Let's talk in English

Hey you guys!!  I thought we could use this topic to interact with one another in this wonderful language that is ENGLISH!!! I've been on some other forums before and these kind of topics were pretty successful so let's give it a shot!! No need to be fluent in english, mistakes are ok (be tolerant right???) You can of course talk about anything you want ;)  Have fun!!!

right, I should have done so from the start!! I see you've been to Sidney, how was it you lucky b*stard??? (no offense haha)

Awesome ! I think we can start this topic with a little explanation about our vision of english's language ? Why do you like english ? Thanks to British culture ? Maybe American culture ?

Great idea ! I have a question too, you seem to be quite the beast in shakespeare's language, Freak, how did you became fluent ? :) To answer my own question, it's all about american tv series folks :) On average, an episode a day for more than 3 years now, worked out just fine for now. Very very time-consuming but, it's worth it ! You gotta like it to make it work of course.

I think it's a great idea ! My English skills are pretty bad but I work everyday to being one day (I hope) fluent. Instead of talking only in class with my classmates it could be a nice way to improve my knowledge :) I think we must consider english as a international language nor only have a stereotyped vision of americans and british. People seems to forget english is also talk in India , New Zealand , Canada and so on.. According to me it's a beautiful language. The littérature is very prolific and almost everything could be learn because english is the main language on Internet and books (Chinese is way more used on the Internet but less people read it because of the lake of Internet access in China) With this language almost the half of the planet could understand and communicate together. Wonderful thing isn't it ? I always being interested in languages but English is my favorite one. Definitely. Hope I don't make you blind because of all the grammar mistakes I certainly make on this thread. My bad , please accept my apologies ;) I advise you to go on reddit , witch is a English website which allowed people to talk about almost every subject they wish and create threads about it. I learn a lot of cool things in various subjects and also can have a lot of fun with the jokes and funny images posted on the website. Then , I wish I could have a A mark for my A levels at the end of the year in English :D

Aw thanks! And same thing as you, my life is basically staying in my bed watching TONES of shows!! It has become an addiction really... but can't stop, won't stop ;) To answer to your question Apoplexie, I actually like both culture, it's a real problem because in the course of my degree, I need to "specialise" either on the British accent or the american one and I love them both SO MUCH!! I tend to do a British one when I speak but sometimes I can't stop myself from pronouncing words in an american way! haha

Haha I probably am q: Honestly, Australia is an amazing country ! Awesome beaches, funny kangaroos, cute koalas, sultry weather (temperatures hitting 47 degrees in the shade !), I've stayed down there for 10 months. I've spent most of time in Adelaide and Melbourne. I'll probably go there again by January for an other 3 months haha.  Sydney is incredible. The best word to describe it would be "WOW" I reckon. When you get there and you see the tall buildings, the opera house, the Harbour Bridge, the ferries, Oxford Street and all its gay bars haha it's truly wonderful.  And let's talk about boys...oh my fucking god, they're so fucking hot over there o: I've never seen so many hotties and cuties per square meter ! It's easy, once I got there, I didn't know where to look at haha.

Well, so far you're doing pretty well Mookie ;) don't worry about the mistakes!! I LOVE REDDIT, it's been a while tho!! 

But my English is a way different than yours. Mine is scholar and I'm spotted as a non English native speaker. Not because of my accent (I work a lot on , don't want to be called frenchie all the way) but because of re way I build my sentences. And the unknoledge of typical expressions. 

Yeah but people from english speaking countries tend to notice if you are french or not no matter how hard you try to cover you accent! some of them actually think it's cute!! ;) Even I don't speak a perfect english, never been to the UK or the USA or anything for more than a month and in order to get a really good accent you really need to stay there for a while! 

Wish one day someone believe eat frogs and drink wine is cute ;) But I've some british friends who are in love of French culture. Hard to believe how amazing our country is. Or we just are to grumpy (like every french people haha :D) to understand how lucky we are ?

