Bonjour, je m'appel...

[whiskyinmind]

so there's this kid being featured on the BBC news this morning who's being called a 'Boy Genius' because he can speak 10 languages. Impressive. Except... can he? They have this little soundclip of him saying "Bonjour, je m'appel [name cut]" and his accent sucks. I'm not French, I'm not Quebecois, I'm not North African, French is not my mother

Comments

[velvetwhip]

Everyone is so desperate to have a genius child that they are damaging perfectly normal, bright children by drilling them into submission. It's very sad.

Gabrielle

[unhobbityhobbit]

"Thierry! C'est mal pour les dents!" was one of the phrases we had to listen to on a language tape

La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin!

[amy_star_]

At our school it was all, "Le crayon est sur la table."

My favorite phrase remains, "Le petit chien jaune dit, 'Ouap! Ouap!'" I don't know what kind of dogs the author had, but I've never heard one make that noise.

[thedothatgirl]

Every parent thinks their child is special.

But mine really *is* ;)

Le Sange est dans l'abre. (credit to Eddie Izzard). I much prefer to read languages as I am a wimp when it comes to using them.

[amy_star_]

i'm actually intrigued by this accent now. I took French in school (and I'm technically bilingual, but I haven't used it in almost 10 years) and my accent has been described as "French by way of China" AND by a native French-speaker as having no english tint to it... not sure which is more accurate. If either one is. But then, I grew up on the Quebec border, with French-language schools all around me tainting any of the good habits my teachers were instilling in me...

[aditu_az]

huh.

my opinion? poor kid. not about the language learning - i'm sure that even rote learning will come in handy, but about all the bbc crap and the 'omg you're a genius!'.

since starting my linguistics course i'm feeling a lot more humble about my language ability... i've been sitting there telling myself as a mantra '8 languages... 8 languages...' and the lecturers and classmates are all.. 'whaddaya mean you don't know any non-European languages? DUDE!' (obviously not in those words). *sigh* i'll be getting out those chinese stuffs (i can't even remember whether i've been given Cantonese or Mandarin) when i get back...

i mean rote learning has its place. it's very useful. i know this because i seem to have no ability whatsoever for it, and kinda wish i had... but no, language ability? genius? not a thing to do with memory. out of curiosity... did they mention an IQ for him?