The problem with French verbs for an adult learner

By Lethbridge Herald on January 29, 2025.

DAN O’DONNELL – Guest Opinion –

I had a breakthrough in my French the other day.

I suddenly understood how the verbs worked.

That might seem like an odd thing to say. Especially for somebody like me, who has known French for decades.

Understanding how the verbs work in a language is something you’d think you either don’t know — because you are an absolute beginner; or do know — because you are not in the earliest stages. But not me. I’ve taken years of French. And I still can’t tell my issons from my elbow.

In fact, French has always been a part of my life. I grew up in Toronto and went through the Catholic school system there. This was the 1970s, and the city was on a French high. Pierre Trudeau wasn’t a cuss word where I come from and, in my neighbourhood, everybody wanted their kids to learn French so they could get a good government job.

My parents too. Both my younger brothers went to French Immersion. I wasn’t able to, because I was a little too old for what was then a new programme. But even the regular kids took lots of French. In the Catholic School Board, you started in kindergarten and kept it up until at least grade eight. I was in high school before I finally stopped — and even then only because the grade ten “professeur” was famous for giving out bad grades.

So I’ve always had pretty decent French. I’m able to read the newspaper and professional documents, follow signs in the Métro, and understand basic conversations when I know what the subject is. I’ve never been a great speaker — though that comes and goes depending on where I am and how much practice I’m getting. But I can always make myself understood when I really need to.

During COVID, French became my sourdough — a hobby I decided to pick up so I’d have something to do other than watch Netflix. My kids were both in Montreal and through my work I have a number of Francophone friends. One of these said he’d be happy to spend 30 minutes or so a week chatting away with me on Zoom.

As I hoped, my French soon began to improve. I started reading Le Devoir and listening to Radio Canada every time I got in the car. On Sundays I’d watch Tout Le Monde en Parle, the can’t-miss Montreal Sunday night TV chat show.

But even with all that, it wasn’t long until I hit a wall. My friend told me that he could hear my French getting better. And I could see that we were able to talk about more and more subjects. But I still felt that I had reached a limit. I knew more words, maybe, but I wasn’t getting better at actually speaking. Or more comfortable at listening.

Something needed to change.

My verbs, as it turned out.

In fact it took a couple of years before I realised what the problem was. In the last six months or so, I’ve found myself doing a lot more in Ottawa in situations where it would be good if my French was better: speaking at parliament, working with national committees, participating in bilingual panels.

So I decided to get serious. I hired a tutor and started working with her. She initially assessed me as a high intermediate — which was much better than I’d hoped. But she also noticed that same problem I’d seen.

I could understand what she was saying. And anything she gave me to read. And I could even get her to understand relatively simple stories about my work and life. But when it got beyond that, things started to fall apart. My tenses were all over the place, and she could hardly tell if the kids I kept telling her about were ones who were now grown up and moved away, or news ones I wanted to have some day.

In Montreal, for some reason.

The fact is, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew enough to throw an -ais on things every so often. Or sometimes an -ait or an -a.

But beyond that I was lost. I knew that sometimes when you did that you were talking in the future. And other times in the past. Or conditionally. But I couldn’t have told you which was which.

Which is, in fact, nuts.

I am a language teacher myself and have both studied and teach languages that have much harder verb systems — and pronoun systems, and noun systems, and adjective systems — than Modern French.

But then, I’ve never actually studied French. Sure, I took it in school. But I was a kid then, and I learned the way a kid learns. By listening and repeating, and having people look at you funny or laugh when you make a cute mistake. The problem I was having was that I was trying to improve my French as an adult by working the same way — but without the dimples.

So I sat down and did with French what I did with Old English or Old Frisian. I wrote out the verb forms, studied their patterns, and then tried to produce new forms in sentences without making mistakes.

And… Kaboom! It fell into place.

It really isn’t even all that hard — certainly compared to Latin or Old Norse. But it gave me just enough structure to get past the problems I’ve been having all these years. To bring an adult’s understanding to my childish knowledge.

Or at least I hope so. My tutor won’t hear the “new me” until later this week, so I’ll have to see what elle pensera (she will think).

Dan O’Donnell is Professor and Chair in the Department of English at the University of Lethbridge. The opinions expressed are his own.