Everyone who learns or plans to learn French, jump right in!

Is French really worth the effort, or is it just a meme? Is it more flexible in terms of word order than English? What makes it so fascinating and you eager to master it, whether it be your mother or second tongue. One way or another, let's discuss all of it and many many other aspects of the language in this thread!

If you have questions about French
I'm right here but I'm going to sleep

>I'm right here
>but I'm going to sleep
Why bother replying to this thread then?

bump

...

Nobody gives a damn about French, it seems. Quite sad.

It's a terrible language.

Can you flesh it out a little bit for me?

I like French. I would be more motivated to practice it if I had a relevant reason to speak it though.

t. took 4 years of French in high school

What about literature? There are so many great books written in French, definitely a worthwhile reason to give it another try someday.

such as?

Just go to /fr/ and try to discuss with them, and then see if you like it or not.

>Chrétien de Troyes
>Rabelais
>Ronsard
>Montaigne
>Descartes
>Corneille
>La Rochefoucauld
>Cyrano de Bergerac
>La Fontaine
>Molière
>Pascal
>Perrault
>Boileau
>Racine
>Rousseau
>Marivaux
>Montesquieu
>Voltaire
>Diderot
> Beaumarchais
>Marquis de Sade
>Chateaubriand
>Stendhal
>Balzac
>Hugo
>Dumas
>Musset
>Baudelaire
>Flaubert
>Verne
>Daudet
>Zola
>Maupassant
>Rimbaud
>Proust
>Valéry
>Apollinaire
>Mauriac
>Céline
>Aragon
>Camus

That's nice but unfortunately the only real incentive I feel for actively studying a foreign language is whether I can make money off my fluency. Since I'm not currently doing business in France or Quebec I have no realistic purpose for actively learning it.

I envy fluent ESL people 2bh, you had to actually exercise your brain to learn the lingua franca.

What? Am I supposed to educate you now? It's well-known that the French prose is regarded as perhaps the most significant and rich in its substance.

ty m8!

i want to learn french and portuguese only because i can't do the rolled R

I wouldn't say it's that much flexible than english but it's incorporate more latin and grec cultural reference as well as an impersonal personal pronoun ("on"). It's usually seen as one of the most precise and less unambiguous european language.

It would mostly also help you to learn uncommon english words, which are actually pretty basic french words.

We also have the oldest european litterature written in our own language meaning that modern french should be enough to read 14-15th century litterature without much struggle.

>We also have the oldest european litterature written in our own language meaning that modern french should be enough to read 14-15th century litterature without much struggle.
That's basically the main reason why I daydream about being fluent, and having a sufficiently enough vocabulary to be able to read all of this great human experience, untainted by translators.

Yeah, no... trying to read Rabelais as it was originally written is gibberish to me. Its true to some extent but saying we can easily do it for the more older texts is a bit ambitious.

>trying to read Rabelais as it was originally written is gibberish to me
What do the French do in that case? Do you have adapted versions?

Yes, for example this:
"Mais veistes vous onques chien rencontrant quelque os medullare ? C'est comme dict Platon lib. II de rep. la beste du monde plus philosophe. Si veu l'avez : vous avez peu noter de quelle devotion il le guette : de quel soing il le garde : de quelle ferveur il le tient, de quel prudence il l'entomme : de quelle affection il le brise : et de quelle dilligence il le sugce. Qui le induict à ce faire ? Quel est l'espoir de son estude ? quel bien pretend il ? Rien plus qu'un peu de mouelle. Vray est que ce peu, plus est delicieux que le beaucoup de toutes aultres : pource que la mouelle est aliment élabouré à perfection de nature, comme dict Galen III. facu. natural. et XI de usu parti. À l'exemple d'icelluy vous convient estre saiges pour fleurer, sentir, et estimez ces beaulx livres de haulte gresse, legiers au prochaz, hardis à la rencontre. Puis par curieuse leçon, et meditation frequente rompre l'os, et sugcer la sustantificque mouelle."
becomes this:
"Ne vîtes vous jamais un chien rencontrant quelque os médullaire ? C'est comme dit Platon Livre II de Rép. la bête du monde la plus philosophe. Si vous l'avez vu : vous avez pu noter avec quelle dévotion il le guette, quel soin il le garde, quelle ferveur il le tient, quelle prudence il l'entame, quelle passion il le brise, quelle diligence il le suce. Qu'est-ce qui le conduit ainsi ? Quel est l'espoir de ses recherches ? quel bien prétend-il ? Rien de plus qu'un peu de moelle. Il est vrai que ce peu est plus délicieux que le beaucoup de plein d'autres : parce que la nature est un aliment élaboré naturellement à la perfection, comme écrit Galien, De fac. nat. III, et De usu part. XII. De même, il vous convient d'être sage pour flairer, sentir, et estimer ces beaux livres de grande valeur, faciles à l'approche, hardis à l'attaque. Puis par lecture attentive, et méditation fréquente, rompre l'os et sucer la substantifique moelle."

>six years of Latin education helping me understand old French better than the modern one wew, simply wew

I wanna learn french to speak with africans

The other problem with old French is that there were no set orthograph for words, so it made it amies it pretty confusing for us today.

How different/similar is the French spoken in France compared to the French spoken in Africa? Is it a different dialect or just accent differences? Or does it depend on the region? Also,

>Egypt

huh

Id say its closer to our French than Québécois French, but the accent is something that you'll need to get used to.
>Egypt
Apparently French is really popular as a third language de around 5% of the population speaks it IIRC.