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Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart Paperback – September 16, 2014

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William Alexander (Author)
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William Alexander (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 138 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Algonquin Books; Bilingual edition (September 16, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1616200200
  • ISBN-13: 978-1616200206
  • Product Dimensions: 1 x 6 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (138 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsA funny and relatable book for Francophiles and second-language French speakers
By I Know What You Should Read on September 15, 2014
Format: Paperback
When I departed for Nancy, France, for the first semester of my junior year abroad, I was confident. French had always come very easily to me (in my French classes in the States). I couldn't speak fluently, but I thought I was pretty good.

As it turns out, I was wrong. Very wrong. On the first day with my host family, my amazing host mother picked me up to drive me to my new home. During the drive, she chatted and chatted and chatted . . . while I just sat there, dumbstruck. She asked questions that I struggled to understand and to which I certainly wasn't able to respond. Finally, she looked at me and said, "Christi, tu comprends pas français?" (Christi, don't you understand French?). I immediately realized that, despite my years and years of French classes, no, I decidedly did not.

Here's the thing: French classes in the United States are largely useless. Yes, you learn basic vocabulary and verb conjugations. But you don't learn how people actually talk. Nor have you been prepared to understand French when spoken at a very high rate of speed (with every word gliding smoothly into the next, until they all become an indistinguishable mess).

I love French. But learning French was HARD. There are a bunch of weird things that come naturally to people who learn French as a first language--things like whether nouns are masculine or feminine or whether an H is aspirated-that frequently trip up non-native speakers. And there are tons of ways in which real, spoken French is different from the French you learn in school in the US. These are the kinds of struggles and frustrations that William Alexander highlights in a very funny, relatable way in his soon-to-be-released book, Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsHe Flirts With French. French Resists.
By takingadayoff TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on August 29, 2014
Format: Paperback
Writer William Alexander loves France. He loves just about everything French, including the language. Not that he speaks French, but he has immersed himself in French television, French books, French radio. The obvious next step is to build on the French he learned in high school, some forty years ago, and become fluent. Piece of gâteau.

Alexander knows it will be a challenge, because learning a language is notoriously difficult for most adults. In fact, as part of his preparation, he learns as much as he can about second language learning. He attends a conference of linguistics, he interviews specialists, he has his brain scanned.

He determines the best methods for language learning and dives in. He describes his experiences with Rosetta Stone, on-line tutoring, small-group evening classes, and eventually a two-week immersion course in Provence. But in a stark reminder that even when you have an important project to attend to, real life intrudes, and his heart begins to act up and he has to undergo several tricky operations.

I've read several books recently about adults in middle age learning or re-learning to play musical instruments. Whether they succeed in their goals seems to depend as much on how they define success as how much they practice. Let's face it, when we're in our fifties or sixties, we're probably not going to become virtuosos. Alexander tells a story about how, at the peak of his frustration, he declares he should have spent all the time he had spent studying French learning to play golf, so that at least he could be a decent golfer. Then he reads that Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) recently bemoaned the time he had spent over the years practicing golf, even though he never got any better.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsIn-depth review: Learning a lot of French, but it is "learning French"?
By John L Murphy TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on September 3, 2014
Format: Paperback
Learning French, even for a middle-aged Francophile, proves elusive. Its infamous pronunciation, its maddeningly gendered nouns, its elisions, its lack of syllabic emphases: William Alexander laments them all. Going on 58, after writing successful books on mad ambitions to achieve the perfect garden and bake the perfect loaf, he seems as well-suited as any driven autodidact for task three.

Most adults will never fully master a second language. Alexander's ambitions meet the obstacle most of our brains encounter when we try to learn a new language post-puberty. As he explains, once the neural networks have sparked childhood fluency, our valuable hard-wiring gets diverted so the brain can apply it to non-linguistic necessities as we mature. Our innate capacity which enables us to quickly attain our native language in infancy then fades; consider how even teens struggle with foreign conjugations and prepositions.

Alexander sums up linguistic theory and neurological research, but he finds that these cannot account for the other 8/9 of our body. Acting out French sentences, he shows, overcomes his brain's hesitations. Reading a play by Sartre or reciting into a microphone via Rosetta Stone stymie him. French evokes from Alexander emotions, impulses, and gestures, beyond vocabulary lists and conversational lessons. He wanders along this book's way to relate his correspondence with a pen-pal, his stints at total-immersion French environments, the history of French, the sly promises of machines such as Google Translate, and the daunting barriers to fluency.

Alexander plugs away. He claims to work, but from the obsessive attempt he documents, pursuing French becomes what seems to me a full-time job.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsGreat read!

Really nice book that tells a personal story and at the same time provides a lot of interesting language facts. Very enjoyable!

Published 3 months ago by Julia F.
5.0 out of 5 starsMimi

Wonderful insights into the difficult road that many Americans find themselves on when attempting to learn French. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Mary T.
5.0 out of 5 starsFun read

This book had me laughing so hard! If your trying to learn French and find yourself vastly confused about some of the uniqueness about the French language then you will enjoy this... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Midsummer Night
5.0 out of 5 starsFrench and more!

Fun book about learning a language at 60 years of age and much more!

Published 3 months ago by Thomas Uhlemann
5.0 out of 5 starssmart, clever

For any perpetual learner of French, this is the most charming, smart, clever, witty, and downright laugh-out-loud-funny book you will ever find! Read more

Published 3 months ago by Glenda L. Skibitzke
4.0 out of 5 starsAn amusing, witty and realistic depiction of the frustrations ...

An amusing, witty and realistic depiction of the frustrations and barriers facing adults trying to acquire fluency in a second language.

Published 3 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

My Wife loved it. What else can I say. Husband.

Published 3 months ago by roger gosling
5.0 out of 5 starsFrench at any age!

This charmingly humorous story was greatly enjoyed by this former French teacher. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn a language-although French, especially-at any... Read more

Published 3 months ago by terry
5.0 out of 5 starsFun with Language

Amusing and informative, this book is a delicious look into the process of learning a language.

Published 4 months ago by Lynda J. Herring
5.0 out of 5 starsFound a kindred spirit in Wm. Alexander.

I really found my soul spirit with William Alexander. I have such a HARD time with languages. It's almost like I am trying to climb a 20 foot wall with no toe holds. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Julie W. Snyder

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