Learning English

Once a week I volunteer at a local organization coaching/teaching English.  The clientele are adults seeking employment and wanting to improve their English language skills.  Our times are spent reading newspaper articles, answering language/grammar questions, discussing similarities and differences between France, England, Canada and the United States, and having casual conversations.  I thoroughly enjoy this opportunity.

I recently asked the group what they found to be most difficult about learning English.  The most common responses were vocabulary and grammar/conjugation of verbs.  I certainly empathize with their struggles as those are the same areas I struggle with while learning French.

Two of the most troublesome sounds are "th" and "gh."  The French often pronounce "th" as "T" or "D."  The challenge with "gh" is knowing which sound to make--consider the words laugh, though, through and ghost.

Although no one in the group mentioned it but from my experience living in France and Canada another letter that causes "difficulty" is the letter "h."  In French the letter "h" is silent 99% of the time, especially when it is the first letter of a word.  When speaking English many French speakers will keep a silent "h," but will add it in in some circumstances.  A phrase I heard often listening to interviews of Quebecois hockey players on "Hockey Night in Canada" was "da Hamericans play ockey (the Americans play hockey)."  I mentioned this silent "h" situation to my English group, they agreed, had a laugh, and then broke out into a discussion whether the French language authority had authorized the use of the h-sound in "les hericots."

Members of the group shared some entertaining anecdotes with regard to speaking English.  One Frenchman visiting America ordered "A cup of juice without glass."  The French word for "ice" is "glace" (pronounced like glass).  The visitor to the US intended to ask for juice without ice.  Another find young man with limited knowledge of English met an attractive English girl.  Wanting to impress the lovely lass with his grasp of the English language the fine young Frenchman started singing words to English language pop songs, in this case the words to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," not the most romantic song.

My time at the Club for English lessons is a high light of my week.  The best part is that our meetings are always filled with laughter.  Learning is so much easier when it is fun and relaxing, and it doesn't hurt if you can laugh at yourself.