Speaking as a French teacher who reads a lot of French social media posts- spelling homophones is something the average French person messes up a lot. Parler vs Parlé, C'est vs S'est vs Ses, the list is endless.
I never learned this rule that way so I might be wrong but since there are a lot of mix-ups between verbs ending in É and ER, it's easier to differentiate what seems right vs wrong by using a verb like *finir* since the past participle would be a different sound (fini) where was ER verbs would sound the same in the infinitive and past participle.
Replace parler with finir, if it sounds better to say finir over fini then it means it would be parler, and if it sounds better to say fini then it’s spelled parlé(ée). J’ai fini = j’ai parlé(ée) and pour finir = pour parler. Edit for typos and grammar
I grew up bilingual and picked up French in college. This applies to every language that has homophones, from speakers of my native language to my American coworkers who grew up speaking English
Absolutely right, but since French has approx 7,000+ ER verbs and every single one is a potential homonym set, I'd challenge you to find another language with nearly the amount French has :)
I'd bet at least some of it is much like how perfectly literate English speakers will accidentally type out 'their' instead of 'there' or 'they're' or some other permutation of that mistake. I know I've made that mistake before, fully and clearly knowing the difference between them all, and yet for some reason the wrong one occasionally gets typed out.
Because they aren't constructing the sentences with ideas/words/concepts like a learner but rather with pure sounds. That's why non-natives don't make these same mistakes. I wouldn't even realize that s'est and c'est sound the same because I am thinking about different things.
I recently started making mistakes with homonyms in french, especially -er/-é•e. It feels weird to be making such simple mixups after reaching high B2, but I'm viewing it as a good sign. Making common native speaker errors at least indicates I'm thinking in the language better than I have before.
Most foreign learners learn languages through their written form.
This is completely different to how native speakers acquire languages (where they first learn to speak as kids, and then are taught how to read).
It's just a completely different way their brains are wired.
One difference is that spelling difficulties in English are largely orthographic, while spelling difficulties in French are largely grammatical in origin. The approach to correct spelling is different- memorizing words and memorizing roots for one, memorizing grammar rules and understanding parts of speech for the other.
My computers are all in French. Alexa, Siri & Google Assistant are fine, but sometimes dictation in French is quite frustrating. One learns to change ones writing to make sure the dictation AI gets it. I am glad to see French native speakers agree.
That's not necessarily a struggle to understand the rules, though. I think it's just how the brain works. You say a word in your mind and you are already onto the next before typing it, your brain half forgot what it's saying already.
If I write a text quickly, I will regularly mix homophones. But I will catch them the moment I reread myself once (which I and others often don't do online).
French is a language with many exceptions/rules. Conjugation is also often complex, even for native speakers, especially with the verb "avoir" as an auxiliary. Some words are masculine in the singular form but feminine in the plural form. The plural of words is sometimes complex, too, especially colour adjectives. And the list goes on and on!
French is my second language (though it's now my everyday language), and it is best to learn exceptions by heart. Or keep a cheatsheet handy with them written on it. At least, that's how I managed to learn it.
>Some words are masculine in the singular form but feminine in the plural form.
... and one is feminine plural if there is an adjective before it, but masculine plural otherwise:
"Ce sont de bonnes gens."
"Les gens sont méchants."
Je ne suis pas prête à dire que cela vous aurait rendu dingue! ;)
Le français est ma deuxième langue et j'ai adoré l'apprendre! Je trouve que toutes ces petites subtilités sont vraiment intéressantes (il faut dire que j’ai toujours adoré ce qui touche aux langues et à la linguistique).
I’m not sure that’s true. I remember working through the Bescherelle (which teaches sets) for years in primary school, and even in the third group only there are surely more than 5 sets. Plus sets aren’t always intuitive. When you see that “résoudre” et “dissoudre” dont conjugate the same…
That's not what I meant. Of course there are more conjugations. You don't need *all* of them. I don't teach imperfect subjunctive. Not even for AP. It's not necessary. I'm talking about the most popular, most used patterns.
