What does OLY Parle mean?
A French language program that offers mini immersion in Olympia, capital of the state of Washington. See next question on “Parle”
How to say Speak in French?
The use of Parle from the verb Parler is to point to the program focus on speech, as opposed to read or write. It does encompass listen and pay a lot of attention to phonetics when speaking
Other French verbs are related with matching English ones:
- “Cause” stands for Talk
- “Bavarde” stands for Chat
- “Dis” stands for Say or Tell
- “Raconte” stands for Tell a story
In the same session, all these speaking activities can take place
What are the pointers to OLY Parle practice?
Key barriers come from over reliance upon English, which equates speaking about French instead of speaking French. Ways to overcome this tendency among mono lingual English speakers are
- Avoid a choppy sentence by asking too frequently “how do you say this phrase in French?”
- Stay away from word to word translation (Google method), as the flow and meaning are lacking
- Stay away from borrowing an English word and pronouncing it alike French, as very often this has no comparable meaning (if any meaning at al)l
Does OLY Parle offer classes for travel to western Europe or other French speaking places?
OLY Parle is not offering such classes, especially in the mastering of the language for a short travel experience. However, a special session offered to a group of persons with like-minded needs could be set up via the focus on recreational, historical or broadly cultural resources, shared in French. The time spent on specific sites would depend on how diverse destinations and interests might be within the group.
Any common traps, when speaking French, while thinking in English?
- La phrase is a sentence
- L’ expression is a phrase
- Parler le francais couramment is to be fluent in French or to speak French fluently
- Language in general or “la langue” is feminine
- Name of the language or nom de la langue is masculine. Le français (no caps) as opposed to un Français ou une Française
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