To be or not be? In french please :-)

[Arild Krovoll]

Once upon the time, I guess approx 1966, I learnt some english.

I have never been part of a coversation with english men or women,
in fact my first experience of real world spoken english was in June 2010 :-)

In London that was...

I liked beeing in London, but my favourite is Paris.

Once in the old times, approx 1974, a teacher tried to learn me french. No luck.
Thus french is complete strange for me, I perhapse know the meaning of J´t aime ..


To be or not to be:

Should I try to learn some french,

or is it better to try to learn to write / speak english in a proper way?

(do you hav suggestions for a english forum for me ?)

[Neil Coffey]

There's no intrinsic reason why you "should" learn French. You need to decide what, if any, the motivation is for you. Some reasons to learn French might include some of the following:

- you have friends or family in a French-speaking country
- you want to visit a French-speaking country for other reasons (e.g. you can get holidays there easily, you've been a few times and "just like it there" etc)
- you want to open up business opportunities with a French-speaking country
- you want to immerse yourself more in the culture of a French-speaking country
- there are publications in French that you want to be able to read in the original
- for purely linguistic reasons: e.g. you want to see "how another type of language works", or learn more about how languages develop over time (it turns out that historic examples of French, and Romance languages in general, are well preserved compared to other languages)

But largely, it's up to you to determine what the motivation is for you...

[Adam Kim]

- you want to open up business opportunities with a French-speaking country

There are enough businesses around the world that open up trading in Francophone countries. Some large South Korean companies are promoting French for that reason.

[Arild Krovoll]

You deserve an answer:

I´d like to

a)
"- you want to visit a French-speaking country for other reasons"

I love Paris! I love to walk the streets, I love to visit the museums, I love to visit Jardin Babylon, I love to visit St Sulpice -- etc etc !

b)
"- you want to immerse yourself more in the culture of a French-speaking country"

I felt so dumb up in the Rue Daguerre, not able to speak to any of the peple selling cheese, breads, fish, shrimps .. everything :-((


As a retired scientiest I have no longer any needs for business ...

[Crack1]

Arild

The English word 'be' is être in French.

 

Il est beau. - He is handsome.

Elle est belle. - She is beautiful.

 

Je suis allé à Paris l'an dernier.

I went to Paris last year.

Je suis né en 1900.

I was born in 1900.

Il est programmeur.  He's a programmer.

 

 

Il veut être programmeur.

He wants to be a programmer.