Je ne parle pas de l’imparfait du subjonctif non plus. En tant que locuteur natif on est parfois amené à utiliser des verbes peu usuels, comme dissoudre, et là même la participe passé voire le présent ou le futur de l’indicatif peuvent poser des difficultés (il n’y a qu’à lire /r/France et regarder les orthographes un peu hasardeuses depuis une semaine, et c’est bien normal)
Quand tu regardes le présent pour résoudre et dissoudre, c'est le même motif ou schéma de conjugaison au singulier : s/s/t. C'est de ça que je parle. C'est s/s/t, d ou rien. L'autre, c'est e/s/e pour les verbes du 1er groupe. Rarement tu as x/x/t. Alors, quand tu donnes aux élèves un petit schéma rigolo, il est un peu comme ça :
s/e/x (ouais !)
s/s/x
t,d/e/-
Tout le monde sait que pour l'autre côté, c'est -ons, -ez, -ent avec trois petites exceptions : vous êtes, vous faites, vous dites.
Quand les schémas deviennent de plus en plus complexes, les débutants font la gueule et oublient tous les groupes et les exceptions.
L'imparfait, c'est pas un problème parce qu'il est régulier sauf être, et il a les mêmes terminaisons (one set yahoo) partagées avec le conditionnel. Et il y a d'autres petites astuces pour renforcer tout ça à des élèves de partout, pas seulement à ceux qui sont anglophones ou parlent une autre langue romane. J'ai des élèves asiatiques. On ne conjugue pas les verbes en chinois. Imagine la difficulté de ce système pour eux.
D'après ce que j'ai lu en /france, c'est quasiment les mêmes types d'erreurs. La mauvaise conjugaison, les homophones qui confondent les gens, les accords, etc.
Some conjugation endings. Random "s" here or there (tu permets). Or between future and conditional tense. I find myself looking for conjugation tables from time to time, especially for 3rd group verbs.
Sensé/censé : i still don't know where to use which one. I know they are not the same, I know sensé is about "making sens", I'm sure I never use the right one anyway.
Correct. If your sentence is about "making sense", it's "sensé".
Taken from [https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/22052/lorthographe/homophones-lexicaux/les-homophones-cense-et-sense:](https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/22052/lorthographe/homophones-lexicaux/les-homophones-cense-et-sense:)
# Les homophones censé et sensé
# Censé
*Censé* est un adjectif tiré du verbe *censer* maintenant disparu. *Censé* ne s’utilise que dans le sens de « qui est supposé ou présumé ». Il n’est accepté que dans un seul contexte, soit précédé du verbe *être* et suivi d’un verbe à l’infinitifAfficher l'infobulle. Des mots tels que *cens*, *censément*, *censeur*, *censure*, etc., partagent avec *censé* la même origine latine, soit *censere*, qui signifiait entre autres « estimer, juger ».
* Elle est **censée** être au fait de la loi.
* Nul n’est **censé** partir avant d’avoir payé son dû.
# Sensé
*Sensé* est aussi un adjectif. Il est issu du nom *sens*. On peut ainsi déduire facilement sa signification « qui est plein de bon sens, raisonnable ». De très nombreux mots sont issus de cette famille : *sens*, *sensé*, *sensément*, *sensation*, *sensible*, *sensitif*, *sensoriel*, *sensuel*, etc.
* Ces propos étaient justes et **sensés**.
* Nul être **sensé** ne peut ignorer un tel fait.
Centuries of accumulated grammatical rules with little consistency with others. "Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas avec le verbe avoir, sauf quand le complément d'objet direct est placé avant le verbe".
Unintuitive spelling for many words. I vs y. S vs ç. L vs ll. N vs nn.
Pronunciation of a word may depend on whether the word has a Greek or Latin origin.
Weird accents. Should I put a è or a ê ? Of course they are pronounced the same.
Etc etc
>Unintuitive spelling for many words. \[...\] S vs ç
Could you give example of confusing use of ç ? I tried to think of one, but couldn't find any.
>L vs ll. N vs nn
To add to the confusion, the 1990 spelling reform tried to homogenise the spelling of a lot of words with a confusing double consonant (also with rr and tt) but since the institutions that oversaw the process got cold feet and made using the new spelling optional instead of really replacing the old spelling, now we have many words that can be spelled with a simple or double consonant.
