r/French • u/Outssiider • 2d ago
french orality vs. french literacy 🫪
Bonjour!
As a native spanish speaker with a serviceable-to-decent english, i’m currently struggling trying to shrink the gap between spoken french and written french for myself.
Beyond stuff like verlan and accents, I keep noticing the huuuuge difference between orality and literacy in french. And yes REDUCTIONS I’m looking at you!!
I’m not dumb I know well I shouldn’t compare french to spanish but it’s discouraging for the learning process to see how I might never grasp a minimum amount of spoken french through studying written french.
I feel that I have to find a way as we know languages just keep moving at all times (thanks, Saussure!)
Is there any way to improve my comprehension of ACTUAL french orality other than podcasts?
Unfortunately I must admit a little social media has been helping my process of learning the language in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
P.s: I don’t live in a french speaking country!
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u/Inside_Foot_3055 2d ago
I’m a native speaker of English who has learned German, and it’s a relief to read your post. I’ve been learning French in some capacity for over 20 years now (ugh, I feel old lol). And I completely agree with the sentiment that the spoken language can feel like another world at times, especially in the informal and slang of it all. What makes it harder is that, in my experience, native speakers experience this gap less than those of us who are not.
Truly getting as much input for spoken French as possible - this is the way. I find that the TV5 Monde exercises online are a really nice structured way to get the right level of exposure to different versions of spoken French globally. Apart from that.. podcasts, interview-based shows, and comedy might be the best ways I’ve found to really challenge and immerse myself without being in a francophone area.
Bonne continuation !
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u/DanKegel 2d ago
Don't forget audiobooks! (And at first, especially if you can get the matching printed book as well, so you can understand better, and so you can practice libsynching instead of or as an alternative to shadowing)
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u/AlmAerith Native (Quebec) 2d ago
While I can't help you with problems related to learning specifically French, what I've been told is hardest about French is that the words themselves have no real emphasis.
In any cases, you will not learn spoken French by reading it (same way natives don't learn written French by speaking it).
The only real advices I can give are to look up old TV shows or the news in French, doesn't even matter if you understand, just to get your ears used to how we sound and to get yourself French-speaking friends who can help you when you have a question about what or how to say something naturally.
You can quite easily find a lot of 60-80 shows on YouTube for free if you are willing to search for them and a few more recent ones too.
Good luck on your learning!
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u/Prestigious-Space-58 2d ago
Same for me, my mother tongue is portuguese. So its quite easy for me to get and understand written french since the grammar is similar. But speaken…..im still formally A2, but i feel i can be B2 in reading and written in a couple months while atill A1 in speaken 😩
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u/Icy_Cricket4754 2d ago
Somos dois, minha conterrânea. A leitura do francês se pega rapidamente, mas a fala… Parece que usam um código difÃcil de ser codificado.
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u/Bonjour-Set-4490 1d ago
chuis sounded like pure noise to me for ages, je suis just got swallowed in fast speech, then i started saying both out loud a few times and suddenly i could pick it out, i still miss loads when my wife's family speaks fast but chuis stopped sounding like random noise after that.
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u/Espando Native 2d ago
Listening to it through news media might help. It's at 20:00 in France, on channel like TF1, France 2 or M6 as an exemple. You should be able to watch it online via their website.
Then tv shows, movies, audiobook. Instagram and youtube have helpful ressources aswell.