Anyone want to learn French?

Traité des Monnaies Grecques et Romaines, Numismatique d’Alexandre le Grand; Appendice les monnaies de Philippe II et III, et Lysimaque, Monnaies grecques antiques S. Pozzi - there are so many important numismatic works written in the French language that it would be impossible for me to list even just the most important here. But, if you're anything like I was a few months ago, your knowledge of the language is limited to a few poorly-pronounced phrases hastily memorized on the ferry to Calais.

I have to use these books all the time at work. Cognates with English and Latin are usually enough to get me through the coin descriptions, especially with liberal use of Google Translate (an aside, this site actually does a great job with French, because the translation algorithms were trained Canadian legal codes!). But if I try to tackle a longer passage that actually describes the history or chronology of a period, I'm sunk. I started studying about two years ago with Rosetta Stone. It was pretty expensive software – though still cheaper than a semester of school – and I found it to be less than motivating. Then I found Duolingo. It's pretty much a gamified, lighter version of Rosetta Stone. The best part? It's completely free! I've been practicing with this app for 92 days straight and have learned more than I would in two years at a pubic high school.

I would love for some of the crazier ancient collectors here to join me. Of course, since the program doesn't really cover how to describe coins, I've added my own bit of vocab on Memrise, another free learning site, created with some help from own Cucumbor. Anyone interested?

EDIT: Here's a picture of a cool French coin, a Louis d'or à la corne, a rare variety with die breaks that resemble devil's horns.

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Non, merci. C'est trop difficile.

 

C'est facile avec des amis!

 

I agree, even though I would love to learn another language. Especially one I can use on my travels. I speak passably decent German after having lived there for 8 years and an intense 32 week Army language course. But even German was hard for me, even with the closeness of structure and words to English. That part of my brain just isn't developed enough I guess. My youngest son speaks several languages fluently (German, Bulgarian, French, Romanian and Russian to name a few) and many others he can get by with a limited knowledge. That's why I like to travel with him. I can be lazy and let him do all the talking.

 

French is a great language. It's also a phonetically pleasing and beautiful language in my opinion. It was the prevailing language of diplomats and international affairs up until around WWII, until it was supplanted by English.

As you mentioned there are some great numismatic books in French that have yet to be translated. One of my favorite dealers of ancient coins is located in France.

I speak passable German and some Italian as I grew up in those countries, but I've always wanted to learn French. Thanks for posting the Duolingo link. I'm going to join you in your efforts to learn Français, qui est la langue de l'amour!

 

Hi Ardi. Je suis traducteur de profession. Comment puis-je vous aider ? De toute facon ( cedilla), courage et bonne chance.
Charles

 

German is probably the most grammatically challenging language in my opinion. Very hard to get all the genders, tenses and cases right unless you're a native speaker.

 

Mein Deustch ist ganz slecht. Mein Grammatik ist gut, aber mein Aussprache ist schwer zu verstehen

 

Mein deutsch ist not at all. That's next on the list, once I get my French to B1 level.

 

Vos bons mots sont assez! Si vous lisez l'allemand....

 

I have been meaning to learn French. I am kind of kicking myself for not following through with it in high school but by the time the French language stopped being mandatory I wasn't quite thinking about how useful it would be in the future. I was too busy chasing girls, and playing video games.

I have duolingo downloaded but haven't actually done anything on it. Was going to start it up on my daily bus rides. If I ever want to do anything related with basically any department of the government it is required.

Ég tala sumir íslensku þó.

 

I speak Esperanto like a native.

 

Well, looks like I picked a great time to check in on CT!

I can't commit to it Ardatirion, but I might as well give it a go.

A funny story involving French... My dad grew up in Italy, when he came back he had to take a foreign language test for collage. If I were him I would have done it in Italian and amazed everyone, but nooooooooooooooo, he thought it was cheating so he did it in French.

 

Cute! I hate to throw cold water on your cleverness, but in linguistics, a native speaker often refers to a person who grew up speaking a particular language, regardless of the location in which they learned it. As such, there is actually a handful of native speakers of Esperanto.

 

Yah, I took French up until grade 11, but that is now like 35 years ago, so other than knowing that pomme is an apple, I'm really quite crippled in a French/English debate ...

=> oh, but a quick jab to the temple always seems to smarten them up a bit ... "no, it's hello, not bonjour"



... just jokes, "Pierre"

=> Batman est fantastique

 

When I learned Italian, there were two funny episodes: One, in the Italian class at my local school there was an Italian girl (daughter of immigrants) whose Italian was better than what the teacher spoke. (She was also beautiful, errm, never mind.) Later I had a summer class in Florence, and in that class there were two students from ... Italy. Well, turned out they were from Alto Adige/South Tyrol and their primary language was German.

My problem with Italian and also French is that I have hardly any reason or opportunity to speak them in everyday life. And what you don't practice gets rusty, sort of.

Christian

 

I wasn`t being funny, I can speak Esperanto, also German.too
I once had the misfortune of being married to an Italian, I can get by in that language although I`m trying to forget it .
For the last few months I have been trying with difficulty to learn Thai.

 

Schmebngali, my brother

 

Moi aussi je t'aime beaucoup

(Maudite tête carrée )

 

I just signed up, any hints?