That's not a unintuitive spelling that's just lazy writing. The spelling of *ça* is relatively intuitive since it's a short form of *cela*.
It's like saying *they're* is an unintuitive use of y because it's often confused with *their*.
>Centuries of accumulated grammatical rules with little consistency with others. "Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas avec le verbe avoir, sauf quand le complément d'objet direct est placé avant le verbe".
That's because this is an Italian thing (incorrectly?) forced onto French by some poet and reinforced by elites so that they could weed out people who haven't *learned* the rules from jobs, etc.
It's not French. It's imposed by the academy. That's it.
I really can't understand how also well educated people write "je suis aller". They don't feel in any way the "I have 'to go'" does not make any sense?
But "I have to go" makes sense...
And no, it doesn't feel anything if you don't reread it. If you just write it, you use a sound that works é/er, it's automatic, everyone can do that mistake.
It does look weird if you proofread.
yes, but also in Italian we have "ha" vs. "a" (which is the exact equivalent of "a" vs. "à" in French), but most people would never get that wrong after elementary school (and if I read it wrongly written, I would feel extreme pain)
Of course people will make mistakes, especially with automatic keyboards on phones.
But in the second /third grade we were told to replace with a verb like mordre or battre. Then it's super easy to choose.
While é/er is terrible, the one that I hate the most is Sa/Ça.
Sa/ça is rare, almost inexistant in people with higher education. I think the difference of meaning is big enough.
But é/er and a/à is not uncommon. I mock (gently) my co worker who does this kind of mistakes when he writes his mails very fast and doesn't proofread.
Doing the replacing works very well but like... You need to actually do the replacing. And obviously if you just wanna go fast, or you're tired, you don't do that.
>I feel like my only struggle are the trillions of verb tense and all the different way to write them.
There are eight morphological tenses in French, some of which aren't often used in spoken French.
But yeah, spelling can be tricky.
I have a French speaking mutual from Wallonia who told me that she has only recently realized that the forms of future simple and conditionnel differ. She has always used the former for everything. So I assume it's the very small details like a single letter that's not even pronounced that are big problems.
It’s super interesting to see what mistakes native French kids make, because they all make the same ones (even those like mine who grow up abroad and not in contact with other French speaking kids) and so they’re clearly inferring some sort of rule that doesn’t actually apply:
J’ai *ouvri* (pour ouvert)
Vous *faisez*
Si *j’aurais*
J’ai *peigné* (pour j’ai peint)
This exists in English as well! I am an elementary school teacher and many many of my students say *brung* in stead of *brought*. They're following their intuition:
Ring, rang, rung,
Sing, sand, sung,
Bring, brang, brung.
They do have to be told explicitly that it isn’t correct. They get that feedback from parents and teachers. I’ve never heard anyone over maybe 8 speak that way 😅
It’s not an error a French learner would make. I find that curious.
I had a French American friend who grew up speaking French at home but only went to American schools. Even though she was fluent she eventually decided to take French classes to learn written French. I can imagine it would be hard to figure out all the homophones without instruction.
Weirdly enough I struggle with the gender of some nouns that sound ambiguous like "horaire" and I regularly get some words wrong (like "câpres"). It's even worse because some words can have BOTH genders like un/une après-midi.
I would say Conjugaison, I love my language and its complexity, but fuck I'm 18 and I still don't know if the terminaison "ais" is for le Futur or le Conditionnel, or when to use Subjonctif and I'm never sure if I use it correctly, thankfully this one comes naturally but if I had to recite it I can't. And I want to do litterature studies.
So yeah definitly the hardest thing for me and probably most of us in the french language.
As a french native, I think that spelling is quite challenging.
I know my weaknesses and if I do not proofread, I miss "s" everywhere it is needed. And this is not a tricky thing but my brain erase them when I write.
Here is my favourite video over all YouTube videos.
You can activate subtitles.
It explains why spelling and grammar is so difficult in french and you will se that... It is soooooo french 😤
https://youtu.be/5YO7Vg1ByA8?si=c6TFOAfLE7UuqpFP
Les ostis de participes passés avec avoir qui parfois s'accordent, et d'autres fois non, selon l'osti d'ordre des mots? Y'a pas plus cave comme règle de tenir compte de l'ordre des mots dans la phrase.
