Help with a small paragraph in French please

[MrsFin]

Hi
Are there any good French speakers on here who could help me with a small para in French for our local magazine please?
My French is so rusty

Nous sommes un nouveau groupe de personnes qui aiment parler le français, mais qui ne le parlent très bien!
Nous sommes agés de 18 à la soixantaine: nous avons un amour du français et de la France en commun.
Si vous étudiez le français, ou si vous souhaitez vous perfectionner votre français, venez nous rejoindre á xxxxxx les jeudis à 8pm.

Thank you.

She hasn’t excluded anyone — she says the group is aged from 18 to people in their sixties.

That does exclude people though - i.e. anyone over 69.

It doesn’t exclude, op has mentioned that the current group is comprised of ages 18-over 60s but all are welcome.

@lazylinguist

Thread derail for a grammar question...
You said I'm going to suggest that in order to avoid the slightly sticky they/we problem at the beginning, you add an 'and', then repeat the subject This bit was twisting my head!
If OP stuck with the original format:
Nous sommes un nouveau groupe de personnes qui AIMER parler le français
is aimer conjugated 1st person plural or third person singular & why?

Plus de 60 ans = ‘the over 60s’. You could make it more general by putting something like ‘le group est ouvert aux francophiles/adultes de tous âgés’

I love nothing more than a grammar derail, but I kind of hoped nobody was going to ask me that . It's definitely a bit head-twisty. I think it's arguable either way, depending on how you think about it.

Either "Nous sommes un groupe de [personnes qui aiment...].

Or "Nous sommes un groupe de personnes.... qui aimons..."

My grammarian head initially went for 3rd person plural, but my 'feel for the flow of the language' soul prefers 2nd person. An actual French person might come along and put me right!

@lazylinguist

She hasn’t excluded anyone — she says the group is aged from 18 to people in their sixties.

That does exclude people though - i.e. anyone over 69.

No, it doesn't -- it describes the age range of the current group. She's asking for new members without specifying any age.

Yes, I suppose so. I'm not having a go at the OP, it's just that if you're going to mention age at all, maybe you might as well make it clear that there's no upper limit!

Thank you so much everyone!! I am truly grateful.

Re I'm 64 and would be really disappointed that I couldn't join your language group. Please don't exclude people by age, it feels wrong (and comes across as somewhat unwelcoming) and you could miss the chance to meet some really interesting people

I was trying to be inclusive, not exclusive. I was trying to show that all ages are welcome and that we already have some 18 year olds and some 60+ year olds.
I'll slightly amend that bit.

Thank you all v v much xx

@lazylinguist

I love nothing more than a grammar derail, but I kind of hoped nobody was going to ask me that . It's definitely a bit head-twisty. I think it's arguable either way, depending on how you think about it.

Either "Nous sommes un groupe de [personnes qui aiment...].

Or "Nous sommes un groupe de personnes.... qui aimons..."

My grammarian head initially went for 3rd person plural, but my 'feel for the flow of the language' soul prefers 2nd person. An actual French person might come along and put me right!

Thanks! Feel better that it wasn't totally obvious! Just need a real French person now to confirm

Btw OP, your group sounds brilliant! In these days of under-funding of adult education (well, education in general!), it's great that people are doing it themselves. And not just alone at home on Duolingo,but getting together socially to use foreign languages. I'm teaching myself another language (Spanish). I don't really need a class, but would absolutely love to have a group like yours to go to!

I believe in this case that 'Nous' is the subject. Simply because you can put a parenthesis 'Nous (sommes un groupe qui) aimons...' It's not a hard rule, French grammar is a killer, and as a native French speaker this is what flows naturally to me. But I believe that there is grammatical justification for both choices here. Examples taken off the internet:

• Nous sommes de pauvres époux qui ont failli (Giraudoux, Sodome et Gom.)
• Nous sommes des gens honnêtes qui n’avons jamais eu affaire à la police (Simenon, Maigret et l’inspecteur Malgracieux)

Also, the turn of phrase mentioning the age group is very inclusive. It simply states that the group is CURRENTLY from 18 to 60+ and in no way does that exclude people who are younger, or older. It simply states what the group is currently composed of.

Thanks @QwertyGirly and interesting to know it could be either

@QwertyGirly

I believe in this case that 'Nous' is the subject. Simply because you can put a parenthesis 'Nous (sommes un groupe qui) aimons...' It's not a hard rule, French grammar is a killer, and as a native French speaker this is what flows naturally to me. But I believe that there is grammatical justification for both choices here. Examples taken off the internet:

• Nous sommes de pauvres époux qui ont failli (Giraudoux, Sodome et Gom.)
• Nous sommes des gens honnêtes qui n’avons jamais eu affaire à la police (Simenon, Maigret et l’inspecteur Malgracieux)

Not a native speaker, though formerly fluent (now rusty), and I would absolutely have defaulted to the Giraudoux option.

In fact, my question about the ad phraseology in either French or English would have been whether the verb should reflect a singular noun because the ad is about a bunch of people being considered collectively in terms of a common interest — it is the ‘groupe’ (single entity) that loves French, though we often casually use plural verbs with collective terms like this. Technically ‘the government has decided’, rather than ‘the government have decided’ — even though we know that the government contains many people.

as a native French speaker this is what flows naturally to me. But I believe that there is grammatical justification for both choices here.

Phew! Glad to have agreement (no pun intended ) from a native speaker!

@SheepGoBaaaa - yes, English is very sloppy about that sort of thing. But in the OP's example I definitely feel as though, if you go for 3rd person, it feels more like it should be 'A group of people who like...' rather than ' A group (of people) which likes... '

@MrsFin can I have the details on how to join this group lol I did French at A-level but that was 15 years ago and I've not done anything with it since 🙁 so I have forgotten a lot of it and I would love to get back into it.
I tried to speak french when on holiday a few years back to a french speaking couple but I was drunk and they found me funny so lord knows what I was saying 🤪🤣

My french is very rusty but I could completely translate what you originally wrote. With all the tweaks, I couldn’t translate it, so you’d have put me off joining. Great if you want better french speakers than me though…

[quote MrsW150917]@MrsFin can I have the details on how to join this group lol I did French at A-level but that was 15 years ago and I've not done anything with it since 🙁 so I have forgotten a lot of it and I would love to get back into it.
I tried to speak french when on holiday a few years back to a french speaking couple but I was drunk and they found me funny so lord knows what I was saying 🤪🤣[/quote]

Where are you? We're in North Wiltshire.

Gosh! So much debate about aimons/aiment!! Who'd have thought it? 😊

You've all been really helpful, with some interesting discussion. I wish you could all join our new little group!

For those interested, there's a really good podcast for french learners on Spotify called Inner French. Start at the first one for an explanation on the best way to approach learning a language.

And if anybody's interested, this thread is about French TV dramas and channels that we can access from the UK : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4276543-Where-to-watch-French-TV