I want to covey:
"yes I studied french at school for 5 years, also I've lived and worked in Paris for 2 years. Yet annoyingly my french fluctuates when it comes to writing" I can scrape by but you shouldn't expect deep philosophy in return 😅
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So an old penpal is making jest with me that my french has deteriorated over the years, so I'm trying to scrub up on my written French...
Mon français FLUCTUE quand il s'agit d'écrire.
The word "fluctue" isn't a very good choice in French. A better choice would be:
Malgré cela, s'agissant du français écrit, mes connaissances sont variables et ne sont hélas, pas toujours à la hauteur de ce que je voudrais exprimer.
can you tell us how this is related to switzerland?
It might come as a surprise to some of you but French is actually one of the official languages in Switzerland and some of us speak it on a daily basis.
sure. but her location is in new york.
and ... ?
Language corner is for discussing ... Ice Hockey, tiddlywinks, lost civilisations?
Oh , no it must be about languages.
I'll be sure to ask the englishforum.com people and others to come ask here then.
Ah yes! that seems to be more constructed than what I had in mind. Thank you! (I wish I knew how to give you props for a helpful response, I just found this forum today so I'm still new to navigating it)
...
@Ouchboy are you the welcoming committee of this forum? because yikes. Frosty welcome.
My apologies if this post has irked you, but I assumed a language corner was the place to discuss languages and yes, French is one of the languages of Switzerland. N'est-ce pas ?
because I'm located in New York am I not allowed to be here?
There are guidelines as to where / how to post. this section included.
please post your introductory post in the introduction section .
please post according to the rules . i.e Discussions here should be limited to the use of language as it applies to life in Switzerland
Ouch! Boy!
Hi MarleneDietrich, and welcome to the Forum.
I think your question is fine since, as Belgianmum (who is a mod) rightly wrote, there are many, many people in Switzerland who use French every day.
I don't really understand why your query rattled Ouchboy (despite the rules to which he linked), but please note that he, too, is a long-term and very useful contributor to this forum (see top right of his posts: "Thanked 5,720 Times") and lots of positive rep (those green blobbies). This forum works because people see things in different ways, and that's okay.
Hi, welcome.
Your random post triggered memories from the late 1990s. It was common to find out people in geocities or ICQ were from the other side of the globe......it was the inter net.
Yeah welcome. I have many French speaking Swiss relatives in New York and all over USA and Canada (and many other places too) who complain that they are losing their French fluency, especially in writing. I totally get what you are saying- having live in the UK for 40 years, sometimes I felt my French 'slipping' even though I taught it at Senior Level. And now I have been back here for nearly 13 years- and despite speaking English every day and watching UK news, etc- I do find myself searching for some words, and writing things and realising it is not quite right. So yes, welcome, and join the Club.
Losing fluency in your original language is normal. For me, the problem was solved when I discovered (and started contributing heavily) to https://forum.wordreference.com/ .