more language ranting yay

[arisha]

So I have a few co-workers who are currently in French immersion, and every time I hear them speak French I have to question if French immersion really does what it thinks it does. Last night, one of them learned that I'm taking French again and she was telling me to talk to her in French or ...

Co-worker C: "Je vais te frappe!"
Sarah: "You're gonna hit me??"
Co-worker J: "Is that what that means?"
Sarah: "Yeah, 'frapper' is 'to hit.'" (Unsuccessfully trying to hint that she should have been using the infinitive.)
Co-worker C: "'Frapper' is the verb, 'frappe' is the conjugation. Je vais te frappe!!"

HOW do you get to grade eleven in French immersion and be unable to properly form the futur proche?? Has no one ever corrected her? I wasn't bold enough to correct her because she is SO confident about her French ("Je suis fluent en français" she likes to say, which is a total anglicism) and I'm sure I would've been met with a nicer version of "How do you know, you're not in French immersion" -- which is true but even so I can guarantee you that by the time I was her age I knew you had to use an infinitive in the futur proche!! I mean what are her teachers doing SERIOUSLY GUYS I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Comments

[frauleinfrog.livejournal.com]

Personally I managed to get to grade 11 without knowing how to properly form the futur proche by the simple measure of not taking French past 8th grade. :p I don't know how she managed in French immersion- possibly all of the teachers are also anglophones?

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

Perhaps she started immersion quite late? I dunno, I did it early as you know, and I think it really helped me have a more instinctive sense of "that sounds wrong", so I think if I had kept doing it my French would have been quite good. I have a hard time believing that someone could do 12 years of immersion and be making those kinds of mistakes.

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

ALSO WHEN IS YOUR INTERVIEW?

[arisha.livejournal.com]

THE 15TH

NEXT TUESDAY!!!!!1!!!!!!

[x-jen17.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I totally forgot my french. I might go study for a month at an intensive french program. Are you fluent in french? I wish I was. = (

[arisha.livejournal.com]

I am most definitely not fluent in French; I've barely touched it for the last six years! The class that I'm taking now is a second year class; it's taught in French but it's still fairly basic.

And I am totally behind the idea of going to study French! :) When I was in high school I spent a month on the Summer Language Bursary Program, which has apparently changed its name to Explore (http://www.myexplore.ca/en/). It was a really good experience, I would definitely recommend doing it or something similar!

[x-jen17.livejournal.com]

Omg that is what I applied for. I choose Universite Laval. = ) Hope I get in.

[arisha.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's awesome! Good luck!! :D

[homodachi.livejournal.com]

painful. I get that grating feeling too when I hear bad spanish/french grammar. (I probably cause the grating in japanese, though :P)

[arisha.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I'm sure I cause the grating whenever I try to speak in any language that's not English! Perhaps this makes me a hypocrite but my defense is that at least I don't claim to be fluent. :P