Do you speak French?

English as a Second Language What do you want to talk about?
1

Hi,

This is the title of my latest newsletter. I’ve written about how English has developed over the centuries and shown how French has been one of the strongest influences on the language. The French would much prefer more people to speak their language and don’t really like these English words entering their language. But then English welcomes any language that’s available. We just love new words. Read a bit more about all this in my newsletter coming soon.

Alan

2

You can read Alan’s newsletter here: Do you speak French?[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, photographs: Holding hands[YSaerTTEW443543]

3

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your wondeful essay and for your invitation to discuss it. I am having a period of very hard work now, and sometimes I feel really exhausted but now and then I enter forums to read message or two.

Today I have an opportunity to drop a couple of lines. Of course, I’ve heard about Jeoffrey Chaucer, William Caxton and William the Conqueror. I even read Canterbury Tales in original - it was rather interesting.

English is a mixture of several languages and that made it more interesting to learn.

Best regards,
Yuri

4

HI Yuri,

It’s always good to hear from you.

Alan

5

Hi Alan, thank you for the interesting eassy. Actually the fact that English has absorbed so many words from French makes learning it much easier for us, native speakers of Romance languages.
bye

6

Hello Alan,

I haven’t noticed that I was learning more languages when I learn English. That is another good reason to follow studying English :slight_smile:

Thank you!

7

Please listen to my recording and respond with a voice message too. Many thanks.

8

Dear Mr. Alan,

Hope this will find you in good health.

I am aware that French has much influence on the English language; however, I do not know much about the influence of other languages on English.

Please advise more details on this.

Thank you,

Mousa Feery
Amman
Jordan
E-mail: mfeery@yahoo.com
mousafeery@ak.com.jo

9

Hello every one

I remember doing a foundation course in French and some of the fundamentals I got via Michel Thomas were…

English is actually a mixture of French and German
60% per cent of all words in English are actually French with new stress.
All words ending with ion and en (or is it ne?) come from French

Reduction(e) - … etc

I met a guy recently who was speaking French who agreed with my assertions - He then told me that he was actually Italian - and also that nearly 50% of French comes from Latin

10

Thank you so much for the above information.

Best Regards,

Mousa Feery

11

Thanks for showing us how the French language influenced in the developpment of English.
jules

12

Hello Sir Allan,
My problem is that, I can’t see the differents between the DES DIS. Word like DISTRACTION, DESTRUCTION. I’m talking about the first three letters, the pronunciation sound the same therefore, I would like to know if there is any trick that will help to know the different sound between them. thank you !

omario

13

Hi Omario,

You are right. The sounds do merge to some extent. One way is to emphasize the ‘i’ and the ‘e’ like this: distraction destruction.

Alan

14

Hi, my name is zekarias. I just want to know how to keep the same tenses while I am writing an essay. for instance if I want to write about the past action until the current action.
thank you very much for your help.

15

Hi dear sir/ madam. can you please help me how to write argumentative writing please?
zekarias.

16

Hi Zekarias,

Although you may find a few hints on this website, such as those in this thread:
english-test.net/forum/ftopic25025.html
that is not the primary function of the site.
However, if you use a search engine such as Google or Bing to perform a search for ‘argumentative essay’ you will find lots of advice.
Here are some examples:
writefix.com/argument/
studygs.net/wrtstr4.htm
roanestate.edu/owl/Argument.html
homeworktips.about.com/od/essayw … gument.htm

17

unfortunately, I don`t speak french.
thank you.
zekarias

18

Hi Alan! I appreciated your recent essay a lot. I’m from a French-speaking country and acknowledge that indeed, learning English is interesting and easier for French speakers given the long list of cognates.

19

Hi Alan! my problem in learning english does not lie in the origin(latin, french,etc) of the words but in the pronunciation for example christ and christmas, live(laiv) and live(liv),blood and bloom…

20

Learning English doesn’t really mean learing French ! Simply because they are different in all aspects of the language :pronunciation , structure , vocabulary …etc The sets are different. English is English with all its faults and French is French .But there is a fact that no one can ignore: languages collaborate and borrow from each other.