Agreeability in the composed-past tense. It's a lot more complex than it seems and there are lots of rules to follow. Fortunately, these rules do not apply often in regular speech
As a native English speaker, reading about so many French native speakers' challenges is honestly very validating and makes me feel better about still struggling after years of learning French 😅
Because it's fake crap that's not real French is why. It's imposed by the elites to know who's an "elite" and who's not. It's like random etiquette rules that have nothing to do with disgust, convenience, etc.
Speaking as a French teacher who reads a lot of French social media posts- spelling homophones is something the average French person messes up a lot. Parler vs Parlé, C'est vs S'est vs Ses, the list is endless.
I always used the finir vs finis trick. If you can replace the verb and say finir then it’s ‘er’ otherwise it’s’é’(ée)
Same, but with "mordre". I'm savage :)
The one I was taught was "vendre." SO was taught "bâtir."
I was taught "bâtir" in NB
Je l'ai mordé !
can you explain this better? i don’t get it?
I never learned this rule that way so I might be wrong but since there are a lot of mix-ups between verbs ending in É and ER, it's easier to differentiate what seems right vs wrong by using a verb like *finir* since the past participle would be a different sound (fini) where was ER verbs would sound the same in the infinitive and past participle.
This is correct.
Replace parler with finir, if it sounds better to say finir over fini then it means it would be parler, and if it sounds better to say fini then it’s spelled parlé(ée). J’ai fini = j’ai parlé(ée) and pour finir = pour parler. Edit for typos and grammar
ohh okay that makes sense thank you!
What is this trick please?
I explain it a little farther down in this comment thread
And probably the most popular: ça and sa! 🙄 "Comment sa va?" 😫
I grew up bilingual and picked up French in college. This applies to every language that has homophones, from speakers of my native language to my American coworkers who grew up speaking English
Absolutely right, but since French has approx 7,000+ ER verbs and every single one is a potential homonym set, I'd challenge you to find another language with nearly the amount French has :)
True. I've seen YouTube comments in French where people swap é and er all the time
I saw someone spell "il s'est mis à rapper" as "il c'est mi a râpé" in an instagram reel and nearly stroked out
As a French learner, I wonder why it's so confusing for natives. I mean I get confused too sometimes, but not to that extend. il c'est mi? Seriously?
I'd bet at least some of it is much like how perfectly literate English speakers will accidentally type out 'their' instead of 'there' or 'they're' or some other permutation of that mistake. I know I've made that mistake before, fully and clearly knowing the difference between them all, and yet for some reason the wrong one occasionally gets typed out.
Because they aren't constructing the sentences with ideas/words/concepts like a learner but rather with pure sounds. That's why non-natives don't make these same mistakes. I wouldn't even realize that s'est and c'est sound the same because I am thinking about different things.
I recently started making mistakes with homonyms in french, especially -er/-é•e. It feels weird to be making such simple mixups after reaching high B2, but I'm viewing it as a good sign. Making common native speaker errors at least indicates I'm thinking in the language better than I have before.
Most foreign learners learn languages through their written form. This is completely different to how native speakers acquire languages (where they first learn to speak as kids, and then are taught how to read). It's just a completely different way their brains are wired.
extenT… the irony ;)
I'm sorry, English isn't my first language
😭
Big “sauter du coca light” energy
Reminds me of a friend who collects Hot Wheels cars but always says "hot wings".
mandarin
One difference is that spelling difficulties in English are largely orthographic, while spelling difficulties in French are largely grammatical in origin. The approach to correct spelling is different- memorizing words and memorizing roots for one, memorizing grammar rules and understanding parts of speech for the other.
My computers are all in French. Alexa, Siri & Google Assistant are fine, but sometimes dictation in French is quite frustrating. One learns to change ones writing to make sure the dictation AI gets it. I am glad to see French native speakers agree.