Haha I feel the same !! And the best is, when you get there, you become their "frenchy" and they're all crazy about you haha Otherwise, about the language, I fell in love with it when I had my first real English lesson (I was probs around 11 or so) and all those photos from London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sydney,..that was just unforgettable for me and I instantly fell in love with the language which is spoken in so many beautiful places. Later on, it became useful to watch series coming straight from the US, and once I moved to Nice to chat with tourists..okay with foreign boys haha that's what so good about English. You can talk with people from all over the world, it's so easy to communicate (:

I take too much time to write my posts :'(  I can't follow it haha

For me , it was when I was 13. I went to Helsinki with my older brother and we've mate a lot of people. And one girl (she was 15 at the time) was very cute. And in order to talk to her like I do with my friends I decided to improved my language enough to be able to talk to her normally. And she became for about 15 months my girlfriend when I was 15. I was so proud to being good enough to let a girl love me instead of my english skills. The day I understand I'll be able to talk to a lot of people when I'll be fluent , I decided to manage myself to be fluent. Since , I love English. Very much. 

French culture is pretty great I think! But I guess we are grumpy folks, some of my teachers (who are native speaker) always says how reserved and proud french people are! ?Haha yes!!! being french when you're abroad can be pretty helpful ;) ;) and I don't know about you guys but one of the thing I love about english, it's the rhythm!! I love how fast they talk, how some syllables are stressed, there are words I could repeat ALL DAY LONG!!

That's a great story Mookie ! It's so cute to see someone using a different language from it's own native one because of a girl or a boy *_* I mean, it's such a beautiful thing to do ! Well I'm proud to be French when I'm abroad, but when I'm in France I just hate it haha. When dudes tell me you're so lucky to have such a long and beautiful history, or your language is so beautiful and sexy.. I'm like "seriously ?" and then I'm like "yeah that's true our history is so amazing, and the French arts, the French cuisine, all that is truly amazing" ..well you've understood, I'm doing my little snob and proud Frenchman haha  About my English it tends to sound Australian because of my stay there. Especially the "i"s and the "o"s. For example so, zero,.. I got the Aussie "o", and in I, like,.. I got the Aussie "i", pretty much it slightly sounds like "oi". Also when I'm speaking it's a bit twisted, like it goes up and down. Some might find it annoying, others sexy q:

Australians are cute enough t be attracted even when they're mute *-* I'm happy to be in one of the most developed countries , with a rich and beautiful language (in the mind of other peoples who are not french , they are amazed by our country most of the time) and a lot of cool arts and cultural things such as music and painting. And cuisine as well. But as a french guy when I heard some dudes in Paris talk like extraterrestrials I'm like "WTF are you kidding me ? Is the way you talk in day to day life ? Wow. Such a shame for you sir" Teens are some desperate cases our days...

This is close to be the best thread idea ever <_< You good sir made my day (should I say night? ._.) with this one! My english still needs some improvements, but I should be able to talk with you guys, or at least, I hope so xD 

Wow. All of you speak English very well for French people :) (no offense) I'm actually really happy you posted this forum :D

French people are usually as good as other foreigners with English, that's our pronunciation which is bad, mainly, due to the French one.

One of our biggest problem is pronunciation yeah!  I see you are from Texas Molly, don't you miss it sometimes? I'm actually super excited that you're a native speaker, that's so cool to have you here!!!

