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His pronunciation is appalling, but never mind, we admire
his progress, both with French and with the tutor, as romance
springs between them and becomes the major part of the
i lm, implying that pillow talk is perhaps the best way to
develop a language skill. In the end, the young man passes
his exam, the tutor is rewarded handsomely and the viewer
is left with a variety of misconceptions about the French
language and learning a foreign language, in general.
Excusez-moi... (Excuse Me...)
Here are the false assumptions in the i lm:
French is an inherently difi cult language.
French grammar is more complex than the grammar of
other languages.
Success in learning to speak French depends on mastery
of French grammar.
French pronunciation presents problems because the French
language has more sounds than other languages have.
The methodology of teaching French as a foreign
language depends basically on the ability of non-native
speakers to memorise and to reproduce exactly.
Native speakers of French tend to speak so rapidly that
foreigners can't understand them.
French is the language of love/diplomacy/logic.
All these ideas are wrong. The only truth about the i lm
was: pillow talk is one way to learn to communicate in any
language. If that is not among your options...
Ecoutez-moi (Listen Up)
A great deal of your success or failure in learning a foreign
language depends on your attitude towards the language
and the capabilites you assume for yourself, as a language
learner. Let's try to set things straight. To put it simply, either
you take charge of yourself and the language you intend
to learn, or it takes charge of you, which means you are
overwhelmed and fall back on the excuses exposed above.
As adults, we don't have the opportunities that we had as
children when we acquired a native language. For the i rst
three years of our lives, learning a language was our major
 
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