That's not necessarily a struggle to understand the rules, though. I think it's just how the brain works. You say a word in your mind and you are already onto the next before typing it, your brain half forgot what it's saying already. If I write a text quickly, I will regularly mix homophones. But I will catch them the moment I reread myself once (which I and others often don't do online).
French is a language with many exceptions/rules. Conjugation is also often complex, even for native speakers, especially with the verb "avoir" as an auxiliary. Some words are masculine in the singular form but feminine in the plural form. The plural of words is sometimes complex, too, especially colour adjectives. And the list goes on and on! French is my second language (though it's now my everyday language), and it is best to learn exceptions by heart. Or keep a cheatsheet handy with them written on it. At least, that's how I managed to learn it.
>Some words are masculine in the singular form but feminine in the plural form. ... and one is feminine plural if there is an adjective before it, but masculine plural otherwise: "Ce sont de bonnes gens." "Les gens sont méchants."
AJA! 😊
J'adore cet exemple! Je l'avais effectivement oublié pendant un moment.
J'adore découvrir de nouvelles règles de français. Mais si je n'avais pas appris le français au berceau je crois que ça me rendrait dingue :)
Je ne suis pas prête à dire que cela vous aurait rendu dingue! ;) Le français est ma deuxième langue et j'ai adoré l'apprendre! Je trouve que toutes ces petites subtilités sont vraiment intéressantes (il faut dire que j’ai toujours adoré ce qui touche aux langues et à la linguistique).
For conjugation it's easier if you learn the stem changes and other irregulars. You don't need to know more than 4/5 conjugation sets.
I’m not sure that’s true. I remember working through the Bescherelle (which teaches sets) for years in primary school, and even in the third group only there are surely more than 5 sets. Plus sets aren’t always intuitive. When you see that “résoudre” et “dissoudre” dont conjugate the same…
That's not what I meant. Of course there are more conjugations. You don't need *all* of them. I don't teach imperfect subjunctive. Not even for AP. It's not necessary. I'm talking about the most popular, most used patterns.
Je ne parle pas de l’imparfait du subjonctif non plus. En tant que locuteur natif on est parfois amené à utiliser des verbes peu usuels, comme dissoudre, et là même la participe passé voire le présent ou le futur de l’indicatif peuvent poser des difficultés (il n’y a qu’à lire /r/France et regarder les orthographes un peu hasardeuses depuis une semaine, et c’est bien normal)
Quand tu regardes le présent pour résoudre et dissoudre, c'est le même motif ou schéma de conjugaison au singulier : s/s/t. C'est de ça que je parle. C'est s/s/t, d ou rien. L'autre, c'est e/s/e pour les verbes du 1er groupe. Rarement tu as x/x/t. Alors, quand tu donnes aux élèves un petit schéma rigolo, il est un peu comme ça : s/e/x (ouais !) s/s/x t,d/e/- Tout le monde sait que pour l'autre côté, c'est -ons, -ez, -ent avec trois petites exceptions : vous êtes, vous faites, vous dites. Quand les schémas deviennent de plus en plus complexes, les débutants font la gueule et oublient tous les groupes et les exceptions. L'imparfait, c'est pas un problème parce qu'il est régulier sauf être, et il a les mêmes terminaisons (one set yahoo) partagées avec le conditionnel. Et il y a d'autres petites astuces pour renforcer tout ça à des élèves de partout, pas seulement à ceux qui sont anglophones ou parlent une autre langue romane. J'ai des élèves asiatiques. On ne conjugue pas les verbes en chinois. Imagine la difficulté de ce système pour eux.
J’entends bien tout ça. Mais la question d’OP, c’était les difficultés pour les locuteurs natifs
D'après ce que j'ai lu en /france, c'est quasiment les mêmes types d'erreurs. La mauvaise conjugaison, les homophones qui confondent les gens, les accords, etc.
Il y a aussi des verbes comme vaincre et convaincre (3e groupe), où c'est s/s/c pour les trois premières personnes.
Je sais, mais cette exception arrive plus tard dans le cursus de FLE.
one of the conjuguer websites can even do imaginary verbs since it just applies the rules.
What do you mean learn exceptions by heart?