Yes I do miss it but I still go back every summer. I'm starting to really like living in France. I like the culture, for the most part :)

woh woh woh such an interesting topic ! :D I'm glad someone dared to open it :D Pronouchiacheun is not the biggest problem for frenchies... :D i would rather say that we are fucking crap to have a normal conversation about anything ... the fact is we do not learn that at school. We are fucking good to write disserts about the multicultural stakes of immigration (thanks to bilingual dictionaries ^^) , shaping it according to the frenchissim intro/FirstPart/SecondPart/ThirdPart /conclusion structure, but the French Educational system is unable to give us the minimal vocabulary to exchange in the everyday life ... And this problem is not limited to english teaching, but german too... (i spent 9 years learning German, i'm not that stupid and i learnt some stuffs, anyway at the end of my curriculum i was unable to speak german. What a shame...)... NiceMan you just made me want to move to Australia ahahaha :D

apoplexie : I think we can start this topic with a little explanation about our vision of english's language ? Why do you like english ? Thanks to British culture ? Maybe American culture ? Like many of you, i got fond of american culture and language in my early teens'. I watched movies only in original version, read books in english, then spend a lotta time on blogs and chating with foreigners all over the world with that precious language. I even remember how angry i was against the Toubon's law in the 90's advocating for 40% of french songs on the radios, the necessity to translate any advertisements in french, or the translation of marketing in "mercatique". At that stage, i found that "nationalists" reactions completely foolish and i even considered the french language doomed for the future : with no doubt english language was already the new esperanto and someday eventualy, everybody on the planet would learn it as a primary language. And then, my understandings of the politics evolved. I realised that we, french, just as any european country, central and south america's ones, or even Quebec - we were all under the influence of another new Empire of a far larger scale, with a deeper and smarter machinery than the Roman' or the soviet ones have ever had. And History tells us that Empires are dangerous. Very dangerous. If you doubt of the pervasiveness of the american influence on our culture, you may watch this: The english language specifically is of course a Lingua Franca that is useful to connect us all around in the world village, but it does come with a price. A high price. Because this is also a trojan horse that shapes our minds to that very idea of the irrevocability and emergency to build that world village - not any world village. That one, with the same Zara shops on all big cities, with the disappaearing of local and small cultures and craftmanship to the profit of uniformity and massive consumerism : It carries with it all the anglo-saxon culture of liberalism. I'm not saying that other world ideology may compete with this one, like communism or anarchy. I'm only saying that we may remind our own culture and primary language, we may not be in such a hurry to transform things that worked before us, and consequently take a step with the fondness we are inclined to have for anglosaxon culture and language. Without tending to be a nationalist, i developed a new perspective and i realized the strength of our own culture, connecting all continents but also some cultural and moral principles very different that english culture carries, such as universalism, concord and equity. Socio-economics studies even show that French language will probably become third most talked language in the world by 2050. - A perspective to think about... What i'm saying may sound old school, but it is in fact part of our tradition. French do take steps with the english culture. That steps, culturaly, are visibles with the (bad?) habits french have of translating all foreign proper names. The preference for many citizen to watch movies in dubbed version. And of course with the Toubon laws, GATT and other "cultural exceptions" policies. On the incounscious level, it has a lot to do with our french accent especially. Its very existence may be seen as a manifesto to save our threatened identity. Incidently, people and cultures that are more confident in themselves (switzerland, sweden, netherlands, quebec, russia...) do no have any issues learning the right accent and pronounciation. I could say that for me and for now, english language is not much than a tool, and i don't really want to invest anymore energy to be more english than the Mother Queen ! In a way, keeping a broken english -globish, not more than the Lingua Franca it is for now in the world, is my political way to give not too much credit to a massive culture that is not mine. English helped me in a way to be prouder of what i'm, and where i come from. What about you? Does any of the things i'm saying here ring a bell ? Charles

Didn't know if everyone here experienced the same but when I speak English it's easier for me to speak with native English speaker than a french dude who is fluent. Most of the time frenchies have a terrible accent than made me feel like a foreigner in my On country. I've huge difficulties to understand English speaker with a french accent. Don't you ?   But then , I'm happy to see that this forum have a lot of English speaker with a brillant level.  Btw , how  many of you are graduated in literature (A level ) or studying English at university ?

