French is a very difficult language to learn.

[Krikor]

(10-24-2022, 07:35 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: I learned English at an early age by **reading** the Peanuts (and, later in the "TTL databook", that was my bedside book for years). My father did the same (at a later age) by learning Spanish reading Mafalda. IMHO if you want to learn a language, especially at the beginning, it is better to **read** because it goes exactly as fast as you want it to be. Movies and songs won't wait for you. The edge of comics over text-only books is that with the drawing you can guess a good deal of the text, so that reduces the need for a dictionary. Of course after a while you can switch to novels...

Some french-speaking comics classics:

• Tintin
  
• Asterix (but lots of word play and cultural references that you may not get)
  
• Blake & Mortimer (adventures of British intelligence officer and scientist). A bit old school but quite wordy, which is good in your case.
  
• Spirou & Fantasio
  
• Lucky Luke (western parody)
  
• Blueberry (western)
  
• Tanguy et Laverdure (aka Les Chevaliers du Ciel) (fighter pilots)
  
• Dan Cooper (also a pilot, but Canadian)
  
• Buck Danny (also a pilot, but US Navy/USAF)
  
• Michel Vaillant (car racing)
  
• Les Schtroumfs (aka "the Smurfs")(and "Johan & Pirlouit", the series they originated in)
  
• Valerian & Laureline (Science-fiction)
  
• Yoko Tsuno (Science-fiction)
  

In the modern world, another place is online communities. Reddit has several French-speaking subs, starting with r/France.

Otherwise, about 200 million people learn to speak decent french before they are teenagers, so it can't be that difficult, right?

PS: There is a whole generation of French boys who never got the lyrics of that song either (or any song by Alizée for that matter).

I did a little research out of curiosity, and the TTL databook I found doesn't have a lot of plain text, it's usually a collection of tables and graphs.
https://www.ti.com/lit/ug/scyd013b/scyd0...e.com%252F

Mafalda, I think she is of Argentine origin, she is nice, and she always had veiled political criticism.

I think the same way about the advantages that reading has (especially when in comics) over movies and music.

But I have a certain trauma with learning through reading.

In short, I have acquired a great facility in reading English, I practically read almost 100% without needing to consult a translator/dictionary (at least conventional reading - forums, web sites, etc).

The problem is that I immediately translate from English into my native language. My eyes see the English text, but my brain is unaware of it, and mentally the reading takes place in my language.

It's as if when you read "I love you", you immediately read "je t'aime".

As a consequence of this, I am not able to understand spoken English, nor to formulate texts in English. My understanding is limited to reading.

And I wanted to prevent this from happening again with learning the French language. That's why I was trying to focus more on listening than reading.


Twice I tried to read works in French by Jules Verne.
I purchased via Kindle, The Mysterious Island (in French)
Very difficult.
I ended up having to purchase the version in my language to be able to read this work..
I recently installed an APP on my cell phone that contained audio-books, including Five Weeks in a Balloon (in French).
Very difficult to follow. Difficult to navigate while reading, too many ads... I uninstalled the app 2 days after installing it.

But, I'll give it another try, using French comics and manga and trying not to mentally translate into my language. 

(10-25-2022, 03:37 AM)PixLab Wrote: How to pronounce the letter R in French  

https: //youtu.be /GrHqNg4KB0g

It reminded me of the Ananas video - an an ass, and an excerpt from the movie The Pink Panther. 
https://youtu.be/Z6oeAdemFZw

(10-25-2022, 01:29 PM)rich2005 Wrote:

(10-24-2022, 07:35 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: PS: There is a whole generation of French boys who never got the lyrics of that song either (or any song by Alizée for that matter).

Moi-Lolita

A great music video https://youtu.be/QpbHdIrtpNo

In this case google translator was of no help when I tried to understand the sentence: 
"et quand je donne ma langue aux chats"

(10-26-2022, 07:54 AM)denzjos Wrote: French rescue : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdg1wygMOZY

I don't know much about French music, but I realized that I like the old songs more than the current ones. (In my case they are all current as they are all new and unknown to me).

Françoise Hardy is one of my favorite singers! 
Beautiful voice, and she pronounces the words so clearly that it greatly facilitates the understanding of the music.

I know some current names in French music, like Zas (or something like that). But they didn't please me like the older authors.

Thank you guys!