MDCTranslations

I do not think anyone has ever asked me what songs deserved to be known out of France for their language. I think songs are one of the best way to learn a language, and French Hip-pop and Rap is full of diamonds hidden to the rest of the world. An enormous amount of texts propitious to translation, if only to make them known to music lovers or simply French lover.

Try Stromae. It is not quite hip-hop, but there are pretty accurate translation on his clip video. Also L.E.J.

Truthfully, no. There are translations in Spanish, Chinese, French, Vietnamese, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Korean, and other commonly spoken languages in Massachusetts. It is pretty hard to keep track of how many people read those articles. However, I know personally many people who use them to improve their language and actively learn a new one.

That's quite amusing. Most Americans or foreigners who come in France do not really try to learn the language and think that English can get them anywhere, and this tends to annoy many French people. Now, if you show that you are actually trying, I have had more experience of French helping them than anger. You should try. My friend who came from America was using her French skills and immediately adored by most people we met. They were happy she was interested in their language.

That's an excellent question.

In French, pronunciation is very different : we have a lot of rules that define how we say words. People often make fun that in a word of ten letters we only pronounce half. It's true, but it is remarkably well put into rules : for example, "o" and "u" together make the sound "oo" like "cool" in English. There is not as many ways to remember pronunciation rules in English, which makes speaking rather difficult for me. I still cannot say "mountain" correctly, and I do not understand why "now" and "know," "baked" and "naked" sound different. Or why the "h" is sometimes pronounced ("his"), but sometimes not ("hours). I write better than I do.

On the other hand, most "formal" and "proper" words in English are actually close to slang in French. Meaning that when I say "I reassure you" out loud, most French speaker will immediately know what I mean, but most of my American friends are surprised by my vocabulary.

It's a nice language. I think it's round and lot less harsh than some European languages, but it lacks the way French, Italian or Spanish sound like singing. It does depend on who is talking. Some people have such a good use of English that it makes me want to speak it more. Some people remind me that it is a germanic language to begin with.