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How to Read French – Alburt Cames

>>4253484
Too many big words brah. Yo op, Don't go Alburt Cames when you can go Albert Camus, "The Stranger", it's short and easy and will get you all the illiterate french sluts you want

>>4253490
That's true.
The vocabulary is pretty basic so you won't get some Maupassant/Beaudelaire grade grammar and shit.

>>4253569
Baudelaire's grammar is not too hard tough. And it's not like his verse are ever longer than two syllabas, so the possibility for building long-ass overarching sentences is limited. His prose is another matter. Anyway
>start with a god grammar book (english version of the bescherelle if there is one)
French grammar is a bitch to English readers, particularly conjugaison.

>>4253490
> illiterate french sluts

Learn how to say "amour", "rendez-vous", "fiancée", "vous êtes très jolie", "j'aime ton cul" (that one is gross but if you play the clueless foreigner it will make you adorable) and to sing "voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir ?". Be sure to put on a lovely English accent. Alternate between "cute lost stranger in a big city" face and impish suggestive look. There, illiterate French sluts are falling like rainfall, take your parapluie.

>>4253579
*twelve syllabas, damn

If you don't mind torrents, there's a huge-ass French language pack on TPB that includes workbooks, novels, and possibly some audio clips. Grammaire Progressive du Français is especially good, I think, as far as workbooks go.

If you're new to French, it might be best to start with comics. Persepolis, for example, was my gateway to French reading. Keep in mind that French has several tenses found primarily (if not only) in literature, so you'll want to learn those if you haven't already.

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>>4253595
Where should I go to learn more about French pronunciation?

Contacts

>>4253579
what are you talking about? conjugation is simple compared to english. 3 classes of verbs (plus a handful of irregular ones). the only thing is the existence of pointless tenses like subjonctif and passe simple that ruin the elegance.

>>4254556
french.about.com has a good listening section:
http://french.about.com/od/listening/

What is the deal with the French subjunctive

I know Latin and a Frenchfag told me the French subjunctive is some sort of magical subjunctive that is way harder and more complex than every other

Should I be scared

>>4254655
Ceux qui craignent le subjonctif sont simplement plébéiens.

But in all seriousness, it's not that bad. It does take some getting used to, though. For me, at least, the hardest part was figuring out when to use it, rather than how.

>>4254655

just never use it, most young people use it anyways except in some limited circumstances that are easy, the hard subjunctive stuff is stuff you'll never need to know how to do anyways

>>4254655
Encore eût-il fallu que vous le sussiez.

camus is easy mode and moliere is a pleasure to go through with a dictionaire or something if you need it. they tell me le petit prince is also good.

>>4254781
except moliere is in middle french unless you're reading an updated translation, which is hardly a "pleasure" to read.

>>4254786
the gap between modern french and moliere is less wide than that between shakespeare and modern english. do try it, it's very readable. the weirdest thing to get used to is how often they say "point".

The abridged translations of the Harry Potter books work pretty well

>>4254573
The problem is not tenses but how conjugaison handles it. There's a different form for each person. French conjugaison requires about six times as much memorizing as English conjugaison. Not that it's really hard, but for someone used to have things run smooth once he knows the radical, that's quite a pain in the ass.

Also, subjonctif is useful in daily life (how do you express an hypothesis ?), passé simple is pretty elegant and omnipresent in literature. The gap between written and oral language is characteristic of French.

>>4254655
It's not that hard. Problem is, contrary to Spaniards, French don't always apply tenses concordance (because in some cases you have to use subjonctive imperfect or pluperfect, which are weird and unusual). So sometimes you don't use subjunctive even if in theory you should.

Basically, as soon as the proposition you're are about to state express something insofar as its actuality is not taken for granted (insofar as you're not sure wether it's real), you need subjunctive. So for an hypothesis, or something that is uncertain, or that hasn't happened but could have, you need subjunctive.

Hope I was clear enough. The best is to figure it out by practicing anyway.
>>4254709
Je n'aurais pas cru qu'un homo sur 4chan parlât avec tant d'aisance cette langue inusitée.

>>4254791
This. Seventeenth century French could almost (almost) pass for fancy twentieth century French. Just make sure your text has modernized orthograph (modern French orthograph is very rigorous, while it was a mess back then).

Everyone says Assimil is great.

the four hour chef

who r u trying to seduce OP? ;)