Learn French Phrases
April 1st, 2010 artsFrance is a country located in Western Europe. France is the worlds most popular tourist destination with 78 million in 2006, boasting dozens of major tourist attractions, like Paris, Côte d’Azur, the French Riviera, the Atlantic beaches, the winter sport resorts of the Alps, the Castles of Loire Valley, Brittany and Mont Saint Michel.
The Mediterranean Sea lies to the south of France, with the principality of Monaco forming a small enclave. To the west, France has a long Atlantic ocean coastline, while to the north lies the English Channel, across which lies the last of Frances neighbors, England
Lowland France consists of four river basins, the Seine in the north, the Loire and the Garonne flowing westwards and the Rhone which flows from lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea.
It’s not difficult to learn French words. Anyone can do it. Repeat the words enough to yourself and eventually they’ll stick. You could teach French words to a parrot – but it’s not language. When you want to turn words into useful sentences, into meaningful conversations, you need to learn French phrases.
So what’s a French phrase? Well a good place to start would be “Bonjour, comment allez-vous” (that’s “hello, how are you?” by the way). The French are normally very polite and almost every time you meet, no matter how well you know them, French will ask “Bonjour, comment allez-vous” or, if they know you well “Bonjour, ca va?” which means the same but is more informal.
I could go on through a whole string of short French phrases, “Ça fait combien?” (“how much is that?”), “Pouvez-vous m’aider?” (“can you help me?”), “Excusez-moi, ou est le gare?” (excuse me, where is the station?”) all of which you’ll find useful – but there isn’t room here to do any list justice and it’s not really the purpose of this article. The purpose is to point out how important it is to learn French phrases – it’s the whole basis of conversation, the difference between a set of words in a dictionary and the construction of a language. Once you get the hang of learning French phrases a world of possibilities opens up to you. Once you know how the French language is constructed it’s like having the key to a secret lock. Unlock it and you’ll be able to put your own phrases together – and that’s really what speaking French is all about.
