There are a few other peculiarities, and one you will probably come across is this:Īccording to the ‘rules’ we’ve just seen, in spoken French, you can drop the ne, giving you: However, from the context, it unambiguously means “there is nobody” because nothing else would make sense. The third example might seem strange since personne alone means “person”, so without the ne, the sentence seems to mean “there is person”. Il y a personne (There is nobody/nobody is there).Je lui dirai rien (I won’t tell him anything).In fact, in informal spoken French, French speakers rarely use it, so these sentences become: However, in spoken French, the people often drop the ne. Il n’y a personne (There is nobody/nobody is there).Je ne lui dirai rien (I won’t tell him anything).Dropping Ne…Pas In NegativesĪnyone who learns French knows we make negatives by placing ne before the verb and a negative word ( pas (not), rien (nothing), personne (nobody), etc.) after the verb, like this: And of course, the same is true of any other language, including French. The point is, that spoken English is not just ‘normal’ English spoken faster – the language changes in many ways. And that’s before we even get into regional variations in pronunciation or vocabulary. We use incorrect grammar, we hesitate or change what we are saying mid-sentence, creating illogical structures, and we use slang or idioms. Sometimes, we choose different words (“mate” or “buddy” instead of “friend”). Also, notice the pronunciation of ‘I’m’ has changed to ’um’.īut there’s more. Other words have been shortened, ‘swallowed’ or combined – ‘probably’ becomes ‘prob’ly’, ‘don’t know’ changes to ‘dunno’ and ‘going to’ is now ‘gonna’. Of course, it depends on where you’re from, but it could easily come out sounding more like ‘dunno ye’, bu’ um prob’ly no’ gonna go’, and this highlights several of the ways informal spoken English differs from the written or formal spoken versions.įirst, the subject pronoun ‘I’ is dropped and the ‘t’s have disappeared from the ends of words. ![]() Think about how you would say this sentence in an informal situation: ‘I don’t know yet, but I’m probably not going to go’. Spoken Englishīefore talking about how to get better at understanding spoken French, let’s look at spoken English. If you’re ready to get started, click here for a 7-day FREE trial. With French Uncovered you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn French naturally through story… not rules. Words change, words disappear and all kinds of other stuff happens.Īdapting to this will take time and practise, but to give you a head start, in this post you'll learn about some of the things you can expect when faced with when understanding spoken French.īy the way, if you want to learn French fast and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is French Uncovered which teaches you through StoryLearning®. This is because the way people speak in real life is different from the way they’re ‘supposed’ to speak. When you learn French, the first time you leave the classroom and talk to real native speakers, you might be in for a shock because you probably don’t understand much of what they say.
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