Ferme La Bouche

make_me_wise

I speak French and Spanish. I use Spanish most as we teach it at the school I work at. DH speaks Italian. If we want to really wind each other up when we are having an argument, we say things in a language the other doesn't understand

make_me_wise

mutter wrote: »

I did A level German and barely spoke a word of it till 20 years later when I discovered German rock music.
I'm probably more fluent now than I've ever been, but only to music.

That is intersting because initially when teaching languages you start by introducing it through song and rhyme. Helps children to retain their new knowledge far easier and it all feels like a game so they are not inhibited at all.

January20

browneyedbazzi wrote: »

Out of curiosity, do they teach you to say 'Ferme la bouche' here or 'Ferme ta bouche'?

I've heard people from this country say 'Ferme la bouche' a few times and always wondered....it means 'shut the mouth' whereas 'Ferme ta bouche' means shut your mouth (or at least that's how I was taught at school and what the French speaking members of my family say).

To answer your question - I learned French, German and Spanish at school and have used them all while on holiday etc, but haven't made everyday use of any of them for years!

Whatever they teach is wrong. A French person wanting someone to be quiet would say "Tais-toi!" (shut up/ be quiet) if they wanted to remain rather polite. The not so polite form would be "Ferme la!" and the very, very impolite form would be "Ferme ta gueule!" or simply "Ta gueule" (Don't use it unless you want to be really offensive!)

I use a language I was taught at school every day, that is English, but although I learned the basics at school and then at university, I really learned to speak it properly fluently when I started living here.

Sammy85_2

make_me_wise wrote: »

That is intersting because initially when teaching languages you start by introducing it through song and rhyme. Helps children to retain their new knowledge far easier and it all feels like a game so they are not inhibited at all.

We learnt a song about our birthdays in french. One of the first things we did i think.

make_me_wise

Hi January20, so is French your native language then? I would never have guessed that English was a 2nd language for you.

January20

make_me_wise wrote: »

Hi January20, so is French your native language then? I would never have guessed that English was a 2nd language for you.

Hi make me wise, yes I am French but I arrived in the uk when I was 21 and studying English at university. I was here initially for a year, but I just loved living here and stayed. That was back in.... 1984.

Thank you for the compliment! I am shocked sometimes that I have spent more of my life in the uk than in my home country!

Bronnie

Well I must remember more than I give myself credit for, although had to go and dig out some confirmation, as this is what I remember being taught about the la bouche/ta bouche discussion

Note: the possessive adjective is almost never used with body parts in French. You can't say 'my hand' or 'my hair.' Instead, the French use pronominal verbs to show possession with body parts:

Examples in French:

Je me suis cass! la jambe
I broke my leg (literally, I broke the leg of myself).

Il se lave les cheveux
He's washing his hair (literally, He washes the hair of himself).



Is this still current practice, january20?

January20

Bronnie wrote: »

Well I must remember more than I give myself credit for, although had to go and dig out some confirmation, as this is what I remember being taught about the la bouche/ta bouche discussion

Note: the possessive adjective is almost never used with body parts in French. You can't say 'my hand' or 'my hair.' Instead, the French use pronominal verbs to show possession with body parts:

Examples in French:

Je me suis cass! la jambe
I broke my leg (literally, I broke the leg of myself).

Il se lave les cheveux
He's washing his hair (literally, He washes the hair of himself).



Is this still current practice, january20?

In the examples that you gave above it is perfectly correct someone was listening at school lol :rotfl::rotfl: You can however say "my hand" "my foot" etc, in other circumstances.

So you can say "Mon doigt me fait mal" (my finger hurts) just as well as "j'ai mal au doigt".

In the examples that you gave you used reflexive verbs ie the use of the pronouns "me/ se" in between the subject and the verb. This signifies that you are doing an action to yourself, so there is no need to use a possessive adjective. "Je me suis casse" (should have an accent it comes up as a !) means that you broke something on you so no need to then say anything else but "la jambe - le bras -etc"

I hope this all makes sense and I'm not boring everybody by going into full teacher mode

January20

Gillyx wrote: »

I got an A in my Higher French exam and now couldn't say more than a few words. How awful.

I wouldn't worry about that. I often compare the brain to a computer with various software packages. You may not use all the packages installed but they are still stored somewhere on the hardrive. So, should you ever decide you want to pick up your French again, you will find after a couple of sessions that you remember a lot of vocabulary and grammatical structures too. So don't worry, you haven't wasted your time! I used to work in Adult Ed before I worked in my present school - that's how I know (I'm not just making it up :rotfl: )

The other problem is that when you study a language to A level, you really study to pass the exam. Some of the stuff you learn is not really relevant to holiday visits to the country. For instance, I can't remember the last time I discussed fossil fuels or the origins of immigration with anybody in France, but my students have to learn about it lol.

*max*

Did you do a PGCE January20? I was thinking of doing that, but I think I may have left it too late....Did you have any training when you started working in Adult Ed? I'm interested in teaching (adults rather than kids, so don't need a PGCE), but the only courses I can find in the UK are not specific to languages, only general teaching techniques etc...and I wouldn't know where to begin when teaching French! The only thing I can think of is doing a Maitrise FLE through distance learning.

Sorry for highjacking your thread Aliasojo!