Learning a language is all about jumping through hoops and trying it no matter how bad your pronunciation is at first. So take a chance. Start at the beginning, pick a chapter that interests you, or listen to a few dialogues on the movies . Before long, you’ll be able to respond Oui! (wee!) (Yes!) when people ask Parlez-vous français? (Do you speak French?). Learning a new language can be challenging. Not only do you need to get acquainted a whole new vocabulary, but you also need to twist your head to get used all the different grammar rules and your tongue around different pronunciation rules. You already know quite a few French words and expressions because the English language seems to contain many French words and expressions, and French has absorbed some English words, too.
In this article, you get to explore some French words and phrases without having to know pronunciation or grammar rules . With just a few modifications between the two, the English and the French have historically been pretty close, even if they haven’t always been the friendly allies they are today.
Let start by the basic of starting a sentence French nouns are preceded by either definite or indefinite articles. The definite articles are le used before masculine words, la used before feminine words, l’ (an abbreviation of either le or la), and les used before words in plural; these are the equivalent to the English word the. The indefinite articles are un (masculine), une (feminine), des (plural); these are all equivalent to the English words a, an, or some . As you learn French, knowing which articles go with what nouns helps you identify the noun’s gender .
Some of the French words are spelled the same and have the same meaning as their English counterparts. The only thing that may be different is the pronunciation .For example l’art, brave, le bureau ,le client, le concert , la condition ,content ,le courage, le cousin , la culture , différent .Some French words, while not identical in spelling to their English counterparts, look very similar. For example l’ acteur(actor), l’ hôtel (hotel), l’adresse (address) ,le kiosque(kiosk), l’aéroport (airport) ,la lampe(lamp), l’allée (alley), la letter(letter) .Some words look identical but they have different meanings these words are called cognates . They look similar to English words, but they don’t have the same meaning. Misusing these words can be quite confusing. For example actuellement : This word means now, not actually , assister: This word means to attend, not to assist , attendre : This word means to wait for, not to attend .
French, like English, has many idioms(these are words or phrases which does not contain the literal meanings of the words as mentioned ). You may find the meaning of these expressions puzzling if you try to translate them word for word. If you walk up to a French speaking person and say Il pleut des chats et des chiens(It’s raining cats and dogs), he or she would question your common sense . On the other hand, you may find yourself wondering what a French speaker means when she says Il tombe des cordes , whose actual meaning is Ropes are falling, but it’s roughly equivalent to It’s raining cats and dogs .These are the few basics to start learning the French language however we have other set of rules for grammar which helps in mastering the language .