{"id":2420,"date":"2014-08-25T11:17:04","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2020-10-02T13:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:16:00","slug":"confessions-of-a-native-english-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2014\/08\/25\/confessions-of-a-native-english-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Native English Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post<\/a>, I interviewed my wife Natalya. Natalya shared her language learning experiences as a Ukrainian native who left her country to settle in the United States.<\/p>\n

Today, I\u2019d like to share with you the same kind of interview I conducted with my mother. My mom, born and raised in California, moved to France with my father, a French native, in 1988. She relates her experiences and the challenges she faced as an expatriate living in a foreign country. This is her story\u2026<\/p>\n

How much French did you know when you first arrived in France?<\/b><\/p>\n

I had taken a night course in conversational French at a local junior college.\u00a0 My husband is French and his mother came to the U.S. every year for a one-month period.\u00a0 She spoke no English at all so this forced me to use the little French that I knew.\u00a0 I understood quite a bit but only spoke in the present tense and only used the informal (familiar) form.<\/i><\/p>\n

How did you learn to speak French?<\/b><\/p>\n

We moved to France in 1988 and upon my arrival I went to the University of Grenoble for six months to learn French with foreign students.\u00a0 Thankfully I already had the basics of the French language because my husband is French and his mother came to visit often.<\/i><\/p>\n

How long did it take you to become fluent in French?<\/b><\/p>\n

I would not consider myself fluent because I still make mistakes in French.\u00a0 But it helped tremendously that my husband is French so he could correct my errors.\u00a0 I also checked out children\u2019s books from the library.\u00a0 That helped a lot in seeing how words were spelled that I had heard spoken. \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

What did you find most challenging about learning French?<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

The conjugation of verbs, masculine and feminine forms and plural endings.\u00a0 Also, the pronunciation was difficult since there are so many letters that are silent. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/i>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

Do you feel you still struggle with French?<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

No, I feel quite comfortable in the language.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t know how to construct a sentence in French one way, then I find another way to do it.\u00a0<\/i>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

Do you think in your native language or in French?<\/b><\/p>\n

I think in my native language.\u00a0 Though when visiting France I often think of a sentence in English and then translate it into French in my mind before speaking.\u00a0 But after being in the country for a while French comes naturally (though I don\u2019t think in French). \u00a0<\/i>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

What advice would you give someone who, like you, came to France from a foreign country without knowing how to speak French?<\/b><\/p>\n

Learn the language as quickly as possible and as well as possible.\u00a0 The French are not very tolerant of foreigners who speak French incorrectly (though they love the American accent).<\/i>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

What were some of your experiences learning a new language in a foreign country? Share your comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

In my last post, I interviewed my wife Natalya. Natalya shared her language learning experiences as a Ukrainian native who left her country to settle in the United States. Today, I\u2019d like to share with you the same kind of interview I conducted with my mother. My mom, born and raised in California, moved to…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":2421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[542801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-posts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8239,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions\/8239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}