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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Why taking classes at your local Town Hall could be the key to mastering French

The best way of learning French isn't necessarily through apps or conversation classes... the answer could just be at your local town hall.

Published: 13 June 2019 15:35 CEST
Why taking classes at your local Town Hall could be the key to mastering French
The Town Hall in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Photo: AFP

Learning to speak fluent French is undoubtedly one of the hardest parts of moving to France.

It takes time, there are no shortcuts and unfortunately French courses can be really (really) expensive. 

Luckily, there’s a solution at town halls around the country — French courses aimed at foreign learners that don’t break the bank. 

“I did it for a year and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot of practical information about living in France and speaking the language,” language learner Jennifer Dyson told The Local.

“I also met people from all over the world who were trying to learn to communicate in French. It was an experience I value and will not soon forget.” 

So why don’t most people know about them?

It turns out that most of the information you need to enroll on these courses is in French, which can naturally leave a lot of the people who would be most interested in them unable to navigate their way through the registration process. 

But we’ve put together some key information to help you beat the system. 

How does it work?

The lessons are arranged by town halls across France. 

Some of these are arranged as a partnership between the town hall and a Greta, a group of local public educational institutions that pool their skills and resources to offer adult education classes, including French as a foreign language.

In Paris, they are typically split into two terms which go from October to February and from March to July and you can sign up for just one term or for the annual course if you’re planning on being in France for the long-term. 

In the French capital, they mostly take place in the evening between 6.30pm and 9.30pm or on Saturdays so they’re ideal for people who have a day job. 

Elsewhere in France, the way the lessons are structured varies from town to town although the ones that offer lessons often offer year-long courses. 

Who can do them?
 
You have to be over 18 but other than that there are no restrictions on nationality or residency status. 

…and just how low is the price? 

This is one of the major selling points of doing the town hall courses, the prices are the lowest we’ve come across for formal French lessons. 

Prices vary depending on what kind of course you want to take but in Paris for the standard course of 60 hours of French lessons, you’ll pay around €110-220 and it can be a lot cheaper outside of the French capital, with some courses costing as little as €70. 

You can find out more about the prices in Paris HERE and for lessons in other parts of France, you can check the details on the website of your local town hall. 

“The primary reason I switched to the Mairie classes [from Alliance Francaise] was the cost was so much less and the times worked better for my family,” Sheila Olsen, who lives in the Paris suburbs, told The Local. 

Paperwork

This is France after all so it would be natural to expect a hefty amount of paperwork but here’s your chance to breathe a sigh of relief.
 
Most places only ask for photo ID to complete and proof of address your registration . 

How to sign up 

Let’s start with people looking for lessons in Paris. 

To subscribe online you’ll need to create an account on the Paris City Hall website. Find out more about how to do this HERE. 

Once you’ve done that you’ll be able to access the Cours Municipaux d’Adultes (or CMA) where you’ll find a list of all the courses available. 

Select cours de francais and you’ll be able to file your application. 

If you’re applying for the first time online you’ll be asked to come in for an assessment before the course starts so that they can make sure you’re put in the right class for your level. 

These tests may not be held at the same place you plan to take the classes. 

It’s fair to say that the online application can be a little complex but if you’re struggling to navigate it, there is another option. 

Keep an eye on the registration periods online, which usually last about a week and visit either 77 Boulevard de Belleville in the 11th arrondissement or 132 rue d’Alésia in the 14th between 9am and 6pm to sign up and there will be people on hand to help you out. 

If you’re not based in Paris, the best way to sign up is to contact your local town hall directly and many of them also have online applications you can use to sign up.

These are generally a lot easier to fill out than the Paris enrollment forms.

You’ll want to sign up for the course named Français Langue Etrangère (FLE) or similar. 

Intensive courses

If you miss out on signing up for either term, the Paris town hall also offers a series of intensive courses on subjects such as information technology and lessons designed specifically training for a language diploma. 

How big are the classes?

Classes are usually made up of 20-25 people although some people who have attended them told The Local that their classes had been as small as ten people. 

LEARNING FRENCH

Is the English language really just ‘badly pronounced French’?

A French linguist has been making waves with his boldly titled book 'The English language does not exist - it's just badly pronounced French', but does the professor actually have a point?

Published: 23 April 2024 14:35 CEST
Updated: 28 April 2024 14:39 CEST
Is the English language really just 'badly pronounced French'?

The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini is clear that the title of his book should be taken with humour and a pinch of salt, beginning his work by explaining that it is a ‘bad faith proposition’.

Clearly, the English language does exist and equally clearly the French are a little uneasy about it – with numerous laws, national bodies and local initiatives attempting to fight back against the anglicisms that now litter everyday speech, from ‘c’est cool’ to ‘un job’. 

