When to use "à" and when to use "de"... a French Grammar Hell

from alienteachers.com

I've been struggling with correctly using French prepositions since the beginning... that is the beginning of my study of French. Prepositional use in English can be totally arbitrary and it seems it’s the same in French. 

For instance, in the northern U.S. we “wait for the bus” while further south in the States “we wait on the bus”. As Southern expressions press into traditionally northern sounds, language swirls around us in the Midwest like storm front patterns: Northern and Southern regions collide instead of hot and cold weather fronts. From my example, the second prepositional use, "on", is becoming more common every day. (So far as I know, nobody stands on top of a bus to wait for it, but that is the image using the word "on" in place of "for" conjures up in my mind.)

Another example of what seems to be arbitrary prepositional use: When my toddling daughter was learning to speak, she would say “You’re not the boss of me!”  I found this statement awkward and kept trying to correct her to say something like, “You’re not my boss!” 

 

Well, the problem with that statement (besides the discipline issues involved) was that the language around me had changed as fast as a storm blowing through and her sentence is now the more current version. I still don’t like the additional preposition in the sentence when none is needed. Shrugging it off, I lost that language battle.

I’ve been working on correct usage of the French articles with prepostions in “Grammaire progressive du Français”, a C.L.E. publication. CLE International

Making French prepositional issues even more complicated, there is the matter of contracting male, female, and plural forms of articles with the prepositions à and de. The choices of these contractions are du, des, au, aux, à la, à l’, de la, and de l’.

This work book states that when the idea is

• appartenance (affiliation) -- de is applied,
• lieu (place) -- either de or à is used in different situations, and
• avec (with) -- à is used in a flagrantly arbitrary style.

I have done all right with affiliation which seems to mean mostly possession of something (Henry’s dog or the color of the bicycle).

I’m OK with place for the most part but both de and à can designate place and I am trying to sort that one out. (We are going au restaurant but près du bureau.)

Language isn't science. (carbonfixated.com)

The idea of à as meaning avec, though, really forces an English speaker into new corners of grammatical hell. "À" pops up all over in places that an English speaker just wouldn’t conceive of… so this is the arbitrariness of prepositions. 

“It’s just usage, Suzan, get over it!”

As a practical matter, I am working through grammar workbook problems and trying to remember specific situations like pastry shop signs that read, “tartes aux pommes” not “tartes avec pommes” or “tartes de pommes”. Like gender, this is one of those grammar issues that has to be learned by developing a “feeling” for the use of these preposition through experience with the language, not by reasoning it out. 

Grammar is the point where science and language go their separate ways.

If you want to order pastries, you must know your prepositions! Photo from paloma81.blogspot.com

Text to Speech Tool: Improve French Pronunciation with "French Spanish Online" Site

Recently, while doing some grammar workbook problems, I stumbled across a very useful service, French Spanish Online. It consistently helps me to improve my French pronunciation. Go to this Adobe Flash application: “Text-to-Speech” Site Pal

French Spanish Online/Voice
and you will be able to follow my instructions below.

This tool is very simple to use in many languages. 

Follow these steps for hearing a word pronounced in French:

• Choose French on the top drop down box
• Type in the word or words with correct orthography (for instance, the accent marks are important)
• Select a face (it is amazing how strange it is to hear a male voice while seeing a female image) on the second drop down box. Choices include males, females, a skeleton, a dog, and a guy that looks a lot like President Obama. When you click the 'say it' button, the lips move as though speaking! This is the first cartoon I've ever been able to lipread a bit.
• Select the name of the speaker of which there are many. For instance, there are speakers with Canadian, Euro, and standard French pronunciations.
• There are also drop down choices for effects and levels which I haven't figured out how to use yet.

I have been using this application for a couple of weeks. When there is a word to pronounce of which I am uncertain, this can be used for a really excellent “repeat after me” practice. The program also does very well at “speaking” whole phrases or sentences.  There are people's names with which I have great difficulty guessing at how they might be pronounced. I can finally now remember how to pronounce the name 'Leroy' with French flair.

Try a couple of different speakers, sometimes for the same word. For some reason the male pronunciation may be clearer to me than the female or vice versa. Pour quoi? J'en sais pas. 

For example, I just typed in 'semblable' because I couldn't get my lips to work to pronounce it. After listening to it, I was able to pronounce the word properly when before it was coming out of my lips as gibberish.

In the past, I have been able to use Google Translate intermittently much the same way. But for some reason lately, G.T. speech just hasn’t functioned. The Text-to-Speech works for me all of the time, every time.

My “A Little French Every Day" Habit is Paying Off

3‑30NewYorkerCartoon.jpg

artinhearth.blogspot.com

If you have read earlier blog entries you know that I began studying French intensively 2.5 years ago. I have taken many classes in Minneapolis and Paris. Now I am in a pattern of taking almost weekly tutorial classes with my teacher, Maïwenn (pronounced my-when). When I began this blog almost a year ago, it was for 3 reasons: to share my experience, to write daily, and to create a daily habit of doing something everyday to improve my French-- even if it was reading one short newspaper article in French or a grammar worksheet.

So, I am pleased to relate I have had some really nice experiences in the past week or so that have made my pursuit of French quite rewarding. For instance, I was just reading the weekly announcements from my local L’Alliance Française and realized that I wasn’t thinking at all about that it was written in French. Another realization came to me when a French friend stopped by to visit us on her U.S. itinerary and my husband and I discussed many topics with her for hours… all in French. Granted, she’s a French teacher and speaks very clearly, but this is a big leap in comprehension and comfort zone for me.

So, fellow French students, it is never too late to dive into another language and make serious progress in a short time. One of my fears when I began studying French is that I wouldn’t be able to learn as well as when I was younger and in school. Let’s face it; I’ve practically aged out of the work force. But I have always kept up with practical technologies such as using computer spreadsheets and word processing software. The commonly accepted myth is that adults don’t learn as well as younger students. The thing is… I might not learn as fast as I once might have, but I do have much better strategies which can speed up mastering material better than I ever did before. And, that accounts a lot for my steady progress.