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| What a stud |
I kinda understand the gist of what he's saying since I take French at school, but he does talk really rapidly so I don't understand it fully... and it's kinda awkward since I know some things are supposed to be jokes but I'm not really grasping the humor =_=
So I was thinking, how I feel watching Cyprien is probably how other, non-English speaking people feel when they watch English-speaking videos. It may sound obvious, but hey, I've never experienced watching foreign language-speaking YouTube videos (that are similar in video format of the English YouTubers I watch, if you know what I mean), so shoot me.
(If you still don't know what I mean, just check out the videos from Cyprien and maybe HolaSoyGerman, who is a Chilean YouTuber who also speaks really fast Spanish, and you'll get it. They're literally the French and Spanish versions of Ryan Higa in terms of how they talk.)
And after watching the video I look at the comments section and there is absolutely no English at all :( Not much to my surprise of course, but I do feel left out to some degree :( Well, I do understand some of the comments but again, not all (thanks, 4 years of French).
Reading the comments is like being in a foreign country and everyone's buzzing about something and you're just sitting at the side with a glazed look in your eyes 'cuz you have no idea what anyone is saying.
Reading the comments is like being in a foreign country and everyone's buzzing about something and you're just sitting at the side with a glazed look in your eyes 'cuz you have no idea what anyone is saying.
Anyway, moving on to my main point of writing this post, at some point I clicked on his video about his experience in the U.S., and in the video he was speaking some general English phrases with a pretty heavy but cute French accent.
So I was like, okay, to most people who speak English, people who can't really speak but try to speak English sound pretty adorbs, but is it the same vice versa? As in, would French people find English-speaking people trying to speak French sounding "adorbs" too?...
I feel that the number one reason why I'm unable to fully learn languages is that I get so, so self-conscious about sounding perfect that I end up not saying anything at all. I feel like I'd might offend the other person or something. (I can't even manage to speak Korean in Koreatown. I get scared that the ajumma ladies will look at me like I insulted their ancestors.)
BUT IT'S WEIRD THAT I THINK THAT WAY, because I don't feel that way when foreign people make mistakes with their English.
People say the way to learn is to make mistakes, but that's easier said than done. I mean, I don't expect to see people skip down the streets screaming "I LOVE MAKING MISTAKES" Nah. No one wants to make mistakes.
I'd say I'm pretty forgiving to people who are trying to learn English, though... but at the same time, I can't envision other people being as forgiving towards me. Maybe I'm a little too hard on myself.
Really curious as to what other non-English speaking people think of us when we're struggling to speak in their language.
Really curious as to what other non-English speaking people think of us when we're struggling to speak in their language.
Either way, hats off to the people who can't speak much English but insist on speaking even if they make mistakes. Y'all are cool cats. And not to mention brave, something I'm definitely not. It takes a lot of guts to speak in a language you're still learning about or struggling with, especially if you're speaking to a native speaker (which is usually the best way to improve your speaking skills, ugh).
On a side note, watching Cyprien's videos makes me wanna touch up on French listening skills LOL. I see the GIF's on Tumblr that have French captions, and I surprisingly I could understand them (and some of them are really funny), so I think it's just the speaking part of French that I struggle with... (and the fact that Cyprien talks at an insane speed, I have to point that out) Cyprien seems to be a really funny guy; it's a shame that I don't understand most of what he's saying :(
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