Seven Ways French is Easier Than English
December 5th, 2009 | by admin |span style=”font-family: Arial;” lang=”EN-US”> form of a verb when used as a noun is “gerund”. The “gérondif” also exists in French, i.e. “marchant”, but it is virtually never used to replace an infinitive. So you have no choice. The correct form is “marcher”, because it is the only form. Simple, isn’t it?
Halt! Enough!
Do you feel that that all this talk about the “simplicities” of French is beginning to look like camouflage for its manifest difficulties? To a certain extent, you are right. However, the purpose here is not to hide French’s difficulties. But to minimize them by highlighting those aspects of French that are not so difficult—and are in fact really quite easy.
By rejoicing in French’s simplicities rather than focusing on its complexities, learning the language can be made more rapid and more enjoyable than you might have expected. The same is true of other languages.
I don’t mean that by focusing on the simplicities, learning languages will suddenly become easy. Learning a language is never easy, French or otherwise. But it can certainly be made rather less difficult.
Philip Yaffe is a former writer with The Wall Street Journal and international marketing communication consultant. He now teaches courses in persuasive communication in Brussels, Belgium. Because his clients use English as a second or third language, his approach to writing and public speaking is somewhat different from other communication coaches. He is the author of In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional, available from the publisher (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com). Contact: phil.yaffe@yahoo.com, phil.yaffe@gmail.com
Philip Yaffe
http://www.articlesbase.com/languages-articles/seven-ways-french-is-easier-than-english-731396.html
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