Texas that's so cool !! Well..actually I don't know as I've never been there but it seems to be an interesting place. So huge and so many diverse landscapes, it must be a really good spot to visit. I got a friend in NYC and he's always making fun of Texan people because of their sayings, or their accent. Is it really different from New York ? I mean, from France basically all we know is British accent and American accent, I guess there are different accents in America, but are they so different ?  Have you ever heard a Spanish guy or an Italian one speaking very good English ? To be honest I've never heard any haha and when I've been to Australia they only talked English, on one ever bothered to learn an other language ^^ so I guess we aren't that bad  But what definitely misses in the way of how English is taught in France is what I would call "experience". Like trips, pen pals, some foreign guys coming over, or any kind of experience in which students would have to face a native speaker and would have to use their knowledge, and to build them up as well, in an everyday life situation.  Haha why don't you go there for a year Seabirds ? That's what I did. You can go and work over there with a working holiday visa, it's pretty cool (: and Aussies are so lovely :3 to Charles : First thing first, not a long time ago, I couldn't tell you when exactly, the French language was the most spoken one and was the diplomatic language as well. If English took over its place, it's mainly because of two things. The first one is the emergence of the United States as a superpower, the second one is the decline of the French power and of its influence all over the world.  Then the standardization of the culture is, I think, because of us. If French shows were as good as American ones I would definitely watch the French ones ! Sadly it's not like that. I'm not a fan of "Plus belle la vie", or "RIS police scientifique" or "Joséphine ange gardien" lol I prefer to watch "Dexter", "American Horror Story", or whichever American shows. They're only better, and it's the same about music (I do love some French artists though (: )  I would also like to mention something. You said something about Zara. I think that's another problem. If you find the same things all over the world it's because of globalization. For instance Zara is Spanish, Ikea is Swedish and so is H&M, Uniqlo is Japanese, Celio is French (yeah Celio is established in 56 countries...),.. And about food we all know McDonald, Burger King, Starbucks, etc. but Yoplait (a French company) sells its products in Australia, Canada, Chile, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, the UK and the US. Nestlé (a Swiss company) is the world's largest food company in the world,... I'm not saying it's a good thing or not, but I don't think we should see the US as the bad guy trying to impose its very own lifestyle throughout the world (that's how it looked like to me when I read your post) And about guys who wants to be more British than the Mother Queen is, I don't know if that's still the case, but for a long time the official language of the Royal Family was French. And on the coat of arms of Elizabeth II it's written "Dieu et mon droit" and "Honi soit qui mal y pense" and Elizabeth II speaks a perfect French. Here's the proof haha (a bit old though ^^)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4o5ICxpvys To Mookie : I usually avoid French guys when I want to chat in English haha but it's more because I don't like the French accent, and if I'm on vacation somewhere I don't want to meet the people I see all year long in France.  And I haven't graduated anything in English. I learnt it at school and then I practiced it by chatting with tourists (:

Great topic over here ! I personnaly started english in school and hated it ... I mean, I hated my teacher and we didn't learn anything (middle school) Later, during highschool, while I was in holidays (summer from 1st to 2nd year) I started watching my favorite series in the original version, and also started to think in english I went from around 12/20 to 16/20 during class ^^' and it gave me a passion about english,I'm all about America actually because of the culture and the accent, cause yeah I don't get the british one, it's like, so weird, cause as french we're not used to this kind of accentuation. Anyways, I started college last year in LEA, which deals about foreign languages ^^, therefore I study english dah, and also italian. I wish to go do a year in a British/American university next year. 

Awesome thread, I love English because I like the sound of it and how harmonious and logical it is even if I have a poor accent and am not very good at making quickly good, clear, understandable(?) english sentences lol, I love watching english dubbed anime and sci-fi, fantasy movies and read harry potter in english too I can't believe it is intended for children since there are many words I don't know about and I love how english conveys images through words much better than french does. I've never been interested in going abroad (uk ,us or aus) though.