators for all of my assignments and just did okay (our original french teacher moved and we got some funny joker guy...good times. lol). I actually copied my way through elementary school french. When our class went to high school, our french teacher asked us where the hell we learned our French 'cause it was really far behind. It's a combination of bad teachers and little kids who just didn't appreciate how important it was. But basically, I'm starting from scratch - even my basic conjugations were never good. The only advantage that I have is that I'm a quick learned and pretty determined :/
 
A really good show to watch on the CBC french channel is called L'epiceries. It's about groceries (which sounds stupid I know) but they take you through the store and how to order stuff, etc. I've found it really helpful.

I also force myself to read the french first on most labels and if I can't figure it out I switch to English.

You can also get children's or adolescent's books from the library to help with reading.
 
Just learn international french, its the by-the-book french. After that, if a french person doesn't understand you, he maybe just hate English people or bugging you because its not a perfect french accent (whatever the place!) Anyway, its not learning the bad word or regional expression like "gosse" mean (testicules here, kids in Europe) or "chialé" (complaining here, crying in Europe) that will help you be a good french speakers

But one question....why learning french? Do you work with European worker? I'm canadian-french (or from Québec..), I don't understand the need of speaking french outside of Québec.

Good luck with our 14 000 verbs and those verb that are used only when writing :p Same deal with Spanish =/
 
vince492 said:
Just learn international french, its the by-the-book french. After that, if a french person doesn't understand you, he maybe just hate English people or bugging you because its not a perfect french accent (whatever the place!) Anyway, its not learning the bad word or regional expression like "gosse" mean (testicules here, kids in Europe) or "chialé" (complaining here, crying in Europe) that will help you be a good french speakers

But one question....why learning french? Do you work with European worker? I'm canadian-french (or from Québec..), I don't understand the need of speaking french outside of Québec.

Good luck with our 14 000 verbs and those verb that are used only when writing :p Same deal with Spanish =/
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It's just always an asset. If you're a student, you can make decent coin as a translator or tutor. If you're trying to work, there are more high-paying opportunities than the average crappy student job. But one example (which I used in the OP): while working at one job that would've hired me to work at head office in Quebec (if I knew French), I chatted up a lady that turned out to be from Via Rail's corporate office. She ended up getting my number and called me within the week trying to offer me a job there, but couldn't because I couldn't at least carry on a conversation in French. She told me to call her back, even if it's in a couple of years. That, and in industries where talking's one of the biggest assets, it's a very justified premium to your hourly wage or salary.

That, and I've also been playing with the idea of moving to Montreal when I'm older, and I've always been the type to have opportunities lined up before taking a leap...so I would need to be able to speak french when I do resume runs/go for interviews.
 
I work on a job site right now where 90% of the people are french.

The only 3 words you need to know in Canada are:

Tabernac

Caliss

And Esti


Those are the only words my boss ever feels the need to use.
 
There are lots of colleges that offer certificate programs in learning the French language.

I'm currently taking private lessons with LRDG http://www.lrdgonline.com/ . It's quite costly, but this works best for me because of my schedule. I think there about 13 - 15 modules and the company gives you an assessment and starts you off on the appropriate module. It's half self taught and half with a tutor. You can schedule a time with your tutor around your schedule.

They mainly teach government staff, but also offer lessons to the public.

Si vous avez le temps, je recommande que vous lisez le site. Moi aussi, j'ai besoin les lecon pour une meilleure emploi dans le futur...
 
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