French language

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I think I was taught French for 2 years at school but the last time we were in France I was embarrassed how little I remember so recently I have been spending 30-120 minutes a day apprendre la francais. As you can see I am still at the noddy stage and I can see I may end up reading French quite well but comprehending spoken French seems so hard.

A small question, one of the things I aspire to read is the magazine Le Monde du Camping-Car. They mention fourgons and I have tried machine translation engines but in the campervan domain it comes back just as 'van', it's obviously a van sub-type but what is it exactly?

Are any of you fluent in French?
 
I think I was taught French for 2 years at school but the last time we were in France I was embarrassed how little I remember so recently I have been spending 30-120 minutes a day apprendre la francais. As you can see I am still at the noddy stage and I can see I may end up reading French quite well but comprehending spoken French seems so hard.

A small question, one of the things I aspire to read is the magazine Le Monde du Camping-Car. They mention fourgons and I have tried machine translation engines but in the campervan domain it comes back just as 'van', it's obviously a van sub-type but what is it exactly?

Are any of you fluent in French?
Good on you for putting some work in. We visit France usually two or three times a year at least trying to speak while you're there is a really fast way to learn.
 
Fourgon translates as Van. Any van, not necessarily a campervan but when used in context it will mean a PVC. HTH.

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I think I was taught French for 2 years at school but the last time we were in France I was embarrassed how little I remember so recently I have been spending 30-120 minutes a day apprendre la francais. As you can see I am still at the noddy stage and I can see I may end up reading French quite well but comprehending spoken French seems so hard.

A small question, one of the things I aspire to read is the magazine Le Monde du Camping-Car. They mention fourgons and I have tried machine translation engines but in the campervan domain it comes back just as 'van', it's obviously a van sub-type but what is it exactly?

Are any of you fluent in French?
Yes a Fourgon is a van as other people have said, but french can be very loose, a van can also be camionette. When I first moved here i thought a baguette was a long stick of bread which of course it is but it is not just its name it is a description, hence baguette magique, (magic wand) the bits of aluminium that you use as a filler on kitchen worktops are baguettes, i have heard plastic electrical trunking called baguettes...
Also remember half of english is french anyway, eg any word ending tion, just say it with an allo allo accent.
Lookup Alexa french on youtube lots of tips, her online course is pretty good and not too expensive.
 
I think I was taught French for 2 years at school but the last time we were in France I was embarrassed how little I remember so recently I have been spending 30-120 minutes a day apprendre la francais. As you can see I am still at the noddy stage and I can see I may end up reading French quite well but comprehending spoken French seems so hard.

A small question, one of the things I aspire to read is the magazine Le Monde du Camping-Car. They mention fourgons and I have tried machine translation engines but in the campervan domain it comes back just as 'van', it's obviously a van sub-type but what is it exactly?

Are any of you fluent in French?

Fourgon is van and shorthand for fourgon aménagé, which means converted van / van conversion.

Sometimes the French also refer to them simply as "van".

Keep up the French learning. Even if the French answer you in English they do appreciate it when a GiBi (that's us) makes the effort to speak French.
 
I have been going to evening classes since September. I am quite a bit ahead of my fellow students but, for me, the class is about trying to think in French.
For many years I had contact with some German folks and got into the habit of thinking in German so much so that in France I end up mentally translating from German into English and into French.
Is the course helping? Bien sur :giggle:
 
I did an evening class on French and it was good but after years of not using it apart from a few weeks as a tourist I have forgotten almost all of it.
 
In all my travels to France there is only one word that is most important…. “Bonjour” the rest is fairly irrelevant as they will then Want to speak English with you to practice there English..!

However, I must have the word bonjour down to a fine art because they assume I’m French and start speaking to me in French, once they realise I’m not then English it is. A few have told me my accent is good…😎

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Was luck when a youngster, studied French at school and as a family we travelled in/through France most holidays so it helped.
Then didn't speak it for many years until I started coach driving and then more so when we took up motor-homing. Although I hadn't spoken it for years it was amazing how quickly a lot came back to me. I'm in no way fluent but can hold a simple conversation - it's appreciated by the locals.
But the quickest way to learn a language is to live in that country for a couple of weeks and don't be shy. As above many will want to practice their English on you!
 
Fourgon is van and shorthand for fourgon aménagé, which means converted van / van conversion.

Sometimes the French also refer to them simply as "van".

Keep up the French learning. Even if the French answer you in English they do appreciate it when a GiBi (that's us) makes the effort to speak French.
If a french person refers to a Van as a van he is using the english word. A Van in french is a horsebox.

A friend discovered this when he first moved to france, he noticed an add in a supermarket for a van going cheap, Made an appointment and went to see it and was rather embarrassed when the owner showed him to a corner of a paddock where there was a horsebox, he made a few excuses that it wasn't the right size etc and left.
 
Fourgon is van and shorthand for fourgon aménagé, which means converted van / van conversion.

Sometimes the French also refer to them simply as "van".

Keep up the French learning. Even if the French answer you in English they do appreciate it when a GiBi (that's us) makes the effort to speak French.