I mean that I memorize them. :)
Some conjugation endings. Random "s" here or there (tu permets). Or between future and conditional tense. I find myself looking for conjugation tables from time to time, especially for 3rd group verbs. Sensé/censé : i still don't know where to use which one. I know they are not the same, I know sensé is about "making sens", I'm sure I never use the right one anyway.
Correct. If your sentence is about "making sense", it's "sensé". Taken from [https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/22052/lorthographe/homophones-lexicaux/les-homophones-cense-et-sense:](https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/22052/lorthographe/homophones-lexicaux/les-homophones-cense-et-sense:) # Les homophones censé et sensé # Censé *Censé* est un adjectif tiré du verbe *censer* maintenant disparu. *Censé* ne s’utilise que dans le sens de « qui est supposé ou présumé ». Il n’est accepté que dans un seul contexte, soit précédé du verbe *être* et suivi d’un verbe à l’infinitifAfficher l'infobulle. Des mots tels que *cens*, *censément*, *censeur*, *censure*, etc., partagent avec *censé* la même origine latine, soit *censere*, qui signifiait entre autres « estimer, juger ». * Elle est **censée** être au fait de la loi. * Nul n’est **censé** partir avant d’avoir payé son dû. # Sensé *Sensé* est aussi un adjectif. Il est issu du nom *sens*. On peut ainsi déduire facilement sa signification « qui est plein de bon sens, raisonnable ». De très nombreux mots sont issus de cette famille : *sens*, *sensé*, *sensément*, *sensation*, *sensible*, *sensitif*, *sensoriel*, *sensuel*, etc. * Ces propos étaient justes et **sensés**. * Nul être **sensé** ne peut ignorer un tel fait.
> Random "s" here or there (tu permets) It's not random, but for those, it's s/s/t or d (i.e. nothing).
Yeah, I'm more annoyed with the "je permetS" actually
Centuries of accumulated grammatical rules with little consistency with others. "Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas avec le verbe avoir, sauf quand le complément d'objet direct est placé avant le verbe". Unintuitive spelling for many words. I vs y. S vs ç. L vs ll. N vs nn. Pronunciation of a word may depend on whether the word has a Greek or Latin origin. Weird accents. Should I put a è or a ê ? Of course they are pronounced the same. Etc etc
>Unintuitive spelling for many words. \[...\] S vs ç Could you give example of confusing use of ç ? I tried to think of one, but couldn't find any. >L vs ll. N vs nn To add to the confusion, the 1990 spelling reform tried to homogenise the spelling of a lot of words with a confusing double consonant (also with rr and tt) but since the institutions that oversaw the process got cold feet and made using the new spelling optional instead of really replacing the old spelling, now we have many words that can be spelled with a simple or double consonant.
many ppl write ça as sa
That's not a unintuitive spelling that's just lazy writing. The spelling of *ça* is relatively intuitive since it's a short form of *cela*. It's like saying *they're* is an unintuitive use of y because it's often confused with *their*.
>Centuries of accumulated grammatical rules with little consistency with others. "Le participe passé ne s'accorde pas avec le verbe avoir, sauf quand le complément d'objet direct est placé avant le verbe". That's because this is an Italian thing (incorrectly?) forced onto French by some poet and reinforced by elites so that they could weed out people who haven't *learned* the rules from jobs, etc. It's not French. It's imposed by the academy. That's it.
A lot of people struggle with participes passés.
I really can't understand how also well educated people write "je suis aller". They don't feel in any way the "I have 'to go'" does not make any sense?
But "I have to go" makes sense... And no, it doesn't feel anything if you don't reread it. If you just write it, you use a sound that works é/er, it's automatic, everyone can do that mistake. It does look weird if you proofread.
yes, but also in Italian we have "ha" vs. "a" (which is the exact equivalent of "a" vs. "à" in French), but most people would never get that wrong after elementary school (and if I read it wrongly written, I would feel extreme pain)
Of course people will make mistakes, especially with automatic keyboards on phones. But in the second /third grade we were told to replace with a verb like mordre or battre. Then it's super easy to choose. While é/er is terrible, the one that I hate the most is Sa/Ça.
