Learning French – special qualities you should know

French is one of the 12 world languages and it is always fun to learn a foreign language at home or in a language school. But French isn’t easy. It has a lot of special qualities you should know to improve your language skills as fast as possible.

Learning French – special qualities

1) The most important word is “bonjour”.

The first word you will learn in French is “bonjour”. But that isn’t only a greeting, it’s a lifestyle. So if you don’t know it now, learn it and use it correctly and frequently to get in touch with a friendly France.

2) Bonjour isn’t enough. Say rebonjour.

Rebonjour means “re-hello” and can be used when you see someone for the second time on the same day. Of course, that is also possible with “rebonsoir” – when you see someone for the second time in the evening.

3) The French keyboard has a unique feature.

If you want to learn French at the computer you will get in touch with a French keyboard which has a unique feature: the grave-accented letter ù. But the special quality is that this letter is only used for one word: où (which means where).

4) An aide-memoire couldn’t be enough.

There are words in French which don’t rhyme with anything. So it could be difficult to write a poem or to learn them with an aide-memoire. Try to remember that words like “quinze”, “quatorze” or “simple” are special and that they need a special kind to learn them.

5) The letter ï isn’t used very often.

The letter ï is also called trema and is only used by 0.005 % of French words, for example in “maïs” or “naïve”. But it is also a part of the French language, so learn it and enjoy this special quality.

6) It’s not an insult to be called “mec” or “meuf”.

“Mec” or “meuf” doesn’t sound very friendly, but both mean something like “dude”. Every French guy who is under 40 is called “mec” by another French guy under 40. A woman is called “meuf”. These two words come from the slang Verlan.

7) The French text speak is a new language.

“Lol” or “PLZ” are words which are used in the English text speak. And also in French, you could find a lot of abbreviations which could be difficult to understand without knowing French. These could be for example:

MDR (= lol)
MR6 (= merci)
B1Sur (= biensur)
BJR (= bonjour)
SLT (= salut)
DSL (= désolé)
A+ (= à plus tard)

8) French has two language systems.

The French language is specical because in reality, there are two language systems: an oral and a written one. That results that a language learner has to learn every word twice. That could be more work and needs a lot more motivation. But there are always similarities between words which can help.

Would you like to learn more about the French language? On DayTranslations you could find an article about the French language which has the headline “Take a Peek at the Evolution of the French Language”. If you want to read it, click here.

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