Have they changed to UiKi yet? :LOL:
 
One word in French is worth a thousand words in English, (that is, when faced by a French citizen in their own country)
 
Have they changed to UiKi yet? :LOL:
NO .... Most have no idea of what UK is , most French think it stands for Ukraine because we don't say United Kingdom (except when it is the song contest ) we say Royaume Uni
 
A Van in french is a horsebox.
Well to say it all, I call it a van as I do for a lot of different types of fourgons . We don't really think of a word in particular, it is just when there is no real word associated to what we see or want to point out. As for camionette I never called it van, I call it camionette that's all.
 
the course by Michelle Thomas is one of the best i have come across, but there is nothing better than to give it a go, i stopped worrying about past tense and masculine and feminine, if people want to understand what i am saying then they will make the effort, if they dont then theres not a lot i can do about it!

one of my go to phrases is

'vous parlez trop vite pour moi', which i think is 'you talk too fast for me' - at least thats how i use it and it seems to be understood.

if i know i need to ask a specific question, i use google translate (or others ...) and practice before i use it. i also try to phrase questions that give a yes or no answer - the trick for me is not to over complicate things
 
NO .... Most have no idea of what UK is , most French think it stands for Ukraine because we don't say United Kingdom (except when it is the song contest ) we say Royaume Uni
we were asked and even stopped lots of times last year by french people enquiring if we were from Ukraine, we even got asked about the war regularly !!

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I did a short evening class in French and backed this up with readers digest "A vous La france".
The tapes seemed particularly good so I listened to them while driving at work and perfected every nuance of the accent.
I tried this out on my mates new wife (previously his French au pair). She asked me why I was talking like that. Apparently the guy doing the French voice on the tape was quite gay and was camping it up.
I quickly tried to unlearn and in future stuck to basic Officer Crabtree style French.
 
NO .... Most have no idea of what UK is , most French think it stands for Ukraine because we don't say United Kingdom (except when it is the song contest ) we say Royaume Uni
I think one of the problems is we haven't a clue who we are or where we live.
Are we British, or are we English,Welsh Scots or Northern Irish.
Do we live in the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, let alone including the Channel Islands Sillys and Isle of Man.

Then when you try to put nationality into a website you can't! British doesn't exist you have to put United Kingdom, I'm sorry i am not United Kingdomish.

If we don't know how do you expect other countries to know.

I think it is worth becoming french (or another country of your choice)
So you can at last say I live in France and I am French, no ambiguities, and believe me having French and no ambiguities in the same sentence is a miracle in itself.

😄😄😄😄
 
I did a short evening class in French and backed this up with readers digest "A vous La france".
The tapes seemed particularly good so I listened to them while driving at work and perfected every nuance of the accent.
I tried this out on my mates new wife (previously his French au pair). She asked me why I was talking like that. Apparently the guy doing the French voice on the tape was quite gay and was camping it up.
I quickly tried to unlearn and in future stuck to basic Officer Crabtree style French.
Believe me use the accent of all the other French characters in Allo Allo, but maybe not Officer Crabtree.
 
Re the subject of 'Fourgons' meaning vans, several years ago, when we were new to motorhoming
I found a website, 'vwfurgo.org'

I used it for a couple of years until I found S4S and Park4night.
 
My middle son , when he wàs about 10, (he's now mid 40s) had no trouble conversing with the French. He would speak loudly with much gesticulation, adding "io" on the end of random words. He doesn't do that now.

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the course by Michelle Thomas is one of the best i have come across, but there is nothing better than to give it a go, i stopped worrying about past tense and masculine and feminine, if people want to understand what i am saying then they will make the effort, if they dont then theres not a lot i can do about it!

one of my go to phrases is

'vous parlez trop vite pour moi', which i think is 'you talk too fast for me' - at least thats how i use it and it seems to be understood.

if i know i need to ask a specific question, i use google translate (or others ...) and practice before i use it. i also try to phrase questions that give a yes or no answer - the trick for me is not to over complicate things
Completely agree re Michel Thomas. He’s dead but I guess you can still get his cd’s on ebay
 
I can just get by in French with the addition of an occasional drawing for more technical stuff. Have had some great fun conversing with our French twinning friends of 20+ years who speak no English but we always manage with the help of a dictionary and/or Google translate.
Where I get completely lost is general French conversation between French family members and/or French friends 🙂
 
We both went to evening French classes, taught by a lovely French Lady from northern France.
We did two terms of learning the basics to use on holiday, I remember the hardest bit for us all was Telling the time.
Well that was 4/5 years ago now, and none of us in the class could ever get up to speed with listening to The French MP announcements on the tele.
Apparently the further North you are in France, the faster they speak.
I am hoping that when the time comes we will remember some of what we were taught, I agree the best way is when you are over there and have to try your best to converse.
Especially if its a French man squeezing in too close on an Aire, I am told they like to cuddle up even if there's loads of spaces empty.
Bon Voyage, Mange Tout, and all that.:giggle:
LES

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