But Cerquiglini argues that the supposed ‘influx’ of English words that are now used in France, especially tech-related terms, is nothing compared to what happened when French literally invaded English in the Middle Ages.

And the close similarity that the two languages enjoy today – around 30 percent of English words are of French origin – speaks to this entwined history.

“You can also see my book as an homage to the English language, which has been able to adopt so many words… Viking, Danish, French, it’s astonishing,” he told AFP.

The history

The key date in the blending of English and French is the Norman conquest of 1066, when Duke William of Normandy invaded England with a small group of Norman knights and made himself the English king William the Conqueror.

What happened next was a radical re-ordering of society in which English nobles were displaced and William’s knights were installed as a new French-speaking (or at least Norman-speaking) ruling class. 

The use of French by the ruling classes continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, by which time French was the official language of the royal courts, diplomacy, the law, administration and trade – meaning that ambitious English people had no choice but to learn French in order to take part in official or legal processes. 

Cerquiglini says that half of all English’s borrowings from French took place between 1260-1400, with a heavy slant towards words related to nobility, trade, administration or the law.

But a large group of non-native speakers meant that the French spoken in England was already starting to evolve, and the French words ended up with different pronunciations or even a different meaning. 

As early as 1175, the records show a Frenchman in England snootily remarking that: “My language is good, because I was born in France”. 

English and French started to part ways from the mid-1400s, by which time the two countries no longer shared royalty (the last English possession in France, the port of Calais, was lost to the French in 1558) and gradually systems such as the law courts and trade began to be conducted in English.

French remained widely spoken as a second language by the nobility and the elite right up until the early 20th century and French is still the most widely-taught language in UK schools.

The similarities

It’s not always easy to distinguish between English words that have a French root and those that have a Latin root, but linguists estimate that around 29 percent of English words come from French, another 29 percent from Latin, 26 percent from German and the rest from other languages.

But many of the English words that do have a clear French root are related to nobility, administration, politics and the law.

For example the French words gouvernement, parlement, autorité and peuple are clearly recognisable to English speakers. Likewise budget, revenus, enterprise and taxe, plus avocat, cour, juge, magistrat and evidence.

Amusingly, the French and the English obviously found time to share many insults, including bâtard [bastard], crétin, imbecile, brute and stupide.

Adaptation

But most of the people in England who were speaking French did not have it as their mother tongue, so the language began to adapt. For example the French à cause de literally translates into English as ‘by cause of’ which over time became the English word ‘because’.

There are also words that started out the same but changed their meaning over time – for example the English word ‘clock’ comes from the French ‘cloche’ (bell), because in the Middle Ages church bells were the most common method of keeping track of the time for most people.

When the mechanical clock began to appear from the 14th century onwards, the French used a new term – une horloge – but the English stuck with the original.

The differences

One of the big differences between English and French is that English simply has more words – there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language, compared to about 135,000 in French.

And at least part of this comes from English being a ‘blended’ language – that English people hung on to their original words and simply added the French ones, which is why you often get several different English words that have the same translation in French eg clever and intelligent both translate into French as ‘intelligent’.

Another difference represents the class divide that the Norman invasion imposed between the French nobles and the English labourers.

For example the words pig and cow both have Anglo-Saxon roots, while pork and beef come from French (porc and boeuf) – so when the animal is in the field being looked after by English peasants it has an Anglo-Saxon name, but by the time it is on the plate being eaten by posh people, it becomes French.

There’s also a tendency in English for the more everyday words to have Anglo-Saxon origins while the fancier words have French origins – eg to build (English) versus to construct (French). In French construire is used for both. Or to feed (English) versus to nourish (French) – in French both are nourrir.

Faux amis

One consequence of English and French being so closely linked in the bane of every language-learner’s life – les faux amis (false friends).

These are words that look and sound very similar, but have a completely different meaning. If you don’t know the French word for something you can have a stab at saying the English word with a French pronunciation – and often you will be right.

But sometimes you will be wrong, and sometimes it will be embarrassing.

READ ALSO The 18 most embarrassing French ‘false friends’

Often, faux amis are words that have changed their meaning in one language but not the other – for example the French word sensible means sensitive, not sensible – which is why you can buy products for peau sensible (sensitive skin).

But it once meant sensitive in English too – for example in the title of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility – over time the meaning of the English word adapted but the French one stayed the same.

The title

And a word on that title – La langue anglaise n’existe pas, C’est du français mal prononcé (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) is actually a quote from former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau.

He did apparently speak English, but doesn’t appear to have been very fond of England itself – his other well-known quote on the topic is: “L’Angleterre n’est qu’une colonie française qui a mal tourné” – England is just a French colony gone wrong.  

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