Knit, Crochet and Natter 4 - Yarning into Spring

[lazylinguist]

A thread for knitters, crocheters and woollly crafters in general. All welcome, including total newbies! Previous thread here

I'm sure introducing French as a first foreign language puts people off, Spanish is much more straightforward imo.

Yes! Bizarrely I never really realised this fully until I started learning Spanish, becauseI neverhad trouble with French myself. But most kids do! I think it's the randomness and difficulty of the pronunciation that causes the problems. All languages get trickier as you go on, because of the level of grammar required, but with French it's difficult from day 1 because of the accent and the very non-phonetic pronunciation.

The accent is what a lot of kids at our school struggled with. I remember our French teacher in year 7, who was actually French, nearly having a breakdown as she tried to get a boy in our class to speak with a French accent. In his broad, northern accent he kept saying “gem a pel Colin” (je m’appelle Colin). 20 minutes she spent trying to soften his accent before giving up and muttering something in French! French was the default language for everyone in our school, we all had to do it in year 7 and then continue it through until at least year 9. It was a language school and so the first year we all did Japanese and French (what a combination). Then in year 8 we could pick Spanish or German but no option to not do French.

@FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack

Oh good, glad to hear it!

You know I really regret not paying more attention to French in school, I loved German but I was an idiot in French and didn't try... So much learning at my fingertips and now I'd kill for that time and opportunity since we spend most of our holidays there and I've made some really embarrassing errors

My school was one of the only ones on the island that didn’t make you do a language GCSE so I didn’t bother as the only option was French and why would I want to learn that? Literally two weeks after I finished my GCSEs I randomly got really into French music and ended up really regretting not doing French! I sing along but I’ve got no idea what most of the songs are about!

I think sometimes it's easier for non-native-speaker language teachers to help with those kinds of difficulties, at least with beginners, @petridishmystery, because we've learnt it as a foreign language ourselves and can more easily see what the problems are!

Apologies for causing a languages-based derail. I'm a bit bereft today, as I finally finished listening to all the Harry Potter audiobooks in Spanish. I will miss them when I'm doing my housework! I half feel like just going back to the beginning and listening to them all again. Anyway - back to the knitting and crochet...

I did French and Spanish all the way through to degree level. And now I'm an accountant.

It is shocking how little I remember, especially Spanish. I read in both languages occasionally to try and keep it up, but my listening skills are pretty much non-existent nowadays.

Loving the talk of holidays and pottering round Hobbycraft - that seems almost normal! And welcome @badatcrochet1996 - I promise not to stare!

Podcasts and audiobooks are fab for improving your listening skills, @BookShark. So enjoyable that you learn without feeling you're working at it. I've gone from complete beginner to A-level standard Spanish mostly by listening to stuff!

I've just been reading the jumper pattern again, trying to decide whether to have another bash at it, and realised several of the stitch counts are off. There is a paid version I was considering, but I wonder if it'd be full of confusion like the last one 🤔

I did French and German GCSE, and half a German A level. We had to do French at my school. Then we could add German in year 9 if we were top set French. But we weren't allowed to do French. Until the year after me where they decided they could.

DS1 doesn't do a language at all, but was watching a random YouTube channel about French and English wwords and how random they are at times. Hence the random language lesson

More confusion sounds bad, @lucysmam! I find it difficult enough not to make mistakes even when the pattern is perfectly sensible and correct!

That's true lazy, I'll maybe keep my eyes open for similar while I'm doing other stuff.

I could probably work it out but it's frustrating when it takes 2/3 times the amount of time it should because it's not written properly.3

Ok folks, I'm going to start the new thread...

New thread here .

Place marking