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activity. Learning another language, later on, is quite a
different experience.
When we learned our mother tongue, we had no options.
With a new language, we have to have a motive, an answer
to the question, 'Why do I have to do this?' The answers vary,
but one thing is clear: it is most unlikely that the language you
begin as an adult will ever approach the dimensions of your
native language. This should relieve some of your anxiety
and help to simplify your task. Some other words of support:
No language is inherently difi cult. Native languages are
more or less as difi cult as foreign languages, depending
on the native language(s) of the learner.
The same applies to grammar.
Learning to speak a foreign language depends primarily
on one's desire to speak, then on one's need to say certain
things, on one's ability to imitate new or modii ed sounds
with accuracy, and on one's choice of vocabulary and
structures to present the messages. To put grammar i rst,
is to confuse the grammar of a language—it's anatomy, so
to speak—with the language itself, which consists of more
than grammar (as a person is more than his anatomy).
The other four ideas on the previous page are
bêtise
, either
patently untrue or unsound judgements. Subscribing to
any of them will inhibit your ability to learn any language.
Montrez-moi (Show Me)
Without attempting a substantial analysis of the distinctive
features of the French language, we can point to certain
things that make French seem strange and difi cult to learn.
The sound system of French contains 15 vowels, four of
which are nasalised, produced through the nose instead of
through the mouth. Of the remaining 11 vowels, three are
uncommon in other languages. The '
r
' sound in French is
a distinctive 'scrape' and takes a good deal of practice to
reproduce accurately.
There is a way of connecting words through linking the last
sounds of one to the i rst sound of another:
Il est-t-arrivé.
There is a practice of stressing the i nal syllable of words
in French: incroyABLE instead of inCREDible.
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