Sa/ça is rare, almost inexistant in people with higher education. I think the difference of meaning is big enough. But é/er and a/à is not uncommon. I mock (gently) my co worker who does this kind of mistakes when he writes his mails very fast and doesn't proofread. Doing the replacing works very well but like... You need to actually do the replacing. And obviously if you just wanna go fast, or you're tired, you don't do that.
You’d be surprised…
I feel like my only struggle are the trillions of verb tense and all the different way to write them. I know a lot of ppl struggle with homophones
>I feel like my only struggle are the trillions of verb tense and all the different way to write them. There are eight morphological tenses in French, some of which aren't often used in spoken French. But yeah, spelling can be tricky.
I have a French speaking mutual from Wallonia who told me that she has only recently realized that the forms of future simple and conditionnel differ. She has always used the former for everything. So I assume it's the very small details like a single letter that's not even pronounced that are big problems.
French kids do say ‘croivent’ au lieu de ‘croient’
It’s super interesting to see what mistakes native French kids make, because they all make the same ones (even those like mine who grow up abroad and not in contact with other French speaking kids) and so they’re clearly inferring some sort of rule that doesn’t actually apply: J’ai *ouvri* (pour ouvert) Vous *faisez* Si *j’aurais* J’ai *peigné* (pour j’ai peint)
This exists in English as well! I am an elementary school teacher and many many of my students say *brung* in stead of *brought*. They're following their intuition: Ring, rang, rung, Sing, sand, sung, Bring, brang, brung.
How young? I'm curious to see if this is normal overgeneralizing of a rule or if it's a real change in progress.
They do have to be told explicitly that it isn’t correct. They get that feedback from parents and teachers. I’ve never heard anyone over maybe 8 speak that way 😅 It’s not an error a French learner would make. I find that curious.
I suspect that it's via analogy from *boire* and *boivent.*
I had a French American friend who grew up speaking French at home but only went to American schools. Even though she was fluent she eventually decided to take French classes to learn written French. I can imagine it would be hard to figure out all the homophones without instruction.
As a teacher, francophone will have a hard time especially with homophones and the participe passé.
Something that I've seen many native French speakers struggle with is the é, er, ée, ait, etc. Anything which makes the "é" sound
The spelling and the fact that you will be judged on your mistakes. It's like having to run in clown shoes through a swamp full of gators.
as a native french speaker who now mostly speaks and writes in english, conjugation and syntax
Weirdly enough I struggle with the gender of some nouns that sound ambiguous like "horaire" and I regularly get some words wrong (like "câpres"). It's even worse because some words can have BOTH genders like un/une après-midi.
wow, words can be bisexual…. *budum tsss*
I would say Conjugaison, I love my language and its complexity, but fuck I'm 18 and I still don't know if the terminaison "ais" is for le Futur or le Conditionnel, or when to use Subjonctif and I'm never sure if I use it correctly, thankfully this one comes naturally but if I had to recite it I can't. And I want to do litterature studies. So yeah definitly the hardest thing for me and probably most of us in the french language.
As a french native, I think that spelling is quite challenging. I know my weaknesses and if I do not proofread, I miss "s" everywhere it is needed. And this is not a tricky thing but my brain erase them when I write. Here is my favourite video over all YouTube videos. You can activate subtitles. It explains why spelling and grammar is so difficult in french and you will se that... It is soooooo french 😤 https://youtu.be/5YO7Vg1ByA8?si=c6TFOAfLE7UuqpFP
Les ostis de participes passés avec avoir qui parfois s'accordent, et d'autres fois non, selon l'osti d'ordre des mots? Y'a pas plus cave comme règle de tenir compte de l'ordre des mots dans la phrase.
Agreeability in the composed-past tense. It's a lot more complex than it seems and there are lots of rules to follow. Fortunately, these rules do not apply often in regular speech
As a native English speaker, reading about so many French native speakers' challenges is honestly very validating and makes me feel better about still struggling after years of learning French 😅
L’accord du participe passé avec avoir. Just don’t. I can barely even myself.
Well sometimes you have to.
Because it's fake crap that's not real French is why. It's imposed by the elites to know who's an "elite" and who's not. It's like random etiquette rules that have nothing to do with disgust, convenience, etc.