Learning Basic Conversational French

It doesn't matter if you will be traveling to France or if you just need to know how to say something meaningful, it can be handy to learn a few basic French phrases. The problem is that this may not be as easy as learning how to mimic the sounds that you hear when someone speaks those phrases.

The reason that this is the case is because there are both informal and formal ways of saying many of the basic French phrases that need to be said. This type of language behavior is not typically seen in the English language. A good example of this is that there is more than one way to say the word "you" in the French language, depending on whom you are speaking to. You would use the informal word when you are speaking to someone with whom you are familiar, such as your father or a close friend. The informal would be used if you were speaking to someone that is unfamiliar to you as it does not introduce a familiarity into the conversation that could make things awkward.

Still, if your goal is just to learn a few basic French phrases in order to be able to convey an idea, the general speech pattern would work, regardless of whether you were using an informal or formal phrase. You can learn these phrases easily with the use of an online tutorial or a language CD. It can help you to grasp the basics, learning the complexities of the language will come in time.