In Parisian French when it’s raining you say, il pleut, it’s raining. But il pleut can also mean he’s crying. In Acadie, when it rains you say, il viens mouille, it’s is becoming wet.

In Parisian French when it’s raining you say, il pleut, it’s raining. But il pleut can also mean he’s crying. In Acadie, when it rains you say, il viens mouille, it’s is becoming wet.

by ELAINE MANDRONA

I have been wanting to improve my French for a long time but have been stuck on a plateau. It’s hard to believe that I had two years of French in junior high, four years in high school and several university courses and still I cannot express myself in the language adequately. But they say that even some people who grew up speaking a language will lose it if they don’t use it enough.

Then there is the problem that I was taught Parisian French and the French in Acadie is different—an older, archaic form of the language, and some of the pronunciation is different, as well as some of the idioms—different enough to confuse me at times. In Parisian French when it’s raining you say, il pleut, it’s raining. But il pleut can also mean he’s crying. In Acadie, when it rains you say, il viens mouille, it’s is becoming wet.

What I need to work on most is grammar, verb tense and those pesky idioms. These are the areas where I fall back on my English-isms with some amusing and awkward results.

Most everyone has had the experience of hearing people who are learning English make cute mistakes—gramatically correct, maybe, but still wrong in terms of meaning. A new French friends from France emailed us and said, “I am impatient to meet you”; eager would have been better, of course. A Chinese co-worker said to my husband, “I was sick and was eating medicine all day.”

And one of my own, when I couldn’t think of the French word for toes I used les doits du pied—fingers of the feet. There were chuckles. I want to get beyond mistakes like that.

So how will I improve? I have no problem teaching myself things and I have planned a multi-pronged approach. I have a Learn French CD with an accompanying textbook, several books on Acadian history written in French, and an Acadian cookbook. I will try to use my French as much as possible in person-to-person, everyday conversation and rely on a few friends to correct my mistakes. This is my version of immersion.

I am reviewing the textbook this weekend to find the holes in my knowledge, things that I’m weak on or don’t know at all. For instance the negation of some. How I missed this in high school French I don’t know. It’s the rule that after all verbs in the negative form, the articles un, une, des, du, de la and d’l are all replaced by de or (d’ if followed by a word beginning with a vowel or silent h).

For instance : “Je bois du vin.” (positive)

“Je ne bois pas de vin.” (negative)

Then there are the object direct pronouns that answer the question of what or whom in a sentence. A direct object is not preceeded by a preposition such as to, for, at, or in. A direct object can be a thing, person, pronoun or even an entire phrase. The direct object pronoun is used as a shortcut to replace a person or thing that is a direct object.

“We brought our computers to the library”. Computers is the direct object.

“We brought them to the library.” Them is the direct object pronoun.

In French je, tu, il, elle, nous, vous, ils, elles are subjects.

Direct object pronouns are me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les, les.

“Regarde le petits chiens.” “See the little dogs.”

“Je les adore.” “I adore them.”

That’s how they’re used.

Now that I’ve written all of this it’s firmly in my mind. Plus from my Acadian cookbook I’ve learned poele for frying pan , fayots for dried beans, mijouter for simmer and lard for bacon .

J’ai ecrit surele sujet de la langue francais. Je la comprend un peu plus meilleur.

C’est correct? Dites moi.